By: Ganesh Saili
Zakir had had enough. Haggard, stinking of fear and turpentine, for fear too has a strong scent, he whispered, ‘There is ‘something’ there!’ A petty contractor, he had been working on an abandoned house, when all his workers ran off.
‘What’s ‘something’?’ I asked.
Nervously looking over his shoulder, he shivered and said, ‘The gate creaked open on its own; the ladder began to slide on its own.
‘We went inside and bolted the door, when we heard the sound of running water, as if someone was in the shower. We looked. There was no one there. And so we ran.’
Had he been spooked by the spirits of the past? This much I know: that often our history gets buried under repeated lies, and Mussoorie-Landour has been called the ghost capital of the hills. Trying to pin the tail on this donkey, I visit the Landour cemetery. Of course, no roll of thunder, crash of cymbals, or even a feeling of unease ensue. It floats silently on the clouds, a testament to the firm belief that, in this lost corner, death was not the end. It seems to be moving around restlessly. Oftener than not, history turns its flickering lamp and stumbles along the trail of the past, when the phantoms catch up with me.
Monsoon sees the mist wrap itself amongst the trees, throwing large shadows onto the clouds. In the golden hour, magic for photographers, the Brocken Spectre can sometimes appear – an unnerving apparition as your shadow jumps onto the clouds and floats with a life of its own. Before the hordes of tourists arrived, every abandoned house had the reputation of having its resident ghost: the Clock Tower’s Bhootwali Kothi on Oak Road or the Haunted House. Could you have blamed our rusty tin roofs that creaked and groaned with temperature variations? Like the Cantonment Office set up by Colonel Young in 1827 where, a hundred and more years later, you would have found my father sitting at his desk, working late into the night.
‘Be careful! Don’t step out!’ Ram Singh, the old chowkidar warned, adding: ‘There’s a phantom in the sky with an escort of bats that slide down this roof – stay inside, boy!’
But I would be out like a shot at the faintest sound of rustling on the roof but would find nothing there – except for the breeze teasing the low branches of the spruce trees.
And then there was Bhoot Aunty – believe me, that’s what the taxi drivers called her. ‘One stormy night, the car she was riding in went over the edge,’ Jasbir Rawat, a taxi driver tries to explain. ‘She’d survived the wreck – indeed, she was the first to be pulled out, but by the time the rescuers returned, she was dead. Shock did her in, or at least that’s what I believe.’
‘If you see her, don’t look into her eyes. Avoid her! If you give her a lift, you would risk ending up at the bottom of the khud!’
Or take Camel’s Back Road, where few could go past the lychgate without seeing lovers holding hands. It used to have a sprinkling of ghosts until holy men shifted their summer palaces up here. Then every self-respecting spirit fled. Or take the churails of Mackinnon Cart Road, with their feet pointing backwards, accosting you and giving chase up to the gates of Company Bagh, where the fencing along the roadside would halt their dream advance.
The other evening, after dining with my merry publisher, Pramod Kapoor, I bravely meandered home, thinking nothing of the dog of uncertain origin who attached itself to me. Together we went past Cobbler’s Perch – where craftsmen once plied their trade of making belts, saddles, and shoes for the Redcoats at the Convalescent Depot.
Did I hear echoes of hammer-on-awl beating leather? Or was it my own heart thumping? Turning the corner, I glanced over my shoulder, seeking the company of my newfound canine friend. But he had timed it well and had vanished.
Perhaps our redemption lies in the hordes that invade us.
Ganesh Saili born and home-grown in the hills belongs to those select few whose words are illustrated by his pictures. Author of two dozen books; some translated into twenty languages, his work has found recognition worldwide.
