Ghorapak: An Assamese Legend Story

Ghorapak Urban Legend: The opening scene of the film introduces us to a man named Tapan, a resident of a quaint little village, who earned his livelihood by selling fish. Every morning, he would venture out to the nearby water body to catch fish and then spend the rest of his day selling them.

Tapan was married to Maloti, who was significantly younger than him. Their interactions revealed a certain tension between them, indicating that there was always some discord in their relationship.

Tapan’s financial instability meant that he was unable to provide Maloti with the attention she needed, and this led to further conflicts between them. As a result, young Maloti often found herself at odds with her husband.

One day, after a fishing trip, Tapan returns home with his catch, only to be scolded by Maloti. He then heads to the fish market to sell his fresh catch. It becomes apparent that Maloti has stolen some of the fish from Tapan’s haul.

Tapan is visibly struggling to sell his fish in the crowded marketplace and confides in his friend about his confusion. He explains that whenever he catches fish, it seems like he has caught a large amount, but when he tries to sell them, they appear to be much fewer in number. Here, He is at a loss to explain why this is happening.

On the other hand, when Maloti’s two friends visit her home, they plan to watch the Ojapali dance. For those who are unfamiliar with this dance form, we can inform them that it is a traditional folk dance of Assam. During this dance, performers sing and dance simultaneously, and the lyrics of the song being sung are often associated with an urban legend of Assam.

In this particular movie, there is a song sung by the Ojapali group, which mentions Ghorapak. The group consists of one Oja who leads the group, and four or five Pali members who sing and dance from the back.

Moving on, Maloti, accompanied by her two friends, goes to watch the Ojapali dance. As viewers, we notice that Maloti was dressed in good-quality clothes. She had also provided her friends with good clothes to wear.

It came as a surprise to us since Tapan and Maloti were not well-off financially. Therefore, it seemed unusual for Maloti to be dressed so nicely. Nonetheless, Maloti and her two friends went to watch the Ojapali dance. During the event, we observed a charming man smiling at Maloti, and she was responding too.

Meanwhile, after completing his work, Tapan heads back home and is approached by some villagers who inform him about a disturbing incident. They reveal that several cows and buffaloes in the village have died peculiarly, with their necks twisted and their bodies abandoned. It is suspected that this act may have been carried out by Ghorapak.

(Note: For those unfamiliar with Ghorapak, it is a legendary creature in Assam that is believed to exist. It is depicted as a half-man and half-horse, known to feed on fish and capable of easily killing animals or even humans.)

Anyway, Tapan claims that he does not know the matter, but the others start taunting him by using his wife’s name. This is because many people in the village suspect that his wife is having an affair. Hearing this, Tapan becomes disturbed and decides to leave the place and head toward his house. However, on his way, Tapan discovers a dead buffalo in the field and gets scared, causing him to run away. At this point, Tapan is extremely frightened.

The next morning, Tapan starts getting ready for work again, but he didn’t feel like going to work all today, maybe he was scared. He tells Maloti that he doesn’t want to go to work today, to which Maloti gets angry and tells him to go to work because these people are already poor and if Tapan doesn’t go to work, how will they survive?

After being scolded by Maloti, Tapan leaves for work on an empty stomach, while Maloti immediately summons the man who had been smiling at her during Ojapali. It turns out that Maloti was indeed having an affair. She cooks the fish that she had stolen from Tapan and serves it to her lover.

Maloti throws the bones of the fish outside the window, after which she and her lover become intimate with each other. This man gifts Maloti a new saree, which explains how Maloti was able to own a good saree despite being poor. On the other hand, Tapan goes out to catch fish in the rain, but the thought of the Ghorapak still hadn’t left his mind.

Tapan was quite afraid as he made his way back home, having caught some fish. While traveling through the jungle, he felt as if someone was far away, and as he looked in that direction, he spotted a Ghorapak. At the sight of the Ghorapak, Tapan ran away swiftly and reached his home directly, where he found his wife and her lover in the middle of an intimate moment.

Tapan sees everything, and in the meantime, Maloti and her Lover attack him. The scene cuts here, and in the next scene, we see all the villagers mourning outside Tapan’s house because Tapan had been killed. But the surprising thing here is that Maloti and her lover were also found dead in the same house as Tapan.

Here, we see the person at this point whom Tapan had seen in Ghorapak. This person was completely normal and he tells the people of the village that he had raised his voice after seeing Tapan in the morning today, but Tapan ran away like crazy after seeing him and shouting “Ghorapak….. Ghorapak”. And perhaps Tapan was so scared in his mind about Ghorapak that he misunderstood me as Ghorapak and ran home.

After this, villagers find many fish bones behind Tapan’s house, and they follow them a little further, they see a strange creature. This creature was Ghorapak, whose face had now become Tapan’s face. As soon as people come, Ghorapak runs away, and we see a trail of light behind him that was shining throughout the village.

The movie ends right here…..

So this was the story of a movie, and now we will discuss two major theories related to this film.

According to the First theory, Ghorapak does not exist and whatever happened in the movie was not supernatural. To support this, we can say that…

• Tapan’s fish decreased because Maloti was stealing them.

• In the jungle, Tapan mistook a human for Ghorapak because he was already very scared in his mind.

• Tapan was killed by Maloti and her lover, but afterward, they must have had a falling out, which led them to betray each other.

• The villagers found fish bones because Maloti used to throw them behind her house.

• Finally, the whole village was so scared by the stories of Ghorapak that they also thought they saw it in the jungle in the end.

All events of the film can be explained in a normal way but then comes the second theory which suggests that Ghorapak exists.

According to the second theory,

• Ghorapak used to eat Tapan’s fish every day, which caused Tapan’s fish to become scarce. Ghorapak did not want to harm Tapan because he was a good person.

• The death of the cow in the village was also probably caused by Ghorapak.

• Ghorapak killed Tapan’s wife and her lover because he could see the injustice done to Tapan and wanted to bring justice to him.

• Ghorapak used Tapan’s face to show people that justice had been served.

• At the end of the film, Ghorapak leaves a trail of light, signifying that justice has been served in the village and the village has been enlightened.

• He ran away because people now knew about him and he was not safe in the village anymore.

The only loophole in this theory is that if Ghorapak was eating Tapan’s fish without him knowing, why did Tapan run away when he saw him? Well, it’s possible that Ghorapak was secretly stealing fish from Tapan, so when Tapan saw him, it was his first time, and that’s why he was so scared.

So you see, how these two theories fit together accurately and the creator has deliberately left it open-handed so that we viewers can create our theories according to our understanding.

So, what’s your Response? Please tell us in Comment.