Septuagenarian Gouri Ghosh had been struggling hard to sleep when a heavy object shattered a windowpane in her bedroom and landed on her mosquito net. It was a chunk of brick large enough to fatally injure someone.

As she contemplated what might have happened had the net not protected her, Gouri heard hands banging on her door along with agitated voices.

They were threatening to kill her son.

The trigger for the post-midnight mayhem was a complaint by Gouri's son about loud music being played at night in the name of Saraswati Puja. When the revellers refused to relent, he had made a call to the police station located barely half a kilometre away. The cops chose to sit tight, emboldening the goons to strike back and threaten to kill.

Gouri, 76, and husband Partha are well-known elocutionists and have been living in the Dum Dum Cantonment neighbourhood for 55 years. The couple say they had never imagined an incident like this would occur in their para.

Gouri recounts to Metro the horror of Wednesday night.

I was moments away from being killed last night in my bedroom, just 200 metres away from the local police station. How can one feel safe in a place like this?

A large chunk of brick crashed through the glass of my bedroom window a little before 1am and rebounded off the mosquito net. Today, I find myself involuntarily thinking what could have happened. Had the net not been there or if I had been getting into bed or out of it at that very moment, it would have smashed my head.

Loudspeakers have been blaring film songs incessantly just below our building since the puja weekend. There would be brief intervals and then the music would resume, continuing till 1am.

Wednesday night was the worst. They had invited a DJ and the music was even louder. The speakers were placed directly under my window and the music seemed even more cacophonous.

I had been sleeping with my ears stuffed with cotton to shut out the music blaring for five nights but that didn't help.

Around 12.45am on Thursday, my son made a simple request to the boys, most of whom are young enough to be my grandchildren, to stop the loud music because there was an ailing person at home.

I had suffered a cerebral stroke last June. Since then, I have been on medication to soothe my nerves. If I can't sleep immediately after taking the pills, I can't for the entire night.

That is why my son was so concerned that they should stop the music at once. In response to the request, there was this strongly built boy with flowing hair who climbed up to the balcony of our first-floor home. It was unnerving to see the hatred in his eyes with about 30 others on the ground egging him on.

Thankfully, there was an iron grille on the balcony. The boy, who we later learnt works as a bouncer, banged his hands against the iron and injured my son Ayon, who was holding on to the grille.

As soon as Ayon retreated from the balcony and bolted the door, they started throwing stones.

I can still hear the chilling noises from last night; expletives flowing, one windowpane after another being shattered and loud thumping on the door to our apartment.

I was cold with fear.

'Neme aye, toke khun kore jail -e jabo (Come down, we will kill you and go to jail),' they were shouting, referring to my son.

They were carrying rods.

We had informed the police station but nobody came to our rescue. Either they hadn't realised the seriousness of what was going on here or they weren't bothered.

When a police jeep came within 50 metres of our building, the rain of bricks halted. The music died down and the boys were not to be seen. But as soon as the police vehicle turned, they were back at us. We heard some of them say: 'How dare you call the police?'

We were even more scared now. We knew the police wouldn't help.

My late father-in-law had retired as the deputy commissioner (south) of Calcutta police and my husband Partha couldn't believe that like everything else in society, policing had deteriorated to this level.

The expletives and the occasional brick crashing into the windowpanes or the grille went on till 2.30 in the night. Who would have thought something like this would happen in a locality where I felt safe for almost 50 years since my marriage? My husband has been here longer and we were never subjected to anything like this.

Ironically, the Saraswati Puja in our locality had been started by Ayon and his friends when they were students. We would always pay our subscription, just as we did this year.

Sadly, over the past three years, Saraswati Puja has become an excuse to eat, drink and make merry and these boys are not even students anymore.

The fault probably lies with the way kids are brought up nowadays. I just can't get over the fact that these boys humiliated us the way they did.