Srirupa Deka
It is on one such night, with the mist unusually dense and curling low to the ground, that the whispers turn into dread. The workers have retreated to their small wooden quarters, their lanterns casting trembling circles of light on the thin walls. Yet, from beyond the rows of tea bushes, a sound begins to drift—a song, slow and sorrowful, its notes carrying a strange, irresistible sweetness. The men glance at one another, their faces tightening with fear, but one among them, a young plucker named Rajen, rises with a dazed look in his eyes. He insists he hears someone calling his name, a woman’s voice soft and fragile like silk. His companions plead with him not to step outside, reminding him of the stories told by their elders, but his feet move as if guided by a will not his own. The mist swallows him the moment he leaves the threshold, and the song grows fainter until it is lost in silence.
By dawn, Rajen has not returned. His empty cot lies undisturbed, a chilling reminder of the night before. The workers gather in uneasy clusters, their voices low and anxious, for this is not the first time such a disappearance has occurred. Decades ago, the elders say, men too had wandered into the mist, drawn by the same unearthly song, never to be seen again. Fear grips the tea estate once more, for the “White Lady” is no longer just a story told to frighten children—it is a living terror that stalks their nights. As the mist clings stubbornly to the hills and the tea bushes seem to whisper in the wind, the workers know that their lives are no longer their own, that something unseen and ancient has awakened, and that the haunting song will claim more before it falls silent again.
2
Arjun Sen arrived at the tea estate with a suitcase full of plans and a mind brimming with determination. Freshly transferred from Kolkata, he saw the lush hills and endless rows of tea bushes not as a place of folklore and fear, but as fertile ground for progress. The colonial-era bungalows, the faded office ledgers, the outdated methods of tea plucking—all of it, to him, demanded reform. He had been sent by the company to modernize, to increase productivity, and he intended to do just that. As he walked through the narrow paths between the tea bushes on his first morning, inhaling the damp air heavy with the fragrance of dew and soil, he felt an almost romantic connection to the land. Yet, he noticed something peculiar: the workers avoided his gaze, their steps unusually hurried, their conversations hushed. It was as if an invisible weight hung over them, a weight that seemed to thicken in the very mist that hugged the garden.
In his first meeting with the workers, Arjun attempted to establish himself with confidence and warmth. He spoke of progress, of new machines, of better wages if productivity rose. But instead of applause, he was met with silence broken only by nervous coughs. Finally, an elder among them raised a trembling hand and spoke of the danger that came with the night, of the song that no man should follow. The mention of the “White Lady” was enough to stir murmurs through the crowd, their faces pale with fear. Arjun’s brows knitted, not with fear but with impatience. He had heard rumors of these local ghost stories even in Kolkata, and he had dismissed them as relics of an uneducated mind. Now, standing before grown men and women who clung to the same beliefs, he felt irritation bubble in him. “Superstition,” he declared firmly, his voice carrying across the room. “No ghost sings in the mist. Only fear keeps you chained. We will not bow to shadows.” His words, meant to inspire, only deepened the silence, and he realized with some frustration that logic was no shield against belief.
Days passed, and Arjun’s resolve was tested further. He introduced the idea of extending work into the evening hours to meet quotas, but the workers outright refused. Their fear of the mist after dusk was so deep-rooted that no promise of money nor threat of dismissal could sway them. At night, Arjun sat alone on the veranda of his bungalow, sipping tea and looking out at the fog that rolled like waves over the plantation. He tried to rationalize their fear, to convince himself it was only folklore, but he could not shake the uneasy quiet that gripped the estate once darkness fell. The laughter and chatter that marked the day vanished completely, replaced by silence so thick it pressed against his ears. Somewhere deep within him, a small sliver of doubt stirred, though he quickly suppressed it. Still, as the mist curled closer each night and the workers shuttered their homes as if against an approaching storm, Arjun wondered if he had underestimated the hold of the unseen on the human heart.
It was on the third week of his stay that Arjun decided to walk the plantation late into the evening, determined to prove to himself—and indirectly to his workers—that there was nothing to fear in the mist. The day had been unusually humid, and as night fell, the air grew heavy with fog that curled low over the ground, making the tea bushes appear like islands in a shifting sea. Lantern in hand, he moved through the narrow paths, noting the stillness that had descended upon the garden. Even the crickets, usually a steady chorus at this hour, seemed muted. He had convinced himself that the fears of the workers were mere illusions born out of isolation and poverty. Yet, as he reached a slope overlooking the endless rows of tea leaves, he froze. From the depths of the mist came a faint sound—soft, melodic, hauntingly beautiful. It was not the chirp of a bird, nor the rustle of leaves, but something distinctly human. A song, carried on the air, distant yet achingly clear.
Arjun tightened his grip on the lantern, his heartbeat quickening despite his attempts at composure. “It’s the wind,” he whispered to himself, though the rationality of that explanation felt thin against the sweetness of the voice that lingered. Step by cautious step, he descended toward the sound, the mist growing denser, swallowing his surroundings until the path itself seemed to vanish. Then, through the shifting veil, he caught sight of it—a flash of white, delicate and fleeting, like the edge of a flowing garment disappearing between the tea bushes. His breath caught. The workers’ words returned to him, their warning of the “White Lady” who sang to the night. He clenched his jaw and forced a laugh, trying to shake off the dread. “A woman wandering the fields? Impossible.” But his voice sounded small in the vast silence, and deep inside, reason began to waver. His eyes darted from shadow to shadow, each rustle of leaves magnified by the mist until it felt as though the whole garden were alive and watching.
The song grew stronger, weaving through the fog like a thread pulling him forward. For a moment, he felt his steps aligning with its rhythm, his body moving not from intent but from compulsion. He stopped abruptly, forcing himself to breathe, realizing how easily he could have lost himself in that sound. Raising the lantern, he tried to pierce the mist, but the white figure was gone, the voice fading into nothingness as though it had never existed. Alone, surrounded by silence, Arjun stood trembling with a confusion that unsettled him more than fear itself. Was it truly the wind? Was his mind, so sure of logic and reason, betraying him in this alien land of shadows and whispers? As he turned back toward his bungalow, his steps quick and uneven, he felt the uneasy truth pressing at him—he had seen something, heard something, and though he wished to deny it, the certainty of his rational world had been shaken. For the first time, Arjun understood why the workers shuttered their doors so tightly when the mist came down.
The next morning, Arjun sat on the veranda of his bungalow, sipping his tea with an absent stare, the events of the previous night pressing heavily on his mind. He had told himself repeatedly that what he heard was nothing but the wind and what he saw merely a trick of mist and moonlight, but the memory clung stubbornly. His thoughts were interrupted by the slow shuffle of footsteps—Hari, the estate’s elderly night watchman, approaching with his stick tapping against the ground. Hari had worked on the estate longer than anyone else, his weathered face lined with years of watching the gardens through sleepless nights. With a respectful nod, he lingered by the steps before speaking in a low, cautious tone. “Babu,” he said, his voice hoarse, “you should not walk alone at night. The tea bushes hide more than shadows when the mist comes.” Arjun raised an eyebrow, amused yet uneasy. “You mean your White Lady?” he asked, a hint of mockery in his tone. Hari’s eyes darkened, and his lips pressed into a thin line.
With the patience of age, Hari began to tell his story. He spoke of the White Lady not as a rumor, but as a truth passed down through generations. She was no ordinary ghost, he said, but a restless spirit bound to the tea garden, appearing whenever the mist thickened and the night grew quiet. Many men, young and strong, had vanished after following her song, their bodies never found, their names remembered only in hushed warnings. Hari’s voice lowered further, carrying the weight of memory. “I have seen men walk into the fog with smiles on their faces, as though following a lover’s call,” he confessed. “By dawn, all that remained was silence, and the tea bushes seemed to drink their souls.” Arjun tried to dismiss it with reason, but Hari’s conviction unsettled him; the old man’s words carried not the tone of superstition but of a witness scarred by experience. When Arjun asked why such a spirit would linger here of all places, Hari’s gaze shifted toward the rolling fields, his voice dropping to a whisper. “Old blood,” he said gravely. “Betrayal. This land remembers what men try to forget.”
Arjun leaned forward, curiosity now overtaking skepticism. “What do you mean, betrayal?” he pressed, but Hari only shook his head slowly, as if some truths were too dangerous to speak aloud. He tapped his stick on the ground, his expression clouded with sorrow. “Stories have roots, Babu. This one is buried deep in the soil you walk on. But know this—do not answer the song when it calls you. No man returns from her embrace.” With that, the old watchman turned away, his figure shrinking into the mist that still clung to the morning air. Left alone, Arjun felt a chill creep into his chest, not from fear of the supernatural, but from the possibility that beneath all the whispers lay something real, something tangled in the history of the estate itself. For the first time, he wondered if the ghost was less a figment of imagination and more a legacy of forgotten sins.
Determined to confront his growing doubts with reason, Arjun turned to the one place he believed held answers—the estate’s archives. Hidden in a crumbling outhouse near the old factory, the records stretched back more than a century, their pages yellowed with time and corners curled by damp. Dust clung to the air as he pulled open the wooden cabinets, the scent of mildew mingling with the faint aroma of dried tea leaves that seemed to seep into everything on the estate. By the dim glow of a lantern, he pored over ledgers and reports, tracing the history of harvests, wages, and estate managers long forgotten. Most entries were mundane—figures of output, expenses, the steady machinery of the plantation’s life—but amid the columns of numbers, a name began to repeat: Edward Hensley. A British planter who had overseen the estate in the late 1800s, Hensley’s presence loomed large in the records for nearly a decade before vanishing abruptly, leaving only silence where his reports should have continued.
Intrigued, Arjun dug deeper, searching through brittle letters and half-faded memos. He uncovered fragmented mentions of Hensley’s disappearance—cryptic references to “unsettled affairs” and “a matter best not recorded.” The official estate log merely noted that Hensley was “no longer in charge” and that management had passed to another officer. But in the margins of an old letter, penned by an assistant manager, Arjun found a tantalizing line: “The scandal has left this place restless; the lady has cursed the soil itself.” Though no name was written, the suggestion was clear—Hensley’s vanishing had not been a quiet departure, but an event surrounded by whispers of shame and betrayal. Some workers’ petitions from that era hinted at unrest, with veiled complaints about “the master’s conduct with a local woman.” Yet every account ended abruptly, as if someone had deliberately cut away the truth. The gaps in the archive frustrated Arjun, each missing piece fueling his sense that the story was more than coincidence.
Leaning back in the flickering lamplight, Arjun felt a strange thrill course through him. Could the White Lady be connected to this shadowy past, the unspoken scandal of a colonial planter and a woman wronged? Hari’s words returned to him—old blood and betrayal—and suddenly they no longer seemed like the musings of a superstitious elder. The estate’s silence on the matter felt louder than any official account, as though generations had chosen to bury the story beneath the tea bushes rather than confront it. Arjun closed the last ledger with a firm hand, his mind ablaze with questions. Who was the woman? What fate had befallen Hensley? And why did the workers still believe her spirit roamed the gardens after all these years? For the first time, the young manager’s ambition gave way to something deeper than duty—curiosity sharpened by unease, a hunger to unearth a truth long buried under mist and silence. As he extinguished the lantern and stepped out into the night, the fog lay heavy over the garden, and he could almost imagine unseen eyes watching, waiting for him to discover what had truly happened more than a century ago.
6
Arjun knew that the written records alone would never reveal the full story. Determined to fill the gaps left by the archives, he began speaking to the older workers, men and women whose lives had been intertwined with the tea estate for decades. Their memories were tinged with fear and reverence, passed down from one generation to the next like fragile heirlooms. Sitting on the worn steps of the worker quarters, he listened as voices trembled, recounting tales of a girl named Asha, whose beauty and laughter had once been the pride of a nearby village. According to them, she had caught the eye of Edward Hensley, the British planter whose name still lingered in whispers. Asha’s love for him had been pure, naive, and unwavering, yet it had been met with cold calculation. The older workers spoke of her disappearance in cautious, broken sentences, never fully naming the betrayal but hinting at the horrors that followed, as if naming them aloud might summon the ghost itself.
Piece by piece, Arjun began to reconstruct the legend. Asha, they said, had fallen deeply in love with Hensley, her heart devoted entirely to him. When she discovered she was pregnant, the joy of new life turned into terror as Hensley, concerned only with protecting his reputation among the British and local elites, hatched a cruel plan. He orchestrated her murder, hiding her body somewhere within the plantation grounds, ensuring that no trace could be found. The workers’ stories were vivid and chilling, describing the mist that seemed to gather wherever Asha had walked, the sudden chills that accompanied her cries, and the haunting melody she sang, even in death, a voice caught between grief and vengeance. Her love had been betrayed, her life stolen, and yet the injustice could not rest in the soil alone. It had risen again, taking form in the White Lady, who now roamed the plantation, singing the song that had claimed so many men over the years.
As the narrative crystallized in Arjun’s mind, a shiver ran down his spine. Hari’s warning, the whispers of the night watchman, the vanishing of men who dared follow the mist—all of it suddenly made sense. Asha’s spirit was not merely a ghostly apparition but a lingering presence of wronged innocence, her anger rooted in betrayal and blood spilled for vanity. The tea estate, once a place of routine and labor, was now a site of old sins made visible in spectral form. Arjun realized that the stories of fear, once dismissed as superstition, carried the weight of truth. The White Lady was not a myth invented to frighten children; she was a revenant, bound to the estate by a crime that demanded acknowledgment and justice. As the sun dipped below the hills, casting long shadows over the tea bushes, Arjun felt a solemn respect for the legend, understanding that confronting her song, and the history behind it, would require more than logic—it would require courage, empathy, and a reckoning with the darkness that had lingered for generations.
7
Night after night, Arjun’s sleep became restless, invaded by visions he could not explain. It began subtly—shapes shifting at the edges of his dreams, a soft melody that tugged at the corners of his mind. Then, she appeared: Asha, luminous and pale, her eyes deep pools of sorrow, her hair flowing like mist across the hills of the plantation. In the dream, her voice was both fragile and commanding, weaving through the darkness with a song that seemed to pull at the very fibers of his soul. She spoke in whispers that echoed long after he awoke, words that etched themselves into his consciousness: “Find my voice… tell my story…” At first, Arjun tried to dismiss these dreams as stress or his imagination fueled by the estate’s stories, yet each night the visions grew sharper, more insistent, her presence bleeding into the waking hours. He began to feel her gaze in the fog, hear the faint notes of her song drifting across the tea bushes when no one else was near.
The boundaries between sleep and reality started to blur. During his evening inspections, Arjun would catch glimpses of a white figure gliding between the rows of tea bushes, always accompanied by that same haunting melody. He would freeze, convinced for a moment that he had wandered back into the realm of his dreams. Lantern in hand, he would follow the apparition, only for it to vanish as mysteriously as it appeared, leaving the mist heavy and oppressive. His mind, once a bastion of rationality, struggled to reconcile what he saw with what he believed. He began to feel an unease that was entirely new—a mixture of fear, fascination, and a gnawing sense of responsibility. The logical explanations he had relied on for so long—wind, tricks of light, overactive imagination—no longer sufficed. Something beyond his understanding was reaching out to him, demanding that he acknowledge it.
In the quiet hours of the bungalow, Arjun found himself talking aloud to the empty room, confessing doubts he could not share with anyone else. “What do you want from me?” he asked one night, voice trembling. And as if answering, the melody would swell, faint but unmistakable, carrying with it a weight of grief and injustice. He could almost feel Asha’s fingers brushing against his cheek, urging him forward, and with each encounter, the compulsion to unearth her story grew stronger. Sleep became both refuge and prison, dreams a doorway he could not ignore. Arjun realized that his skepticism, the shield he had wielded against superstition and fear, was crumbling under the pressure of something profoundly real. The White Lady was no longer a tale whispered in the darkness; she was a presence that claimed him as a witness, demanding that he become the one to give voice to a story silenced by betrayal, blood, and time. With each passing night, Arjun felt an unshakable truth settle within him: he could no longer stand apart—Asha’s voice must be heard, her story must be told, or the plantation would never rest, and neither would he.
8
Arjun’s obsession with uncovering Asha’s story drove him beyond the estate office and archives, into the dense, mist-laden edges of the tea gardens where few dared to tread. The workers had long avoided this part of the plantation, speaking of it only in hurried whispers, calling it “the silent corner”. Following vague directions and fragments of oral history, Arjun came upon a small, overgrown clearing where the earth seemed unnaturally soft, the grass unnervingly still, and the mist clinging thicker than anywhere else. Something about the place unsettled him, a silent pressure that seemed to demand attention. Kneeling down, he began to dig cautiously, guided by a mixture of instinct, dream-memory, and the stories he had pieced together. The soil was damp and heavy, reluctant to yield, but eventually his hands struck something hard—a simple wooden marker, now rotted and illegible. Beneath it, the contours of a grave appeared, unmarked and forgotten, hidden from the records of the estate, as though someone had deliberately tried to erase both its existence and the memory of the person buried there.
The realization hit him with a mixture of shock and sorrow. This, he knew with sudden certainty, was Asha’s resting place. The whispers of the older workers, the warnings of Hari, and the archives’ fragmented hints all converged into a painful clarity: the colonial estate owners, concerned with propriety and reputation, had silenced any inquiry into her death. Asha’s body had been buried in secrecy, and her truth erased from every ledger and report. The injustice was monumental and final, yet not enough to release her spirit. The land itself seemed to tremble under the weight of suppressed memory, the tea bushes growing as if rooted in grief. Arjun stood above the grave, the mist curling around him, carrying with it the faint echo of the haunting melody he had heard in his dreams. He felt the connection between the spectral figure, the song, and this unmarked grave—it was not merely her death that had bound her to the plantation, but the erasure of her story, the deliberate attempt to strip her of voice, identity, and justice.
In that moment, everything became clear. The White Lady had lingered for generations not out of malice, but because history had refused to acknowledge her pain. Her presence was a claim upon the land, a silent demand that someone bear witness to the betrayal she had suffered. Arjun felt a mixture of awe and guilt, understanding that his role had shifted from skeptic and administrator to custodian of truth. The estate’s shadows, the vanished men, the haunting song—they were all echoes of Asha’s unfinished story, a reminder that some legacies cannot be buried, no matter how thoroughly they are concealed. As the mist thickened around him, Arjun made a quiet vow: he would not let her story die again. He would uncover the full truth, give voice to her memory, and in doing so, perhaps allow the White Lady to finally find rest. The plantation, with all its centuries of tea, whispers, and secrets, waited in silent expectation, and for the first time, Arjun understood that some truths are tied to the land itself, demanding recognition before peace can be restored.
9
The storm arrived without warning, a sudden surge of wind and rain that lashed the tea gardens with relentless force. Lanterns flickered in the bungalows, their light barely piercing the sheets of water that fell from the darkened sky, and the workers huddled indoors, whispering prayers as the thunder rolled over the hills. Arjun, however, could not remain confined. Drawn by an almost magnetic pull, he made his way through the slippery paths between the tea bushes, his coat soaked and hair plastered to his forehead. The wind carried a melody that cut through the storm, faint at first, then swelling with each step—a song both mournful and exquisite. And then, emerging from the thick, rolling mist, she appeared in her full spectral form: Asha, the White Lady, luminous yet fragile, her eyes brimming with sorrow. Her presence was overwhelming, the mist bending around her like water around a stone, and her song shook the estate as if it were a living, breathing force.
Arjun froze, his rational mind utterly unprepared for the confrontation with something so real and undeniable. He had expected fear, anger, or even vengeance—but what met him instead was profound sadness. Asha’s gaze held centuries of grief, betrayal, and longing, yet no trace of malevolence lingered in her expression. Her song, carried on the wind and rain, seemed to pour her story into the very soil beneath their feet, a lament that demanded acknowledgment. He felt a shiver of both awe and responsibility as he listened, realizing the depth of injustice that had tethered her spirit to the plantation. Every vanished worker, every whispered warning, every shiver of mist now made sense. The estate itself had become a vessel of her pain, and he, standing amidst the storm, was chosen to bear witness. The wind carried the notes higher, swirling around him, and Arjun’s heart pounded with a mix of fear, reverence, and determination.
Swallowing his hesitation, Arjun spoke aloud, his voice nearly lost in the roar of the storm, yet resolute: “I promise you, Asha. I will uncover the truth. Your story will be heard. Edward Hensley’s crime will not remain hidden, and your name will be restored.” The White Lady’s song wavered, almost as if listening to his vow, and for a fleeting moment, the mist seemed to part, the rain falling lighter around her form. Her eyes softened, a fragile peace touching her features, and though she did not speak, Arjun felt the promise acknowledged, accepted. She lingered a few moments longer, the melody of her sorrow echoing through the hills, before fading into the storm’s embrace. Arjun stood alone in the downpour, drenched, exhausted, but filled with a resolute clarity he had never known. The reckoning was not yet complete, but the first step had been taken: the White Lady had entrusted him with her truth, and now it was his duty to bring it into the light. The plantation, battered by wind and rain, seemed to pause in anticipation, as if the centuries-old mist itself held its breath, waiting for the story to finally be told.
10
Arjun spent the following days immersed in preparation, determined to honor Asha’s story and restore her memory. He began by arranging a small memorial near the edge of the plantation, at the clearing where her unmarked grave had been found. Flowers were gathered from the surrounding hills, and simple wooden markers were placed to commemorate her life, her beauty, and the injustice she had endured. He invited the workers, many of whom had carried the stories in silence for decades, to participate. As they gathered around the memorial, hesitant yet reverent, Arjun shared the history he had painstakingly pieced together—the love, betrayal, and tragedy that had bound the White Lady to the estate for so long. He spoke openly of Edward Hensley’s actions, the conspiracy to erase Asha from history, and the centuries of fear that had grown in the mist. The workers listened with tears and quiet murmurs, their faces illuminated by lantern light, a collective acknowledgment bridging the chasm of years and silence.
Next, Arjun ensured that the estate’s official records reflected the truth. He meticulously documented every detail he had discovered: Asha’s life, her love for Hensley, the betrayal, and the circumstances of her murder. The archive that had once silenced her now became a permanent testament to her existence, a way for future generations to remember and respect her story. Arjun’s meticulous records included oral histories from the older workers, alongside fragments from the colonial-era documents, creating a comprehensive account that could no longer be ignored or dismissed. By sharing these details openly with the community and the estate management, he dismantled the carefully maintained veil of secrecy that had concealed the crime for generations. Slowly, the tea garden itself seemed to respond, the usual oppressive mist giving way to gentle breezes, the shadows between the bushes lighter and less menacing. The estate, once haunted by unspoken grief, began to breathe again, the air tinged with a sense of relief and quiet closure.
That night, the workers reported hearing her song one last time. It was different from before—soft, gentle, almost a lullaby rather than a summons. The haunting notes seemed to drift across the hills, fading gradually until they were nothing more than a memory carried by the mist. Arjun stood at the edge of the plantation, watching the fog lift and swirl into the moonlit sky, feeling a profound peace settle over the land. The White Lady, once a figure of sorrow and fear, was gone, her spirit freed at last by the recognition of her story. For the first time in centuries, the estate was unburdened by the weight of history, and the workers could move freely through the gardens without trepidation. Arjun, too, felt a release—a mingling of relief, fulfillment, and reverence. The mist no longer hid secrets; it only reflected the quiet beauty of the tea bushes, their leaves glistening in the moonlight. Asha’s truth had been spoken, justice had been done, and in the clearing where her grave now rested marked and honored, the estate finally exhaled, free to live without the shadow that had haunted it for gegenerations.
End
