So this happened on Saturday. My husband and I had travelled to a hill station on an impromptu basis and as it was a weekend, we couldn’t find any hotel around. We finally found one old looking hotel in a tree covered location in Mahabaleshwar, and the hotel person showed us to a nice room in a newish building with a verandah and lots of breeze. From the verandah we spotted some old British era bungalows and my husband asked if rooms were available there.
The guy was hesitant and asked us to come to the reception with him. The manager confirmed that very spacious rooms were available in the bungalow (it was a British colonial bungalow, later owned by a Parsi family and now under the care of the hotel owners) with three doors for each room overlooking the forest but he was trying to dissuade us from staying there mentioning that there was no AC, no generators and old style structure of the bungalow. Being motorcyclists, we were totally okay with the basic setup and were actually excited to stay the night there.
The rates for the bungalow room was the same as the hotel ones and we decided to enjoy the tranquility of the forest and the managed finally agreed albeit hesitatingly. We got to the room and loved it instantly, two huge double beds and still enough space to waltz around.
We had fun watching cricket matches on the old TV for a bit and then sat out in the bungalows verandah enjoying our dinner and drinks in the cool weather. We even spotted a gnarly old tree that looked like it was trying to uproot itself from the ground and start walking, the roots resembled a proper set of knees, calves and feet with twisted arms on the sides to boot.
Watching the forest, we spoke quietly about future travels and chatted till 11 pm. We finally decided to head in to the old, airy and half a basketball court sized room and closed all the three double doors that surrounded two sides of the room securely. We had some fun before sleeping and I ended up sleeping in my birthday suit and so did he. I was on the right side of the double bed near the door with my husband next to me. At around 1.30 am, I woke up to use the washroom in the furthermost end of the room.
As I walked back, I felt this strong gaze on me as the light seeped in through the the window panes on top of the doors, and I literally sprint walked to the bed and jumped in.
The feeling of someone standing behind me on the side I was laying on didn’t go away and so I starting chanting the Gayatri Mantra (a religious hymn), by the time I was through reciting the chant for the second time, I felt light fingers touching my back and neck and I turned around to find no one by my bed side. So I spun around and held my sleeping husband tighter.
When I was reciting the mantra for the third time, the switchboard almost above my head and next to the bed switched on a light with a loud click on its own and the light right on top of us threw the room alight. I screamed loud and hugged my husband tighter as I had felt something breeze past when the light turned on.
Husband woke up groggily and asked why the light was on and I told him what had just occured. He went to check the light and it was in the ON button position and these switches require a bit of force to turn ON and OFF so there was no way that it happened on its own.
I was shaking so much that my husband had to check my pulse rate. He downloaded the Ramraksha hymn (apparently it wards away spirits). We both put our clothes back on and I fell into a uneasy sleep after trying hard to stay awake for a few hours with that hymn on loop throughout the night.
All night, I could see a dark shape in the corner near the washroom from the edge of my eye and even though something paranormal had apparently switched on the light where I was lying down, my corner didn’t feel scary or bad per se, as much as that other corner felt dark and foreboding.
Finally the morning light hit the sky and I could somewhat breathe a sigh of relief. Having experienced paranormal events earlier throughout my child, having something disembodied switch on a light that requires physical manipulation scared the bejeebers out of me completely.
I don’t know if the entity/spirit switched on the light was a positive one or not. Maybe it was the old ghost of the Britisher or the Parsi who may have been offended by the fact that I was roaming naked across the room. What do you think?