The Ghost of '23B'

‘Balai Niwas’, the house that is popular with all the centers that provide cooks and house-helps. Since my childhood years, all I have seen is maids and cooks changing regularly. Their stories are mostly intriguing. These househelps have had such terrific encounters that a journal dedicated to them can be easily maintained. The range of incidents that have taken place in our household varies on a scale from humorous till weird.

Some of the humorous incidents are:

1. One of our cooks would often cook pakoras, pack them in newspapers and throw these parcels to their boy-friends in the compound opposite our house.
   
   

2. Another maid would frequently ask my mother for her permission to go out and eat ‘phuchkas’ (pani-puri), but was unfortunately caught walking hand-in-hand with her lover in the park next door by the famous detective- ‘young sourav’.
   
   

3. Apparently, the ‘aaya’ who took care of me when I was an infant, was once caught sitting on the lap of our chauffeur while she ‘French-kissed him’. 

Some of the weird incidents are:

1. We fired a cook because she apparently could not hold her urine and would urinate on our roof top.
   
   

2. One of them had a complex issue and she declared herself to be my rightful sister and would throw tantrums when my sister visited our home. 
   
   

3. One of them had a knack of eating out of the snacks that I had bought for myself; her favorite snack from my collection was ‘salted cashews’.
   
   

4. One night, I went up to the dining room to grab a quick bite. But what I ended up catching was my maid and cook feeling each other up in their beds.
   
   

No matter how different each one was from another, one thing united them all: they all gained kilos and more kilos. They all came in skinny and left when they became fat. Those that walked in being fat, left when they became completely obese and unable to move freely. The most common issue reported by the fatter women was that they all struggled walking and climbing up the stairs (as our kitchen is on the floor above).

So without wasting further time explaining about the weird people who have worked for us, let me take you straight to the title of this story- ‘the ghost of 23B’

23B, Ekbalpore Lane is the address of ‘Balai Niwas’, the house that my grandfather- a renowned government contractor- built for his family. He built 23A on behalf of his brother (we share a common wall between these houses), and built 23C on behalf of his best friend, Mr. Banerjee.

 

Till date, there have been a total of 3 deaths in our house. My grandfather was the first one to depart. The night before his death, he had been chatting with his friends till midnight when my grandmother yelled at him, “Will you not let me sleep tonight?” Hearing this, his friends got the cue that they needed to leave. They hurriedly left home that night only to realize that it was the last time they saw him breathe. By the time they got back in the morning, grandfather’s lifeless body was already out on the street, ready to be taken to the crematorium. Grandfather had a cardiac arrest in the early hours of the morning and left this world peacefully. This incident took place when my father was 12 years old.

Grandmother on the other hand, wasn’t that fortunate. None of us actually knew her date of birth but we assumed that she was 92 in December 2014. She had fallen down and broken her foot and became bed ridden for the last 8 years of her life; she lived the last 4 years like a vegetable, unable to express her pain and suffering added on by the bed-sores. She mostly murmured the name of my estranged uncle, whenever her senses came back like fleeting memories. My aunt (father’s sister) was the sibling who was most attached to grandma. Grandma somehow did not like her as much and blamed her for supporting my father over my uncle. My aunt had always made it a point to be by my grandma’s side whenever her health deteriorated, but as irony would have it, when grandma passed away, there was no one by her side except her aaya and the cook. My entire family including my aunt and her daughters were having a gala time vacationing in Thailand. I was at my office working on a new project when I got the news that she breathed her last. I came back home to find that my cook had managed to identify my grandma’s moment of passing and was able to put water in her mouth as per Hindu traditions.  

Apart from my grandparents, the only other death that this house witnessed was that of a househelp back in the year 1987, before I was born. ‘Kalpana’, our maid, was not the regular feminine type. She could easily beat up men on the street. She could carry a sack of onions and another sack of potatoes, each weighing over 10 kilos on her back and climb 3 floors without breaking a sweat. Her appetite was as large as her physique and would perform all the physically straining activities that were offloaded to her by my mother and grandmother with ease and grace. My sister was due to turn one in the next month and my father had planned the rice ceremony for her. Kalpana was excited and elated. She declared that on the day of the ceremony, she would eat until she dies. On the day of the ceremony, she was unstoppable. Mother tried to reason with her but failed as she continued to eat. Finally, she stopped chewing, but she collapsed and her mouth filled with rice remained motionless. Everyone present was shocked to see the lifeless body of Kalpana. Father sought help from other people who were present at this ceremony to carry the body down, so that she could be taken to the hospital for possible revival, but the doctor declared her dead on arrival. The cause of death was asphyxiation.

Now I can not say for sure whose soul did not make it through to the other world, but I have a strong feeling that it was Kalpana’s. Since my childhood, I have been exceptionally brave. I never really believed in ghosts and was definitely not scared of the concept either. With all the chatter of ghost stories by my classmates, I made sure not to be a complete disbeliever as well. Since I was in Shimla for my education, each year I would get back home in the month of December for the winter break. Later at night during such breaks, I would often hear the movement of metallic chairs in the floor below that comprised our office. I would simply write off these noises as rodents’ nuisance till I took over my grandma’s room in 2018.

My father that year was often complaining that he had been seeing apparitions of someone dressed in white looking at him as he slept. He would feel that there was someone/ something that was constantly following him in the early hours of the day (as he is an early riser). We would rarely take his fears seriously. But one day, it was my girlfriend who brought something interesting to my notice. Since my girlfriend and I would call and speak with each other every night, when either of us felt sleepy, we would just wish the other good night but not hang up the call. On one such night, I had fallen asleep, and the next morning my girlfriend informed me that she had heard an equi-distant thumping for about 5 minutes. I still hadn’t felt the need to inform father about our findings, but one such instance made me accept that probably whatever father had felt was right and that I needed to inform him about my experience as well. 

One night, I had fallen asleep. In my sleep, I felt my blanket slowly move over my body from the left to right; gently brushing against the hair on my arms, as if someone was caressing me. My sleep ended abruptly due to that sensation and my mind which was active by then was finding plausible excuses to justify the sensation: ‘Maybe you were dreaming’, ‘What you felt was not true’, ‘There is no such thing as a ghost’. I kept my eyes closed and reassured myself that now that I was awake, I would feel no such thing. Within 30 seconds of that thought, the blanket moved again, softly brushing against the hair of my arms. That is when I sat up, opened my eyes, and switched on the lights. There was nothing to be seen- no apparitions- just a weird sensation showcasing paranormal activity. I got my courage back and told myself that if I could sleep alone in my house the night grandma passed away, this is nothing to endure. Saying this, I went back to sleep.

Next morning, I narrated this incident to my father, who was relieved to note that he was not the only one in the house to have felt this way. So he brought a priest home who had some experience handling paranormal incidents. The priest suggested that a ‘havan’ be done at our house and the date for the same was set. On the chosen date, the priest brought 7 other priests who set up the havan on the rooftop which was the floor above ours. Apart from the rooftop, the floor above comprises a store room, dining area (where the maids and cooks sleep), and kitchen; along with the temple room, another storeroom that is adjacent to the dining area.

Once the ‘havan’ was over, the priest came down to our floor and sprinkled ‘shanti jal’ all over the apartment. He asked my mother to get rid of the wooden figurehead of a deer that I had fixed on one of the walls of my bedroom. Apparently things such as those attract ominous  energies into this world.

The paranormal activity seemed to have quietened down after the havan as none of us ended up complaining about it. 

A year later, I got married to my girlfriend. The ghost, who had by then found some kind of peace and solace took note of this new development and was definitely not pleased with this change. I guess it was angry that it was not cordially invited to attend the wedding, so it would show its displeasure by pacing up and down in the storage room that was located right above our bedroom. Our househelps who were sleeping right next to the storage room would sleep blissfully through the actions of the ghost and here we were wide awake, taking account of its daily workout regime of running and stomping periodically every single night. One such night, the ghost felt like it needed some change from its regular workout regime and focussed its energy on cooking instead. It found our grindstone (Sil Batta) among the other utensils present in our store room, and went on and on grinding ghostly ingredients.

My wife and I listened intently to the foreign sound coming from upstairs.

“What do you think this sound is?” I asked my wife. After a long pause, she replied, “I think it is the sound of ‘Sil Batta’.

“Wow! This is a pleasant change” I smirked. “Tomorrow morning, I will go to the store room to see if our cook keeps the ‘Sil Batta’ there.

The next morning, detective ‘Now-fully-grown-up Sourav’ went upstairs to investigate the crime scene. And to his shock and surprise, the Sil Batta was present at the exact spot where the sound had originated from. Questions were asked to the cook, “When was the last time you used the sil batta?”

“Yesterday morning,” she replied.

“Do you keep the store room access door shut or open each night?”

“We shut it before going to bed”

The conversation with the cook suddenly made me realize that this ghost itself is a form of energy just like us. What if it visits the house each night and feels trapped in the store room as we shut the access door. That would justify the angry pacing and the running around and dropping utensils. So that night, I instructed the househelps and informed my mother that we should keep the store room door open. Guess what? There was no sound; no activity that would disturb us. The ghost got what it wanted- some time at our house and an easy way out from there.

From that day till now, there have been no further instances of paranormal activity as the ghost of 23B is now happy.

That is the nature of life on Earth. We feel immortal as we go to sleep, knowing well that we will wake up tomorrow. We wage wars, fight and quarrel for petty things knowing for certain that tomorrow awaits. But can we be sure that there is a tomorrow? My grandfather surely did not know, and my bed-ridden grandmother probably wished that she breathed her last earlier than she did. Kalpana for one, died doing what she thought would be the end of her life. 

And here we are, living our lives by trying to evade our emotions, over-burdening ourselves with work and stressing about money and success. I sincerely hope that the ghost of 23B has moved on to the next world and has found eternal bliss wherever it now resides.