A walk with the ghosts

Jaskiran Chopra

The hills are full of ghost stories with many of them rooted in the towns of Uttarakhand. Locals love telling them and tourists indulge in them. It is no surprise then that the tourism department of the Himalayan state is looking at developing its potential in ghost tourism — tourism based on the many supposedly haunted sites here and the spooky stories that have been handed down the generations.

Mussoorie has its good share of ghost stories. There is something about the mist-laden mountains, the crystal clear cold night skies, the shadows of the ancient deodars, the sprawling cemeteries that make it natural for ghosts to be around. Any old timer can tell you his personal bone-chilling encounter with the world of spirits — of the man without a face, or the chowkidar who can be heard (not seen) guarding the old building.

In Mussoorie, it is believed that the ghost of Frederick E Wilson can be seen out on his horse, asking for a light for his cigar. Wilson, better known as Pahadi Wilson because of the many years he spent in Garhwal Himalayas, married a local girl, Gulabi. Their story is part of the folklore here. He was an adventurer who is believed to have deserted the British Army just after 1857. He escaped into Garhwal and landed in Harsil, a remote idyllic valley on the banks of the Bhagirathi. He then made a fortune out of timber. Gulabi and Wilson lived in Wilson Cottage, a huge mansion built by him in the late 1850s. Wilson and his wife lie buried in the Mussoorie cemetery.

But there is hardly a tale that matches that of Lady Garnett-Orme, a spiritualist, who is said to have been found dead under mysterious circumstances at what is now a prestigious hotel, in 1911. Apparently, strychnine had been placed in her medicine bottle, but no one could tell how it got there. The affair literally reached a dead end when the doctor who had been treating the Lady was also found dead from the same poison a few months later. Rudyard Kipling, the famous writer who had visited Mussoorie in 1888, and retained his interest in the affairs of the hill station for long, shared the mysterious facts with writer Arthur Conan Doyle, deeming it a case fit for Sherlock Holmes to investigate. But it was Agatha Christie who took up the challenge and used the circumstance of the crime in her novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920).

Renowned author Ruskin Bond, who has been a resident of Mussoorie since 1963, says with a smile: “The Mall is full of ghosts .They are there on misty monsoon nights when the lamplight struggles to penetrate the gloom”.

It is the peak of winter in the hills now and one comes across groups of hill folk sitting around bonfires and narrating many an interesting spooky tale. Our neighbour shared one such tale. “My cousin Dev Dutt came home to the village after a year from the plains where he was working in a bank. As he got down, he met his old neighbor. They began chatting and walking towards their village and took leave of each other once they reached the village. As Dev Dutt was having his dinner, his mother asked him whether he came home alone from the bus stand. He replied that he had met Bishan Chacha and they had walked home together. Hearing this, the mother dropped the roti she was making and sat down on the floor with a scream.” He died two months ago!” she cried.

Stories of haunted homes, haunted valleys and meetings with daayans (witches) and daints (demons) are as common here as the little tea shops on the winding mountain roads. Bodies are cremated by the riverside and ashes thrown into the river. People in the hills believe that this causes a lot of spirits to wander about.

Now, while the locals are happy with the idea — with veteran journalist Raj Kanwar, who has been residing in Doon valley since 1947, calling it a “thrilling” idea — tourism expert Ashutosh Saklani is skeptical. “We need to focus on adventure tourism, winter tourism, fruit tourism and other forms of tourism first. These would bring in revenue. Ghost tourism is based merely on tales of haunted sites and this will not pull the crowds. Just a few daring persons may join in. This will do nothing for revenue generation. It may take us into a world of make-believe.”