The story is narrated by Taranath Tantrik in his usual style—sitting in his dim Kolkata room, recalling incidents from his reckless youth.
When he was young and wandering across rural Bengal in search of occult knowledge, he stayed in a remote village surrounded by bamboo groves and marshland. The villagers were simple people, but they were terrified of something they called "Nishi."
A few weeks before Taranath's arrival, a young man from the village had died mysteriously. According to his family, at around midnight someone had softly called his name from outside the house. The voice sounded exactly like his mother's. Without questioning it, he opened the door and walked out into the darkness.
He never returned.
The next morning his body was found near a marshy field. There were no signs of struggle, no injuries—only a look of extreme terror on his face.
The villagers believed a Nishi had lured him.
In Bengali folklore, a Nishi is a spirit that calls people by imitating the voice of someone they trust deeply—mother, spouse, sibling, or friend. If the victim responds to the first call and steps outside, the spirit gains power over them and leads them away.
Taranath, though trained in tantric practices, was skeptical. He suspected mass hysteria or psychological suggestion. Yet he was curious.
He asked an old villager about the rules of the Nishi. The man replied seriously:
It calls only once clearly.
If you respond to the first call, you are doomed.
If someone else answers on your behalf, the spell breaks.
It cannot cross a properly protected threshold.
That night, determined to test the legend, Taranath prepared himself. He drew protective diagrams on the floor with sacred ash, lit a mustard oil lamp, and sat awake chanting a mantra taught by his guru.
The village grew silent after midnight.
Then, around one in the morning, he heard it.
"Taranath…"
The voice was unmistakable.
It was his mother's voice.
She had died years ago.
The tone was tender, affectionate, exactly the way she used to wake him for school. For a brief moment, his rational mind wavered. Emotion flooded him. He almost responded.
Again the voice called, slightly farther away.
"Taranath… come here…"
His body instinctively moved toward the door. But his training held him back. He remembered the rule: never answer the first call.
Instead of replying, he intensified his chanting.
The air inside the room turned cold. The lamp flame flickered violently though there was no wind.
The voice changed.
It lost warmth. It became stretched and unnatural, as though echoing from a hollow space.
"Come…"
He stepped near the window but stayed inside his protective circle. Through the thin bamboo curtain he saw something faint in the courtyard—a pale, elongated shape, almost human but slightly distorted. It seemed to hover rather than stand.
Its head tilted at an unnatural angle.
When Taranath firmly recited a powerful counter-mantra, the figure trembled. The voice shrieked—not loudly, but sharply—and the shape dissolved into darkness.
Moments later, normal night sounds returned.
The next day, the villagers reported that an elderly widow had nearly walked out of her home at midnight after hearing her dead husband call her name. Her daughter had luckily stopped her before she stepped outside.
After that night, no more deaths occurred.
Taranath concludes the story by explaining that such spirits feed on emotional attachment. They exploit grief and longing. A person who is mentally strong and spiritually prepared can resist. But someone overwhelmed by love, sorrow, or fear becomes vulnerable.
He ends quietly:
"The most dangerous call is not from the unknown.It is the call that sounds like home."