“ 15th December 2020 was the day that turned my world upside down. It was the day when I visited my grandmother’s place; a fifty-year-old Haveli in Rajasthan. The old Haveli was beautiful and the numerous rooms were cosy, but it reeked of something supernatural.
It was a coal-black winter night, in the middle of December. After having dinner with my family, I went upstairs, and I was walking alone in the corridors of the Haveli, while listening to my favourite songs on Spotify. It was all going well until I got interrupted by one of those irritating ads, because, of course, I did not have Spotify Premium. So I decided to switch it off, and went to the drawing room where my cousin was sitting on the floor. Both of us had nothing to do so we decided to explore the place.
It was dark and deserted, with just the moonlight guiding us on that frosty December night. We were discussing inconsequential things: “What does the 10% extra constitute in the new Lays packet, the chips or more air?” In the middle of this ‘intellectual’ conversation, we were interrupted by a sudden sound which came from the bushes. My cousin, believing himself to be some action movie hero, stepped towards the bushes confidently, with an exaggerated swagger. Suddenly some bats flew towards him, and he screamed like a banshee. I was laughing so hard, until it was cut short when I saw a person in pale white clothes, standing near an electric pole.
We ran back into the Haveli and entered the first room we could find. The moment we sat on the bed, the antique TV suddenly switched on by itself! We were so scared and nervous. We decided to step out of that room, and we ran towards the main hall. To our horror, a wooden rocking chair was moving all by itself, making a creaking noise. We were so confused and felt completely alone, as our parents were sleeping in a different part of that huge mansion. Added to that was an atmosphere of gloom, with dense fog outside the windows and a cold breeze, prickling our skins with goosebumps. We somehow gathered the courage to go all the way to the opposite end of this huge place, to our parents. But, as soon as we stepped out, we saw a red smudge just outside our room’s door. We ran back inside only to grip ourselves in the blanket tightly as the lingering fear of ghosts kicked in. Somehow, we went to sleep that night, chanting the Hanuman Chalisa, which we did not even know properly.
The next day, we woke up and narrated the previous night’s events to our parents. We discovered that it had been just a white bed sheet hanging on the pole, which was swaying due to the breeze. The mystery behind the ‘ghost-regulated’ TV was that I had accidentally sat on the remote lying on the bed. Later, my grandmother told me that it had been her cat, Ruby, who was sitting on the chair, causing it to creak. Moreover, it had been the leaves of the red-coloured caladium plant that we had mistaken for blood.
We all laughed like buffoons and everyone made fun of us, but only my cousin and I knew how we spent the night in that spooky Haveli. At the end of the day, we realised that it was because of fear in our hearts and superstitions in our minds that we believed that what we experienced was paranormal.
P.S. All the Havelis in Rajasthan are extremely beautiful. They are not haunted (maybe). ”
Radhika Tank is a second-year student of Economics at Indraprastha College for Women
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