Dhaka city is dotted with haunted houses. It is thought that ghosts avoid urban areas. Rather they prefer rural areas as they love to live on big trees and inside old Zamindar Baris. Contrary to popular belief, ghosts aka jinns love to occupy urban spaces. Instead of vanishing from human habitat, these entities continue to exist in this age of Artificial Intelligence. This juxtaposition is not absurd but rather congruent with people's existence. The Bengali term for ghost is bhoot,which stands for the past i.e. someone who has become part of yesteryears and the times of yore.Both bhoot and jinns have religious connotations. Now, I will share some spooky stories I learned from my students.
The first story took place in Chowdhury para, Malibagh. One of my students and his family members lived in a rented flat in that area. Everything was going well when one fine day he started hearing his name being uttered in his room. He was startled. Another time, one of his parents' distant relatives visited their house.
When she was alone someone whispered: "Hey paternal aunt, are you chewing betel leaf?"Being scared she left the house immediately. His maternal grandmother once was alone at home and then that voice said to her: "Hey maternal grandmother store water, the water pump is going to be out of order." A few moments later, the gatekeeper saidthat the pump had gone phut, and she should store water.
A few days later, his father, while going to perform ablution for the Fajr prayer, saw the shape of a human figure sitting on the sofa. Thinking this was his son sitting on the couch,his father scolded him and went inside the bathroom to perform ablution. When he came out, he saw the same figure in the same position.
When his father turned the light on that figure was gone and when he switched the light off it reappeared. His father walked towards the bedroom to call my student's mother to see what was happening there. But once she arrived that figure disappeared completely. Then later that student saw the lights of the stairways turning on and off simultaneously even though there was no technical glitch. The entire familycould not take this anymore and eventually shifted their residence.
The next story unfolded in Banasree. The entire building was haunted. The gate keeper once saw his wife going to the roof and he followed her. Once there instead of his wife, he found three children laughing gleefully at him. Being scared he rushed downstairs and asked his wife about her visit to the roof and she was completely taken aback and answered negatively. Another incident happened in the Bashundhara Residential Area. One of my students was alone in her room. Her roommate was not present. And suddenly, the door started tremoring uncontrollably. Window curtains were waving frequently. It continued until dawn prayer.One of her friends advised her to recite Ayatul Kursi to ward off these unusual events.
The next incident happened in Uttara. The protagonist was living on a rooftop flat alone. She could feel that someone was giving her a head massage though there was no one at home other than her. Once when she was cooking instant noodles, a voice asked her: are the noodles ready? She answered affirmatively. She later realized that there was no one at home. When she dried her clothes in the Sun,she would find them piled up on a chair. When worn she would feel a burning irritation on her skin. When she saw a trail of blood drops on the floor, she was genuinely scared and decided to shift.
Two of my students researched the perception and presence of ghosts in the lives of villagers. One was in Natore and another was in the Chittagong Hill Tracts.A half-built mosque was found in the study village of Natore. The mosque was being built onland taken over by trees and underbrush. Whenever people tried to complete itsconstruction, a strong wind would foil the attempt. Later they were forced to abandon the plan, and the mosque remained half-built and became known as half masjid arousing the curiosity of the newcomers in the village.
Religious beliefs can justify the existence of ghosts and jinns in the cosmological ecology of human life by referring to holy scriptures. The researchers provide the altered state of consciousness as the readymade explanation for the spooky encounter. Ghosts also known as meta-persons occupy our imagination due to our exposure to popular media and religious beliefs exacerbated by isolation in atomized societies. On the one hand, we have to navigate through the concrete jungles of urban areas populated by people and meta-people.On the other hand, we must deal with the student community's abuse of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to prepare their academic papers. Plagiarism has become more slippery due to the availability of AI apps and their deployment by the learners of the new generation. Just like ghosts, AI has become the new meta-person to turn the originality of writing topsy-turvy.
Students do not feel the qualms about having resorted to bot-generated answers. When asked, one student admitted openly in the classroom that he had used AI apps without being caught by another course instructor. I found several students abusing the AI apps while checking exam scripts afterward. Assignments and reports are fraught with plagiarized content. AI-based plagiarism is no less horrifying than real ghost stories though writing in a foreign tongue like English remains an uphill task for the student community. Bot-induced plagiarism is a menacing problem that we must combat to restore academic integrity even if we cannot oust ghosts from our homes.
The writer is a faculty member of the Anthropology Programme at Independent University Bangladesh 
