STORIES OF MYSTERIOUS ENCOUNTERS - 2 

PHANTOM OF THE OLD BUNGALOW - Part 1 of 2.

By NASIR ALI.

Many people will refer to this event as one involving Poltergeists or mischievous ghosts, but I would not call it that.  This is a true narrative minus the horror drama splattered with gore. 

In the early 1950s, my father bought an old but reasonably-sized bungalow in the heart of Mumbai. The bungalow is set back from the main road on a large piece of land with other properties. To the east of the site walls, were fields for growing seasonal crops.

By the time we arrived there, there was a watchman who used to look after the security of the bungalow. No, he was not the filmy-looking caretaker they usually show in Indian movies and TV channels. He was a middle-aged person and he lived there with his wife and a child of ten. I still remember that his name was Gangaram. As the new owner, my dad told him to continue his job. He was tasked with securing the building as well as the storage area on the ground floor which, among other things, housed a variety of traditional antique furniture elegantly crafted from high-quality teak. 

As the years passed, my dad felt the need to increase his income. The only other way was to build more rooms in the huge unused attic as large and as high as the first floor.  It was a huge task to put the attic in order. There was no floor and no natural light. The entrance to this attic was by a single-foot wide iron ladder that was installed from the first floor to the small opening on the attic so that one had to climb up to land on the attic. Many X-shaped wooden props of pure teak were used to support the roof structure that was laden with too many layers of tiles of clay.  At the northern and southern end of the attic, there was a small terrace, open to the sky, which could only accommodate a few persons. The entrance to the terrace was so low that you had to crawl on all fours to enter.

Immense darkness even during the day made it well-nigh impossible to walk across the attic without the torchlight!  Since hardly anyone visited the attic for any reason, there were lots of cobwebs and dust around.  Those who made the attic their home included innocent pigeons, owls, and one homeless person - Qasim!

Qasim was a frail middle-aged person with thinning hair and a broad forehead. What I found unique to his personality were his long strong nails that were almost like the beak of a parrot. He used to be a ‘Lakhpati’ or millionaire during the last days of the British Raj. During his hay days, he was addicted to smoking, drinking imported brands, and moving about in his own DeSoto. This was the introduction my father had given me about him. What he did not tell was filled in by Qasim himself. He had whiled away his time and money in the company of starlets of the growing Indian film industry and the fair-skinned beauties.  Evidently, the guy had squandered all his wealth, fallen upon evil days, and was reduced entirely to penury.  Qasim’s bearings and speech did give a hint about his glorious past about which he often talked to me.   Often, I wondered how Qasim never felt frightened of sleeping alone at night in the spooky attic where one would not dare to step even during the day.

As the renovation began, the iron ladder was removed and the opening sealed. A gate was built on the attic and a proper staircase was built from the first floor to this entrance. The props were removed for transforming the attic into an open hall or space.

The weight on the roof was lightened up by removing the unnecessary layers of clay tiles. In this huge open space, rooms were built but after doing the flooring job. Since not all the flooring work was done, a long wooden plank was placed on the joist from the entrance to these rooms. Since the plank was long it bent a little under the weight of the person walking on the plank. 

At the foot of the staircase that led to the first floor, a small dais was also built in one corner, adjacent to the walls, where some elderly persons often used to sit to while away their time. Those were the days when there was no TV and even the programmes aired on the radio went silent before midnight. As a result, our tenants used to sleep early by about 10 or 11 p.m.

Now it so happened that a new tenant rented a room on the first floor. Unknown to us, he was a bootlegger who sold Desi liquor in his room. Later, when we came to know about his illegal activities on the building premises, I took a strong objection and even lodged a police complaint. A verbal quarrel ensued between us and it could have progressed to physical assault had not my father intervened.  Now, this incident assumed significance in light of what transpired immediately the next day.

The next day, I was surprised to see the bootlegger.   As usual, he was topless, with only shorts.  His naked upper torso showed marks of bruises and swellings.  Evidently, he had been beaten up black and blue.    He could hardly walk. His neck was sprained so that his head tilted at an angle of 45 degrees. It was a pitiable sight. He had a strange story to narrate.  According to him, the night before, he was drunk as a skunk.  After strolling about, he went to the foot of the staircase that led up to the second floor. There he sat on the dais. (See inset)

It was already after midnight and all was silent and still in the building since everyone had gone to bed. However, he didn’t remember when he fell asleep there and would have remained there till morning if he had not woken up by a violet slap to his face and hard blows to his body. There were no lights on the staircase and he could not see his assailant. Worst of all, he could not even catch hold of him. It was as if some invisible entity was giving him the thrashing of his life. His screams were of no avail.  After he was lifted up and thrown down on the dais, the blows stopped and whoever it was, went away. This gave him a chance to scram home limping, bewildered, and shaken up.

He narrated the story unabashedly and sincerely, and I listened to him with rapt attention, almost to the point of pitying him. I felt that there were some grains of truth to it. The bootlegger was not a person who could be afraid of getting into any kind of scuffle with any person. However, the fear on his face, his tilted head that resulted from the severely sprained neck, as well as the bruise marks on his body were enough tell-tale signs to prove that what he had narrated was the solemn truth. There was no reason or interest for him to lie! I decided to check with the watchman whether he had seen any outsiders during the night.

Upon my inquiries, the watchman said he hadn’t seen any outsiders the night before.  I related to him about what I had heard from the said tenant. He was not in the least surprised. According to him, the bungalow had been lying unused and vacant for a long period. So, when he was appointed by the erstwhile owner as a Security Guard or a caretaker, he used to hear lots of strange noises and footsteps as if someone was walking about in the bungalow. Initially, he used to be very scared. However, he took everything in his strides and never bothered to upset the equation. He was not harmed. Thus, assured he had called his wife and the child to stay with him. He admitted that sometimes he saw an apparition walking past upstairs well after midnight. From the description given by him, this apparition was visible in a white cloak, shrouded in mystery.   

Over time, the bungalow had gained notoriety as the haunted house and hardly anyone had dared to purchase the bungalow that was offered at the rock-bottom price. 

“Saab, is liye is ko Bhoot Bangla boltaa hai. Kashaala ik.Re aale tumhee?” he blurted in Marathi.

I had no time to explain to him why we had come to stay in the Bungalow. However, based on his anecdotal and visual evidence, I was persuaded to believe the bootlegger. The bootlegger was probably beaten up for two reasons: One, he had, perhaps, slept in such a way that he had obstructed the path of the apparition; and two, he was dead drunk which was not liked by it and so it gave him a sound thrashing as a warning. I inferred that perhaps this apparition was the soul of some holy person who did not like people obstructing his path in the state of "najas" or impurity.  Nor could it be a Jinn since the source was a grave. 

Now curiosity got the better hold of me and I began to frequent the first floor’s staircase after midnight when all was quiet, in the fond hope that perhaps I would catch a glimpse of the apparition. I even lighted some joystick for fragrance.  However, after a few nights, I gave up those nocturnal rounds because I was spooked by the eeriness and negative vibes that the ambience had generated.


Continued in Part 2….

 

NASIR ALI.