
I concluded , my Saturday night , watching the English horror flick, ‘The conjuring’ . Well , I was spooked out , though not to the ‘level’ I expected. In fact ,that night I decided against sleeping in my bedroom ,which is on the first floor , not because I ‘WAS’ scared , but because ‘I was scared by the prospect of being scared !’….
I have always been fascinated with anything to do with the paranormal – books, movies, real life stories…anything that has an element of horror in it , ( but spare me those, that involve blood and gore ! )
The very word ‘paranormal’ , sends a chill down my spine..yet it is a word that arouses my interest and thrills me to the core ! ( Am not sure , if I would feel the same , when I actually, come face to face with a ghost ! )
Today morning , one of my friends on facebook ,happened to put up a post , narrating ,the paranormal experience of a family friend . That is what got me thinking , and I decided ,that it was time ,I penned down my thoughts on the same , and probably even narrate a few experiences !
Though my family has never been the excessively conservative or superstitious lot , they have had their share of unearthly stories , to relate and I am always all ears………..
My paternal grandfather was a District Collector , and his job ,having been a transferable one , took him to different parts of the state. Most of these houses ( owned by the government ) were old , belonging to the British era and told their own story. Among them ,there was one , a palatial bungalow , previously owned by the British, which had a ‘ballroom‘ where the British officers used to dance ,with their ladies. Members of the family claim to have heard sounds of dance and music , coming from that age old ‘ball room’ , while they were residing there….The truth of it , still a mystery..
There was another haunted house ,they happened to stay in , the stories of which , my father and his siblings never tire of narrating . And they were a little spine-tingling , to say the least. Incidents of someone , swinging them , nudging at their toes while sleeping, on a particular cement seating ( like a platform ) in the night etc were common , during their stay in the house…Once my grandmother , going into the kitchen , to cook breakfast ,at dawn , saw the apparition of a woman inside . Mistaking it for her sister-in-law , my grandmother did some ‘small talk’ with this ‘entity’, and without waiting to see her face ,left the kitchen , only to see her sister-in-law , standing outside . Petrified , she enquired about it from her , only to learn that latter hadn’t visited the kitchen ,as yet !

Further investigations revealed ,that the owner of the house had died in an accident in another city , following which his wife and daughters had decided to give up their lives too……..Whether their depressed souls , went on to become ‘spirits’ , that would haunt the house , for eternity ,only god would know !
I have not , in actual physical terms , encountered ,what one would label ,in our world as a ‘spectre’ or a ‘ghost’.. But , if feeling ,or sensing their presence was enough to satisfy our curious minds , then perhaps , I have…………
This happened about eleven years back…When I was pursuing by degree in sociology and wasn’t married………We had just shifted base ,from ‘Delhi’ ( the Indian capital ) ,to Kerala , my native state. After a long, tedious process of house hunting , my parents settled on one…….It was a decent bungalow ( not so much to our tastes ,as our own house , many districts away in the north of Kerala ) , yet something we could make do , for the few years that we would be here. Soon ,we moved in… From the the very first time that we stepped into the house , we were infused with an inexplicable , queer feeling of unease…The house , though spacious , was a little dark and gloomy inside . The musty smell that hit us , as soon as we entered ,was overpowering. As we settled down in the house , something did not seem right. Some kind of negative energy surrounded us . Though , it didn’t so much affect us ,as it did my father and to some extent ,my mother . Ever since we moved in ,my father had slept little …Whatever sleep he got was troubled . My mom ,for the first time in her life , forgot the verses of a prayer she had been chanting since childhood ( and that was enough to convince her of ‘ an unwanted presence’ ! )
I , too ,felt as though I was being watched all the time , that creepy feeling you get when someone is staring at you ,even if you have your back turned to them !!! ( but yeah ,you could call it a figment of my imagination too ! )
When things got a little too much , ( my parents having consulted a family astrologer who asked them to vacate the house immediately ) , we decided to move out. On the last day ,while bidding farewell to our ‘not so friendly’ neighbours , they asked us if anything went wrong..Confused,my parents asked them about it…Their stories , tallied .
The truth was out…The owner’s wife had apparently ,committed suicide there ,following which anyone who came to stay in the house , could not do so for too long ,owing to an accident or some other unpleasant incident befalling them !
By that logic , we had escaped the ill fate of the previous tenants , by God’s grace……..
I do not know if there are anything called ghosts , in real life…But ,after this incident , I did start believing in ,what I would rather call a ‘NEGATIVE ENERGY’… just as I believe there is a ‘Positive energy’ , which we call God………..
As for me , these uncanny experiences ,continue to provide , a sense of thrill and of course , more topics to write on !
Has any of you encountered similar ‘ghostly’ experiences ? What is your take on the subject of ‘ghosts and paranormal ‘ ? Are these supposed ‘spirits’ for real , or are they merely the works of an overactive imagination….? Do fill me in ,with your feedbacks and stories…………
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