Haunting.- curious account of mutiny memorial..

30th October, 2013.

We all like ghost stories, don’t we? Human mind loves that.. the little thrill of the unknown, ambiguity… the sheer terror running down  your spine when grandma or grandpa used to tell you those haunted stories..

What I am going to write next is an account of my friend, Anish Singh, from college. I won’t go into deciding whether its true or not what he said, but it is worth sharing. That I leave on the my seemingly little readership ..

The day was 26th of October, Saturday. We were having our class on history of modern India, and the topic was 1857 revolt.. seemingly boring class..well, every class seems pretty boring at 2.00 in the afternoon.. anyways, during the class, I got to know that Delhi has a memorial for the martyrs of 1857 called the Mutiny Memorial built in 1883. A gothic style Victorian era building. Situated at the Kamla Nehru forest ridge, or to be precise, beyond the ridge, this memorial is hard to reach.. If you asked people for the mutiny memorial, nothing but confused looks will be their answer. Ask for Jeetgarh or Ajitgarh, as it changed in due course of time, you’ll be pointed out towards the neighborhood of the mentioned ridge, just a kilometer shy from Hansraj College, north campus..

During the class, precisely just when the memorial was mentioned, Anish poked me with his pen and said.. “bro, that place and me, we share a freaking history.” As usual, I thought, as every other boy will, by history he meant, cigarettes, booze, or girl.. but..

After the class ended, when all left, I and one other friend, Shiv and Anish were sitting alone in the room..Anish started his story..

“ Now, you must have thought, that by history, I meant something usual..! but this place had played with my head so hard, that I still find it hard to believe what happened that night..
During the 2nd year, I went to north campus to attend a seminar on history.. Since we hardly knew each other, I didn’t find it necessary to tell anyone about it.. Anyways, it was probably after the 1st half of the exams.. winter was just weeks away, but the chills could be felt already.. The seminar was to be held at Hansraj, I informed my parents that I would come home late, like around 12.00 or something in the night. I arrived there early with five other friends of mine, and we decided to roam around before the seminar started.. I’ve heard about the memorial and decided to visit it.. after asking people around for about an hour, our perilous quest ended and finally, there it was.. During roaming around it, we heard that the place is haunted, some say that there is something which comes around in the night...DAAMNN.. all six of us had the same thing in our head..
The decision was unanimous and instantaneous..

The seminar ended around 10.30 pm.. The air was freaking chilly, like it was piercing through our bodies to our bones.. Since the ridge was just about  a kilometer from the college, we agreed to walk.. it took us almost 45-50 minutes to reach there, considering the dark and the forested area, our speed was slow. Duirng that time, we took an oath..(lame it was, but the spirit of adventure..) that whatever happens, none of us will run.. when we reached there, we found exactly what we expected..nothing..just a huge tower standing in the dark..well what were we going to find any way?? Some old hag with an owl??

Well, after a while hanging out there, suddenly I started abusing the alleged “ghost”..that if he didn’t show up right now, it’s gonna be messy and stuff like that..it was just a joke..
Suddenly, one of us stopped abruptly, his eyes glued to the base of the tower..since the rest of us had our backs to the tower, we didn’t figure out what was happening..our friend was talking slow back steps..suddenly he stopped and said, ‘guys, run!’.. we lauged. “Yeah right, like some vampire is just behind us,ready to jump and drain our blood out..”
He didn’t stopped, said “RUN GUYS,JUST FUCKING RUN!!!’’ saying this, he gained speed and vanished into the ridge ahead..enough i thought, and we looked back at the tower.

It took just a millisecond to see what was there, enough to make our blood drain out and run for our life.. Just near the entrance to the tower..there was a man..a European male..all dressed in royal army uniform.. red coat, pants, an Enfield rifle in his hand, standing in position..waiting to leave at orders.. the only thing that was missing was his bloody HEAD. He didn’t move or anything, just standing there on guard..the next thing I remember was that I was gasping for breath, my heart was like coming out of my mouth, legs were like tearing apart, bleeding from the scratches I got from the shrubberies...bathed in sweat,standing in front of Hansraj gate. I was oblivious of the whereabouts of my friend.. that night, I covered the whole distance within less than 10 minutes. Then I fainted… that night I reached home with tremendous effort..could not shut my eyes for the night

Next morning I went to the psychiatrist at Delhi cantt. I told him about the whole incident.. he did what every doctor does.. labeling it as a hallucination.. fine.. I said.. but then I asked..if it were just me, I would’ve agreed..but doc, how are you going to explain the fact that all 6 of us saw the same freaking thing?? Response was obvious..nothing……”

Here ends Anish’s  account… he said, even after that, he was never afraid of the dark.
But the only thing that creeps up his mind every night is the question.. “THE HELL DID I SAW??”
And if he gets another chance, he’d surely visit the place just to quench his thirst for the only unanswered event of his life..

I don’t know if the account was real or fake, but personally,  I’d want it to be true, but remain unanswered.

The Mutiny Memorial at Jeetgarh, Delhi.