These stories happened in my ancestral house in India. Like most of those houses, it is a rambling many-roomed creature with its own emotions and feelings and moods. It is surrounded by lots of land (much of which is now cut up and redeveloped but this story pre-dates that). It has a few (now non-functioning) traditional pools/stone-paved tanks in the back with wide stone steps descending into it. My grand mother, when she was alive (which she was then, otherwise, it would be a double ghost story) was very fond of taking her morning ablutions in one of the pools.
It was an old house, much older than how it really looked, perhaps three or four hundred years old. Its walls resembled leathery skin, tattooed green with moss and alive with age. That memory itself is contradictory, he thought, to associate movement with antiquity. But that is how I remember it. Sections of the house were now divided among the surviving relatives, some of whom took it upon themselves to close it off their parts to others to make apartments for themselves and their decaying dreams. But the fear and loathing that those walls contained was not strong enough to resist the power of the old walls to bring things closer and not apart. I remember running around through all these sections and partitions, much to the chagrin of my elderly aunts. The house was much populated by women, and except for an occasional male that got left behind and cocooned in arrested development, it was a house for older women. They learned to live, happily or otherwise, after their husbands had departed for the netherworld and their children had gone off to build their own nests.
The house also harbored trauma in suicides and murders, in interrupted childhood memories, and abuse and treachery. There was the case of a young girl, not much older than fifteen, killing herself when she found herself to be pregnant. The rumors of her pregnancy milled about the house and it was suspected that it was her own uncle. I never found it interesting to deconstruct these rumors or to delve into them just for the sheer macabre pleasure it offered in a place like that where nothing much happened. Once when a thief broke into the house and was later caught, a story began circulating that he confessed to running away without taking anything of value when the sheer darkness of the place engulfed him with fear.
This was a house haunted.
This was not to suggest that the inhabitants of the house lacked humor or levity. Quite the contrary, they relished in their gaiety with gusto. Unfortunately, it was not the humor most of the people outside the house understood. The humor was as old as its walls, and was nested in parables and stories that were referenced back to many generations.
One early morning, my grandmother woke up and realized that the electricity has gone out and therefore the alarm hadn’t gone off. She assumed it was around 5 AM even though it was dark and decided to get an early start on the day. The old lady was always a creature of habits and in a place as still and unchanging as it was, habits are what set the time for everyone.
In the dark, perhaps with the aid of her torch, she collected her things and walked out to the pool. The air was cool and moist and there was nothing that suggested anything was wrong. The old woman was a strong-willed matriarch, who didn’t suffer fools gladly. For someone who had seen her child die in her arms in a train during partition, bringing her children safely home from Lahore after her husband died, she was not one to be frightened by horror stories and ghosts.
As her eyes adjusted to the feeble light outside, she saw a woman standing outside leaning against a tree. She appeared to be about Seventeen and was dressed in a long shirt that reached past her ankles. The old woman called out to the girl but got no response. It was not easy to get into the compound at night and the presence of a stranger, especially a woman, at that time of the day was a puzzle to her. So she decided to investigate and started walking towards her. She appeared to be about twenty meters away. The woman did not seem to pay any attention to my grand mother as if she was lost in thought. The old woman quickened her pace and was petrified when she realized that no matter how much she walked, the distanced between them remained the same. But she was not the one to give up on a mission so she continues with her walk with even more determination until suddenly she reached a spot and the girl is gone! Poof! The girl didn’t walk off or moved, she just vanished into thin air.
The old woman is startled. This is really too much for her. She looked around and realized that she was at the family cremation plot. Sweating and shivering, she turned around and ran back. Her screams woke up people and she realized it was 2 Am and not 5. She was violently ill when she woke up and had a terrible episode of fever and hysteria.
After much speculation, it was determined that the spot where the apparition disappeared was the same spot where a young woman was cremated decades ago. She was the daughter of a grand uncle from the distant past who lost her life to dysentery or malaria.
I don't know what the rational explanation for all this is, but I am sure there may be one. But having been around characters like my grand mother, I much rather leave all this to what it is, interesting stories.
Ten years later, another story unfolded with the same characters. May be this explained some of it, may be not. All depended on your point of view.
It was the mango season towards the end of summer. The house was full of all sorts of younger people coming home during the break. Whenever there was a lot of wind, ripe mangoes fell from the trees all over the backyard and people spread out in to the backyard to pick them up. My summer vacations were interesting precisely because of these simple pleasures. Mangoes and sugar canes, stealing tender baby tapiocas from under the plants. When summers got over, it was time to go back into the tree-less city with faceless buildings.
That particular night, (Bulwer-Lytton-esque) wind and rain arrived with much gusto. It was probably just about Ten but it was very dark. Mangoes started falling all over the back yard. My young mother and father decided to go out and collect mangoes. They stepped out into the darkness without umbrellas and disappeared. Perhaps their footsteps could be heard in the din of the rain. After some time, the old woman decided to step outside to call out to them. She always wore white much like others who made the rambling house home.
She stepped outside and looked into the night. The rain had subsided slightly and there was an eerie glow of light from the moon hidden behind the clouds. A door somewhere in the building slightly opened, my grand mother turned as she heard the noise. The door got tightly shut just as she turned. The door opened again, hesitantly, and shut just as fast. My grand mother stepped back in and my parents returned with the mangoes and life went on.
The next day, my grand mother's cousin who was staying with her visits them to tell the story thus:
It was a crazy night. I could hear rain falling like crazy. I got up and opened the door when I thought I heard something unusual. I saw a ghost standing on the garden in all white. She was eight, probably ten, feet tall. I was so scared, I shut the door very quickly. But I wanted to make sure that I was not dreaming, it being one or two in the morning. So I mustered all my courage and opened the door again. What a sight! As I opened the door, the ten feet fall white apparition turned to face me and I could see her eyes glowing like phosphorus in the night. Cousin, I will never forget that sight for as long as I shall leave. I shut the door and went to bed and spent the whole night in fear.
My grand mother did not have the courage to spill the beans and let the woman know that the ten feet tall ghost with fire in her eyes were none other than her feeble cousin.
I am sure this story, in various forms, is still circulating as a true story in her extended family circles.
