The Knocking at Kandarpur: A Chilling Cow Stable Mystery from Odisha’s Folklore

In Odisha there was a ranch that I know about since my childhood and that was the one at my ajja's place in Kandarpur. He used to tend his cows in a stable made of mud pillars. The stable had two rooms one was used as a smoke room or office room with his chair and table but mostly he used to smoke in there and the other one was the room where cows were tied up and had cow dunk filled all over the place. That room had a door that was wider, to use the cows ro take outside close to the garden during morning hours. There was a window attached to the smoke room, which opened to a wall or the neighbor's house and couple of coconut trees were adjacent to it. But even if you are sitting in the broad day light, you will get a certain eeriness coming from that window as though someone is looking at you when you are sitting on the chair or hiding inside the huge old bed with lot of compartments under it. That was my favorite hideout place as we spent most of our summer days in that ranch and to cool off from the scorching heat I used to hide in that room even though the silence around with seldom moo sound of the cow creeped me out. One afternoon as none of my cousins were around, I went to that place to play on my own. I heard a matchbox falling as if someone had been inside, I thought maybe it was my ajja (granddad) and continued playing but got a sense that the cows were being restless maybe a storm was coming. I tried to go closer to the window as I saw a shadow, no one can know what's out there unless they follow the unknown. As I got closer, suddenly I heard footsteps walking back to the back of the house which I never knew existed. Soon I got scared, and ran back to my house, but there I got to know that my granddad wasn't even there that day he was visiting his sister's place and will be back by the evening. That night a storm came and while it rained the whole night, at an hour past 2-3 am someone started knocking at the window, I was scared and asked my granny about the constant knocking sound at that point everyone in the room could hear it. Then my granny shouted at the knock in threatening tone, then soon it died away. But no one gave me an answer as to what was that knock about till date. But I very well know it wasn't a cat. 

*picture courtesy chatgpt