Unique scary stories, simply told
Two visitors from Calcutta go to the
haunted house of an evil zamindar (landlord) in rural Bengal. They come out
terrified. But do they manage to survive?
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Midnapore was billed
as the ‘dark district’ of West Bengal in the 1970s where no resident at its
headquarters, Midnapore town, or villages, had ever known anything other than
darkness.
Electric lamps
lighting up cities and towns was something they had only heard of from friends.
Begunkodor railway station in Purulia district of West Bengal, which grabbed headlines for its own eerie incidents, has been billed as one of India’s most haunted stations and remained abandoned for years.
After staying in isolation for decades, the station’s train operations resumed only a few years ago, though with a much lower frequency.
Luv Kumar’s family had migrated from
Bihar to Bengal in the 1980s and his father Hari was working at a jute mill in
Howrah, on the outskirts of Calcutta.
Although the jute mill gave Luv’s family a place to stay, it was by no means a home. It was almost like a slum. And, even Hari was paid poorly by the mill and often found it difficult to make ends meet.
Rural
Bengal, in the 1960s, witnessed many famines and mystery diseases, which killed
people by the thousands and this gave the grandmothers an opportunity to rustle
up some spicy stories on the paranormal and relate them to their
grandchildren.
Aaturia,
in 24 Parganas district, was one such village that hogged the limelight after
some contagious mystery disease, which doctors were baffled about, hounded its
residents.
Sunderbans, the world’s largest mangrove forest, is not only known for its majestic Bengal tiger but also has its fair share of paranormal activity tucked deep inside the jungles, especially the core area.
The forests are almost 60 per cent inside Bangladesh and the remaining 40 per cent is in West Bengal (India).
In the 1970s, electricity (especially alternating current
or AC) was almost a scarce resource in the city of Calcutta, and so, when
evening dawned, it turned into a City of Lanterns.
Rather than electric lamps, it was this kerosene lantern that
illuminated the city — be it a bustling marketplace, the busy office stretch or
even downtown Calcutta.
Labon and wife Chhaya
went to pick up their son Soren on going home day or GHD from a boarding school in
haunted Dow Hill. So, did they have any paranormal experience in the apparently
serene woods?
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Haunted Dow Hill in Kurseong, near Darjeeling, is not the place where you witness subtle horror, like a ghost or an apparition walking or seemingly passing by. Dow Hill’s haunting is a story of violence, and that’s why, hardly anyone dares to venture into the woods alone — forget at night — even during the day!
Dow Hill gives the impression of a picture postcard or a fairy land where an innocuous traveller will have no option but to daze at its scenic beauty. But here’s a warning! Don’t be mesmerized by it because behind all this beauty lies a mountain of evil.
Forty-year-old Rishi, wife Alka, who is 10 years younger, and their 10-year-old daughter Mini were going on a vacation to a village in the backwaters of Alleppey in Kerala. It was almost after a year that Rishi got a 10-day leave from his office and was longing for the big day to come.
Well, there was also
another reason for Rishi’s excitement — the travel agent, Murli, who is also
Rishi’s friend — had told him a very strange story that really excited Rishi.
Ravi
was an investment banker, who had a paranormal experience at a suburb in
Mumbai. Did it change his rationalist way of thinking?
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Ravi was an investment banker who graduated from a top business school in India after having completed his engineering from the prestigious IIT.
Right from the time he
began working as an investment banker in Delhi with a fancy salary, he was used
to the luxuries enjoyed in the corporate world – like a swanky sedan, a
three-bedroom apartment at an upmarket location, various attractive perks reserved
for pass-outs of sought-after business schools, and of course, a plush corner
room in his office.
Deep inside a remote Rajasthan village lived a farmer by
the name Jhingru, who was 45 years old. He had two daughters Asha and Lata, who
were 10 and 7. Jhingru wanted a third child and longed to have a boy this time.
Villages in rural parts of Northern India like Rajasthan
are usually male bastions. And in this region, the birth of a girl is not
really a reason to celebrate.
There
was a hotel by the name Hotel Safe Haven on the outskirts of Kolkata. Though
the hotel was a decent stay, it was far from being a safe haven. Hotel Safe
Haven had an ignominious reputation: Whoever stayed in a particular room on the
second floor would be found hanging the next day. A traveller from Kanpur, Bimlesh
Trivedi, had arrived at the hotel to stay there for a night. Upon hearing the
rumour associated with the room, the fearless Bimlesh tried to unravel the
mystery. So, did he live to tell his tale?
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Bimlesh Trivedi, a leather merchant from Kanpur, had come to the City of Joy Kolkata for the first time on a business trip. He was to stay for a day in the city and leave for his hometown the next day.
Bimlesh, who was in his early forties, had gone to the outskirts of the city (near his place of business) in search of a hotel and called a friend, who suggested to him a decent and economical place nearby by the name Hotel Safe Haven.
Anuj and his sister Mita were city lads going to spend their summer holidays at a small town Memari in West Bengal’s Burdwan district, where their maternal uncle Biraj lived. The fact that Anuj was going to a small town didn’t really excite him. But what did were the rumours associated with it.
Anuj had heard from his mother Shyama and other relatives about an evil force or a Nishi bhoot (or ghost) that roams around the town at night. It gives a call and if the person responds, he is in for big trouble.
In this Rajasthan
village, if anyone went near this Maut Ka Kua at night, he would never return
to tell his tale. City boy Hari also visited the place at night. So, was he
also sucked into the well like the others?
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In one of his assignments, Hari had to work in a remote village by the name Bandipura, in Alwar district of Rajasthan, on behalf of his NGO. He was in a project to assess the village population and literacy rate.
It was early February 2020 when he arrived at the village in the afternoon and was housed at a modest dak bungalow. In the evening, he took a tour of the village and ventured further into an area which had many dilapidated and abandoned structures and some abandoned houses. But since it was getting dark, he decided to head home.
It is one of the nondescript villages in the district, grabbing little attention from the authorities. As a result, the village had stayed still for decades and has seen very little development. In the evening, some areas are dotted with electric lamps but most parts remained in the dark ages, literally. Even Mala stayed in a cottage that had two dimly-lit bulbs.
Hari has a weird tale
to tell after his official visit to Bastar district in Madhya Pradesh, where he
meets Meera and her family. But was she actually a spirit?
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My friend Hari is an active member at an NGO, which works for the impoverished. His job involves going to villages and small towns to look after and implement development projects.
In one of his assignments, he happened to be working in a remote village in Madhya Pradesh’s Bastar district, whose name he doesn’t even remember. Well, kind of a village that would be a horror story writer’s paradise.