It is the peak of winter in the Garhwal mountains and one comes across groups of mountain folk sitting around bonfires and narrating many an interesting tale including some which can make one’s blood curdle with terror in the long winter nights! Having lived in this part of the country for many years, I have come across some extremely scary stories some of which I do not like to recall at night.
In these mountains and dales, stories of haunted homes, haunted valleys and meetings with “Daayans” (witches) and “Daits” (demons) are as common as the little tea shops on the winding mountain roads. Bodies are cremated by the riverside and ashes thrown into the river. People in the mountains believe that this causes a lot of “atmaas’ to wander in the areas nearby.
Talk to any local and you can get at least half a dozen stories related to the supernatural. Some are imagined, some overheard and some experienced in a state between sleep and wakefulness. But all are equally intriguing and quite horrifying.
Families who now live in Dehradun, having shifted here from the mountain villages, recount strange stories related to spirits. One of the tales I have heard from a family I know well is:
A night stroll with Chachaji
Om Prakash Sharma, the head of this family, regaled us with a story to which he was a witness as a young man living in the hill village.
“My cousin, Dev Dutt came back home to the village after a year from the town in the plains where he was working in a bank.The bus reached quite late and just as he got down at Sanglakoti bus stand, he met his old neighbour and they both began walking towards their village, talking of this and that.”
The neighbour, whom Dev Dutt knew as “Chacha”, gave him the latest news about the village and also thanked his stars that he had met him as he hated to walk back home alone in the middle of the night. They took leave of each other once they reached the village .The elderly man went inside his house while Dev Dutt, whose house was further up in the village, reached home and was welcomed by his mother. It was a surprise visit and the members of the family were overjoyed to see him after a gap of a year.
As he was having his dinner, his mother asked him whether he came home alone from the bas stand or was there another villager on the bus, he replied that he had met “Bishan Chacha” and they had walked home together. Hearing this, the mother dropped the roti she was making and sat down on the floor with a scream.” He died two months ago!”, she cried.
Says Om Prakash Sharma , “There was panic in the house and I woke up to a lot of noise and crying. My aunt feared that Dev Dutt would be soon taken away by Bishan’s spirit. She called the neighbours in and everyone began trying their own remedies to rectify the damage. Ash from the temple agarbattis was smeared on his forehead and several mantras chanted throughout the night”
“Till today, Dev Dutt has not forgotten the little stroll he enjoyed with Bishan Chacha that night !”
Living with a Lady Spirit !
Another tale was narrated to me by my friend’s mother Beena Rawat. She told me about her grandfather’s brother, a widower with two sons, who lived in Kaljikhal near Pauri and was well-versed in all the mantras required to keep spirits under one’s control.” He was the only one in the village who was never afraid of spirits or daayans. One night, he was returning from a wedding in a nearby village when a “bhootni” began following him. He sensed it immediately and began chanting his special mantras to overpower the “lady”. He brought her home and she began living there as his wife. She was domesticated and performed all the household chores besides working in the fields.
“During the harvesting season, she used to call her ‘friends’ during the night and the entire crop would be done overnight!”, she exclaimed, while claiming that she has cousins who are descendants of this half human, half ghost family. “Two sons were born to this lady and my grand uncle. Their children come to meet us even today. They are quite normal and nice human beings”, she says with disarming simplicity.
The “lady bhoot” who was her grand aunt never spoke a word in all the years that she lived in the village. It is a belief in the hills that once a ghost who is living among humans tries to speak, its existence comes to an end.
“One day, when my grand aunt was in the fields, my grand uncle hid away the chakla and belan.When she returned home, she looked all around for them but in vain. When her husband refused to tell her, she tried to speak and strange sounds came out of her mouth.Within minutes, she was reduced to a pile of bones” ,says this master storyteller who says she has grown up in the presence of quite a few friendly neighbourhood spirits who even come and inform village homes if they see their cattle straying away at night .
“One of my bhabis died young and used to come back home every evening to have a look at her little ones. She even helped us around the house,” she tells me with a straight face.
Such spooky tales do the rounds every winter in the hills and also in the homes of hill folk in the Doon valley. They are great for making one sweat in the chill of December and January. You alternate between sweating and shivering.Spine chilling stories, sometimes straight from the horse’s mouth!