For most of you, the word ‘Ghost’ is associated with fear, tragedy or some sort of paranormal activity. What other feeling could you associate with the word ‘ghost’? Could you think a bit? What came up in your mind? Eeriness? Horror? Black magic? Tragedy? Well, a plethora of feelings would follow as you think deeper and deeper. But for me, it is a mixed feeling; a feeling that is so complex, a feeling that has taught me so much, a feeling that I am unable to explain with a single word. Are you interested in knowing more about it? If so, read further about my journey to the Bhangarh Fort near Alwar in Rajasthan.
For those you who ask me, what’s the connection between the ‘Ghost’ and a ‘Fort’? Well, Bhangarh Fort is touted to be the most haunted place in India.
I happened to visit the Bhangarh Fort in Rajasthan as part of our educational tour during my Masters Programme. This tour not only had a mix of destinations rich with history, culture and vivid landscapes, but also an element of fear when decided to include Bhangarh Fort in the itinerary. The very thought of visiting a haunted place kindled in me a number of questions. Will I be able to see a ghost? Will there be people around? Will every one of us come back alive? and what not! Soon a stream of questions and thoughts that I could not even imagine in my weirdest of dreams followed. Even before we set out on our trip, everyone had done their fair share of research on Bhangarh. Over the next few days the entire class discussed only on ghosts and the tales associated with Bhangarh Fort.
On a cold December morning we started on our hundred kilometre trip from the town of Alwar towards Bhangarh Fort located in the fringes of Sariska Tiger Reserve. As the day progressed, the sun slowly started to show up. The mix of sunshine in the mildly existing cold wave conditions not only provided the much needed lighting but also kept us warm and comfortable.
The calm and relaxed afternoon at the village of Bhangarh woke up to the noises created by a group of 70 odd students in our young twenties. For me, who has lived most of my life in a metropolitan city, the village looked desolate. Apart from a few thatched huts, a small concrete structure housing ASI’s office that doubled up as the ticket counter and a few goats, all that we could see were mustard fields mushrooming with bright yellow flowers set against the backdrop of the rocky Aravalli Mountains, giving the landscape a rustic bright yellow-brown flavour.
We proceeded a little further beyong the village to reach the parking lot of the fort. All was well until now, when suddenly a few students protested against getting down from the bus fearing the ghosts. But with little comforting words from few of us and the commitment of everyone to stay together, they soon agreed to get down.
As we made our way into the fort, the boards warning tourists of legal action against staying in the fort beyond sunset was enough to raise everyone’s eyebrows. Anyhow, all ASI monuments would be closed by sunset and this fort was no exception. Though fact remains a fact, this was enough to slightly increase the heartbeat of the already frightened souls. Never mind, we made our way further into the fort only to be greeted by hordes of monkeys and a handful of local vendors selling wild berries. Contrary to our expectations, there were quite a few tourists, nevertheless far from creating any sort of visual pollution as the multi storeyed fort partly dwelling into the Aravallis was quite large and expansive. The walls of the fort perfectly blended with the backdrop creating great scope for photography.
Our further movement into the fort was fuelled by jokes and teases. But after a point, we realized that moving in a large group was time consuming and most of us did not enjoy seeing the place. The girls who had initially restrained from visiting the fort understood the difficulty and agreed to visit the place in smaller groups. My new group had a total of seven people comprising of three girls and four boys.
Among all the groups, ours was the most adventurous. The sense of adventure and the quest for exploring the beauty of the 17th century ruins took us deep into the areas of the fort that were far away from the usual tourist track. I along with two more girls were more interested in taking perfect shots whereas the other members of our group were only interested in moving faster. This ended up with the group further split into two – the group of ‘photo fanatics’ comprising myself and two more girls and the group of ‘Superfast explorers’ with three boys and one girl.
We, the photo fanatics climbed atop the fort in the quest for taking more postcard perfect shots. The exercise took a considerable time which also meant that we were now left alone. There was nobody around us. But the desire to capture the beauty of this rustic wonderland overcame our fears and inhibitions and we started enjoying our time. The views from the top was very convincing. The sight of the brown ground far below and the clear blue skies up above instantly gave birth to the quote, ‘Blue Sky, I am so High!’ This quote later became so much synonymous with our friendship.
As we moved further, we kept teasing and making fun of each other and discussed on each other’s interests and hobbies. Never did we share our thoughts so much with each other. In fact, my relationship with these girls were very formal until then. A new friendship was being born! After a while, I just had the idea to prank my new friends, I said that I had just then spotted the silhouette of a person next to them. However, they brushed it aside. But I kept repeating my words every now and then so that I could become successful at my prank attempt.
As the conversation grew, our topics of discussion slowly turned from hobbies and interests to cinema to gossips and then ended up with ghosts. The idea of discussing ghost stories at what was touted to be India’s most haunted place thrilled us. We started with ghostly tales associated with Bhangarh and then soon the creativity in us took over in sharing our own spooky stories. All was well, until when we reached a partly covered and moderately dark corner of the fort, when suddenly one of the girls claimed to have spotted the silhouette of a person just behind me. I brushed it off as I found it as an extended version of creativity. Or may be a pranked played on me in my very own style? Hey, but wait, when I laughed at her, she just said, ‘Wont you believe me?’ in a chilling voice and her hands trembled and tears started rolling down her eyes. I understood that she wasn’t pranking at me. Did she see a ghost? Do ghosts really exist? Should I turn buck to see what was it? What if that was a ghost? And what to do if it possessed me? A range of thoughts broke in my mind like a whirlwind. But a little rational analysis convinced me that she must have had an illusion or her brain would have been tricked as we were speaking about ghosts for a considerable amount of time.
Whatever it was, the decision was to get back to our bus was the wisest. Two steps towards the exit took us to an open space within the fortified walls. The place was filled with sunshine. When we kept our third step, the bright surroundings turned dark. We stopped short and looked into each other’s emotionless faces. When we looked up, we were relieved to find out that large clouds had covered the sun. Having a sigh of relief, we kept our fourth step, and even before we completed our fifth step, all three of us saw the silhouette of something unrecognizable. Our faces turned red, our hearts skipped a beat, tears rolled out and our legs trembled.
Was it a ghost? We cursed ourselves for not staying with the group. We cursed our fate. We cursed our ghost stories. We did not know what to do other than appealing to our favourite Gods. Well, we resorted to it. While we kept praying, I also kept looking at the silhouette where as my now not so brave female companions closed their eyes as tightly as they could. Much to my relief, in the next few seconds, I figured out that the silhouette was that of a monkey. The monkey soon moved past and so did the silhouette. My female companions still kept their eyes closed and uttered “Muruga, Muruga, Muruga…” referring to the Hindu God Murugan. I slowly called out their names, but they were deeply absorbed into their prayers.
Their eyes slowly opened when I gently touched their hands. I said, “Relax, it was nothing but just the silhouette of a monkey. We shall go now. I am there to tackle any problem.” We held our hands together as we started to move. Our initial super slow steps soon picked up pace.
Once we came out of the fort, we made a dashing run towards our bus at speeds that could challenge that of Usain Bolt’s. The whole class along with three faculty members eagerly welcomed us with their choice of lovely words. The girls just broke down and soon everyone understood that something was not right. The faculty members tried to pacify them but in vain. The girls replied that we were held hostage by a ghost and it was because of me that they were alive. The entire crowd was speechless. It was then I realized that they both still believed that the silhouette was only that of a ghost. Then I said, “let us first leave this place and not talk anything until we reach our next destination”. Everyone agreed to this and the next minute, we were on our way to Alwar railway station to board our overnight train to Jodhpur. I decided to keep myself cool but even before the bus exited the village of Bhangarh, everyone pestered me to reveal what had happened. I lost my temper and burst out in anger which made the next three-hour bus ride to Alwar super silent.
At around 20.45 hours, we boarded the Delhi – Jaisalmer Express to Jodhpur. Just as I was about to hit my berth, one of the two girls approached me and said, “We should have believed you. We thought you tried to prank us. Only when we ourselves saw the silhouette, we understood that you had indeed spotted a ghost. We are sorry. Without you it would have not been possible to get back. Even if the ghost had not killed us, our fears would have.” I felt speechless. I honestly did not know how to react. I just asked her to forget everything and go to sleep and also bid her goodnight.
The lights were turned off and soon everyone in my bay fell asleep. That night I had many strange thoughts in my mind. Few questions like, Am I responsible for the whole incident? How could I prank somebody without minding the consequences? Should I now tell the truth? Or should I not? If I say the truth would they believe? If they knew about the truth, how would they react? More such thoughts that revolved in my mind kept me awake the whole night. By morning, I felt guilty. But wasn’t sure if I should apologize.
In the morning, I dialled up my best friend in Chennai, and shared the incident. He suggested me to leave it as such. He also convinced me saying that I did not do anything wrong and there was absolutely no need for me to be guilty. Was he right? I honestly do not know, but his words comforted me so much that I finally started to get rid of the feel of guilt.
Later, in the afternoon, I somehow, managed to convince the faculty that we had fallen prey to illusion. The faculty members consoled and cheered us up while also schooled us on the importance of staying with the group. I just went with the flow. By now, what the faculty believed was taken as the truth. That evening, I told the girls that our creative yet spooky ghost stories narrated at the wrong place would have tricked us to believe that there was indeed a ghost around us. Both of them were convinced by this theory and soon became normal. But however, I never had the courage to reveal them the truth.
About six years have passed and over these years the bonding between the three of us has grown stronger, thanks to the Ghost of Bhangarh. Despite our strong bonding, I am still hesitant to reveal the truth for the fear of losing our friendship. Though the ‘Ghost of Bhangarh’ haunts me even today, being an optimist, I am still happy, because if not for my prank and the events that unfolded next, we would have never become thick friends. Today, all three of us live in different cities, but all of us catch up on video calls frequently. Our conversation always has this quote ‘Blue Sky, I am so high!’
This incident has impacted me so much. It has taught me to be brave, it has taught me to be considerate, it has taught me to be optimistic and changed my perspective of how I see things, thanks to our educational tour. This was to me, a real educational tour, a tour that has taught me so much beyond the subjects that I studied.
Ever since this incident, the feelings and attributes I associate with ghost are fun, fear, friendship, memories, guilt, and yes definitely the Bhangarh Fort.