A Strange Shadow

'A Strange Shadow' is a paranoid fiction dealing with an apparitional effect caused in the mind SARBANI, a young journalist working for a Bengali newspaper. She gets involved in an assignment to cover an article on NIRMALA DEVI, a lady who claims to have an incarnated life. A meeting with Nirmala Devi, starts changing Sarbani's dis-belief on matters like incarnation. She gets inclined to learn more on the subject. Her fiance DEBRAJ, suggests her to go through the old written texts of great philosophers like Plato, Aristotle and Pythagoras. Sarbani starts gathering more information but unfortunately Nirmala Devi dies in a plane crash. Since then Sarbani starts getting haunted by some strange dreams. She keeps hearing the voice of Nirmala Devi. Her health starts deteotiating as she fails to understand why such strange things keep happening to her. One night as she falls to sleep, she finds herself standing solitary in the midst of the vast universe. The emptiness of the entire universe generates a sense of fear in her mind. She tries to look for her acquaintances but only to hear the subtle voice of Nirmala as if speaking to her from another world. Moments later she could the earth shaking as the ground beneath her feet starts cracking. She falls at a deep hollow surface. Darkness engulf her from all around. When Sarbani opens her face she is found in a mental hospital abruptly voicing some indifferent messages on incarnation.