...Hauntings..

HITCHHIKERS

HITCHHIKERS                                                                                                                            Purulia, west Bengal(2010)

Do you believe in the presence of spirits? Do you believe the dead can come back, do you believe in a world parallel to you that really exists but you cannot see it?

Long has existed this phrase " there are two things in the world you can always feel but never see love for someone, and the presence of someone"

This is another story from my haunted recollections. It is from the purulia district of west Bengal. You will really not be able to locate it on the map of our country but it does exist.

Purulia has a railway station that had remained closed from 1967-2009 after a report from the locals stating that the stationmaster had committed suicide after seeing a lady specter dressed in a white sari. Mamta Banerjee though opened the railway station as soon as she came to power as a minister. Dismissing all the reports and saying that they were all tell tales. The station was reopened in that very year and has been functional ever since.

Purulia is scenic in its own ways; lot of greenery around, a lot of fresh air. It is the best local getaway for anyone living in the metro city of Delhi. My friends suddenly out of the blue had made a plan to go to Purulia and had been convincing me for a long time to go with them. I really had no intentions of going I was born in west Bengal. I had seen the place but then again I realized they were looking at convenience. I knew the local language and it would have been tough for them to understand the local tongue there. The buggers had helped me on numerous occasions before so I decided to tag along with them on this one.

We boarded the tatanagar express from Delhi and soon we were off on a 22 hour-long journey to purulia. I was never unaware of the stories. As a kid we had heard a lot of stories from our geriatric ancestors of ladies in white with reverse feet and long ponytails, Dayan (witches) we called them. They preyed on lonely travellers in the wee hours of the night and sucked them dry.

The train journey was more than comfortable IRCTC had really improved their standards of travel. Downside, we reached Purulia at a really bad hour because of a travel delay caused at a major train junction three hours ago.

The train slowly moved into purulia station. It was nearly 11:30 in the night. Most of the passengers were sleeping in their births; actually the only people awake were my friends and me.

As the train came to a halt, we slowly lowered our luggage onto the platform. We were hoping to find a hoard of porters waiting to carry our luggage but there was none. We stood on the station looking at the train we had alighted from as it slowly passed us by

It was desolate, dark and quiet. The entire platform was lit in an eerie glow of a faded yellow light, which came for the stationmaster's cabin. We picked up our luggage and slowly walked to the light. On reaching there we realized that the light was actually coming from an old and rickety gas lamp.

"Where are you folks off too?" the stationmaster appeared at the cabin window suddenly and scared the crap out of us. "The forest guest house" I replied, in my native language

The stationmaster gave very convincing directions to the guesthouse. We had a good conversation in our native language. He even warned me about the stuff people spoke about spirits and also told me about the number of rural maids who had been lost on the roads at night. He even told me that sometimes-entire vehicles carrying passengers went missing without rhyme or reason.

Luckily my friends had not understood any of that crap. They were actually looking at me closely for further directions. Once I had exchanged final pleasantries with the stationmaster we walked across the railway track to the station gate