Someone was in the room. She could sense the presence. She should not have come on this journey on her own and now she was all alone in this very strange hotel room at Rudraprayag perched up on the Himalayan mountain slopes, overlooking the Jhajjar River. She could hear the roar of the river, much more louder than in the day hours. But, that was not the problem. It was well past midnight and she had wanted to have a good undisturbed eight hours of sleep before traveling further ahead towards Kedarnath. It was almost as a dare from her colleagues and she had taken them up after getting irritated by their taunts that a south Indian girl could not move about alone on a pilgrimage in these upper Himalayas. And now, alone in her hotel room, she was getting a bit worried about her instincts.
She tapped at the light switch, and thankfully, the tubelight came
on. There had been a power failure at night and the locals had informed that
this was usual in their area and the lights would probably come back at dawn.
It felt better, to be able to look around the room. She was alone but the
feeling persisted. Someone was indeed here.
“Hello. Is someone here?” She asked, in a low voice, rather
politely. “I can sense your presence. Anyone?”
There was some movement. The unseen presence, it seemed to have come
closer and sat on the bed, nearer to her feet. It was a clear perception. She
could not spot or trace out any shadow or outline like they showed in the
movies.
“Hello ji. I can sense someone sitting on the bed, nearer to me. Are
you someone good or bad? Are you going to harm me? I do not think I have done
anything bad to others or killed anyone. Unless you are from my earlier birth.”
There was laughter now. “I am not related to you. I am a woman from
this area and I stay on the lookout for women who travel alone in this region.
I saw you earlier today, on the taxi from Devprayag. Are you really alone?”
That was a relief, she thought. She was not wrong in worrying about
the presence of a person in the room.
“Are you a ghost, then? I cannot see you. Yes. I am traveling alone.
I wanted to visit Devprayag and Rudraprayag and later want to travel up the
challenging path to Kedarnath. I had also wanted to visit Badrinath but I think
there would be a storm of sorts coming down in this region by the time I return
from Kedar. I am Jyoti. Who are you?”
The unseen presence moved about on the bed and seemed to have
settled comfortably for a long chat.
“I was called as Aruna. I think I am a ghost now. I would not know
about it as I have not met other ghosts and have not been able to talk to
anyone actually. You are the first person I am talking to since I became a
ghost. I know that you cannot see me. Most of the time I can realise that. I do
not go around frightening people or harming them. You sensed my presence and
had the courage to ask about me and I heard it clearly and can see you very
vividly.”
“Hello, Aruna. It is very nice to meet you,” Jyoti said. “I am not
sure that I actually feel nice because I have always been taught to be
frightened of ghosts, bhoots and pisasch,
as they used to say in our family in my childhood. We used to get frightened in
our childhood but we used to laugh about ghosts by the time that I joined
college. Why are you a ghost? Do all those who die end up as ghosts and move
around amidst people? Is that what happens after we die and we are gone? Can we
stay on as ghosts with our loved ones and with our families? Do you know about
it?”
“I do not know the answers to any of your questions. I have never
met any other ghost. I had died after I got married and after I had problems in
the village where my in-laws lived. Three other boys, friends of my husband,
had got interested in me and tried to get me to stay with them. There was a
fight and one of them was drunk and in a sudden flash of temper, he hit me on
my head with a walking stick. I was taken to the hospital but I died very soon.
I realised that I had died and I watched my husband’s family and my parents
take me for cremation. I saw them all crying about me but within that week, my
parents had arranged for my younger sister to get married to my husband.”
“I got very upset about that. It was all about the gold jewelry
and my husband’s land and properties. They did not wait for even a week before
they began negotiating between the two families. My husband had also agreed
without any remorse and that made me decide to leave them all and travel up and
down these river valleys and watch others.”
Jyoti sat silent. She was trying to picture the sequence of events as
told and of how Aruna must have suffered.
“I feel very sorry for you, Aruna. But, I guess, though I do not
understand the culture of communities here in the Himalayas, I heard of the
same sort of second marriage being conducted in my native villages in south
India also. So it is not something that only your family is guilty of. But
since then, why do you search for lone women pilgrims?”
“I want to travel with single women pilgrims, if any. They are very
rare. I have not met a single woman traveling about in this area for more than
two months now. The earlier one was a photographer from some vilayat country and she was not an
Indian. I travelled with her as she went trekking in the Valley of Flowers and
I did want to frighten her and see if she would get into a panic or something
but she was a brave woman. She trekked all alone in the Valley and she went
right up to the gurdwara in the upper mountains there and stayed within their
guest rooms, all alone.”
“I have always asked to stay inside my parents’ house and was not
allowed to go to the Higher Secondary School at Dharchula because it was at a
distance from our village. Many girls in our village had to drop out after our
tenth standard examinations. I had scored really well and I had got a first
class as had many of my other classmates. But it was only the boys who went
down to Dharchula. No. Even Sonu, daughter of Dana Ram, went to study further,
and that was because her father was a fauji
and he had seen how important education was for girls. He insisted upon it.”
“Did you get married right after that? Immediately after tenth
examinations? You must have been very young.”
“No. It was about two years later that I got married. I am happy
when I see women travel alone. It shows their strength and their resolve. I saw
you earlier today when you had walked from the taxi stand and had lunch, all
alone, in the dhaba, and then you
went to purchase some medicines and you asked the shop keeper about a good
lodge and here you are, staying alone. I did not realise that I would have
disturbed you as you slept. I do not make any noise.”
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