Real Ghost And Paranormal Stories From India
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Authors: Shalu Sharma
Real Ghost And Paranormal Stories From India
By
Shalu Sharma
Copyright:
Copyright
2013 Shalu Sharma. All Rights Reserved.
No
portion of this book may be modified, reproduced or distributed mechanically,
electronically, or by any other means including photocopying without the
written permission of the author.
Disclaimer:
Whilst
every care is taken to ensure that the information in this book is as
up-to-date and accurate as possible, no responsibility can be taken by the
author for any errors or omissions contained herein. Responsibility for any
loss, damage, accident or distress resulting from these stories is not taken.
India is not just the land of gods and goddesses but also of superstitions,
ghosts and of paranormal happenings. Indians take them seriously! In this book,
I will attempt to narrate a set of stories that happened to me or were told to
me by others. I have no reason to believe that those who told me these stories
lied to me. These events are true events as far as I am aware and have happened
in real life either to me or someone I know. It’s entirely up to you if you
want to believe them or not!
Before I tell you these
stories, I will give you a brief description of types of ghosts that are
believed to exist in India. Sometimes these are dismissed as fable by modern
Indians but nonetheless many people in India still take them seriously and
therefore cannot to be taken lightly.
Bhoot
This is a general word
derived from the Sanskrit language that actually means ‘past’ and ‘being’. But
most people when they say bhoot they mean ghosts. Most of the time, it means
the spirit of a dead person. In the Hindu religion, when a person dies the soul
either achieves moksha (liberation from the recycle of birth) or is reborn
according to their deeds. Sadly, there are some people whose souls do not leave
the physical word and lingers on. These people are usually those whose last
funeral rites have not been carried out or those who have faced a violent
death.
Pretni
Pretnis are female ghosts.
When a woman dies (such as dying unmarried) without fulfilling their humanly
desires then they become a pretni. In order to satisfy and complete their
humanly and worldly desires, the spirit of these dead women would stay in the
physical world and attempt to satisfy their desires. It is said that they have
backward feet. They find their prey in young men.
Churail
Churails (or chudails) are
similar to the pretni but the spirit belongs to women who have died during
childbirth. They can take the shape of a beautiful a woman and slowly suck
blood of men over a period of time till they die of weakness. Their feet are
also backward.
Dayan
Dayans (Daayns) are not
spirits but actual human beings. They are women who do black magic, witchcraft
and voodoo. It is said that they kidnap children and kill them to suck blood to
increase their lifespan. The dayans are very much incorporated in Indian
culture particularly in the rural areas of India. Sadly, many women have been
falsely accused of being dayans and are ostracized by society and even killed.
Some people say that evil spirits also live with the dayans. It is also said
that they practice voodoo where they are able to make dolls of anyone they like
and cause harm to them.
Shakini
These are supposed to be
female ghosts of women who have died just a few days after their marriage due
to an accident. These shakinis have high sex drive and they can posses living
women. It is said that those possessed by shalinis have a lot of pain their
body particularly the eye.
Rakshasa
These are supposed to be
mythological characters that fought with the gods to cause chaos in the world.
Their main aim was to defeat the gods and take over the world. They have been
mentioned in the holy books of the Hindus, the Ramayana and Mahabharata. They
can take human forms and have lots of supernatural powers and only gods can
defeat them. The most popular rakshasa is Ravana who had ten heads. He abducted
Sita, the consort of Lord Ram, who later defeated Ravana with the help of Lord
Hanuman. To this day, Hindus burn the effigy of Ravana to symbolize the triumph
of good over evil.
Mohini
There are two types of mohinis.
The first one is the female avatar of Lord Vishnu and worshipped. The word
“Moh” actually means “to please” hence she is supposed to cast an erotic spell
on lovers. The word “mohini” now symbolizes a woman who can please.
There’s another version of
mohini. These are women or girls who were deprived of love and ultimately
committed suicide. Suicide is something that causes a lot of concern in India.
It is thought that if someone dies un-timely before they should have died, or
has died due to unnatural causes, then the spirit of that person lingers on in
the physical world. Hence the ghost of these women can find men and seduce them
to satisfy their own unfinished physical desires - the desires that they were
not able to enjoy when they were alive. The western version of mohini appears
to be the “succubus”.
Preta
The pretas are supposed to
be spirits of men whose proper cremation was not carried out when they died. It
is said that a proper cremation is necessary in the Hindu religion and if it is
not carried out, the spirit will not leave the physical world to be reborn
elsewhere. Pretas have a liking for something that normal people don’t such as
rotting corpse or feces. They are supposed to invisible.
Jinn or Genie
Jinns are the same as
genies. They are mostly believed to exist by people of the Muslim faith. Since
India has a significant population of Muslims, the concept of jinns also exists
in India. Jinns can be good, bad and evil. They are supposed to be everywhere
and they may or may not do anything. I remember a Muslim friend telling me once
that she had a “jinn” in the house. I asked her how she knew this. She said
that, there was always a distinct smell of flowers in the house no matter what
she did. She thought that there was a presence and most likely it was a
harmless jinn. She got rid of it eventually by removing pictures of animals
from the wall. Apparently, the jinn was attracted to the photos of animals on
the wall.
Note
:
I hope I have given you some idea of types of ghosts and spirits believed to
exist in India. I hope these real life stories and encounters in the book will
throw more insights into the ghosts and hauntings from India and further your
understanding. Please take note that these are real events and some names have
been changed to protect the identities of those concerned.
ail
Every family has their secrets and stories; these are the stories handed down
from generation to generation. These are the stories that are never discussed
during the bright light of day in front of the whole family, but rather the
stories that are told in hushed tones, from one person to another in a darkened
room. My family on my father’s side has a story such as this, the story of my
great grandfather and the churail.
First of all, do you know
what a churail is? Sometimes, it is used to describe a witch but most often, it
is a woman who died while pregnant or during childbirth. Typically, if the
woman died due to negligence of her husband, she will return to the world from
her grave as “churail”, seeking vengeance on men, and any man will do.
Instead of being burned
and ashes thrown in the River Ganges, in the olden Hindu tradition it was said
that women who died in this manner should be buried face down, to prevent them
for escaping the grave and by being buried face down, they see only the earth.
Without being able to see upwards, to the world of the living, they would not
be able to get up and roam. Unless precautions were taken, women who died while
pregnant or while giving birth would become churails.
“You know the story of
great grandfather and the churail,” my cousin told me one night when I was
young, trying to scare me.
“She will creep into the
rooms of men and suck their life force, turning them old and killing them, just
like one nearly did to great grandfather,” my cousin continued. I went wailing
to my father who berated my cousin for telling me stories but I saw the look my
father gave my aunt and saw her shake her head no to him.
A few years passed and I
asked my cousin about the story, curious. The look that passed between my aunt
and my father told me that there was a story there and that was how I heard the
story, told to me in whispers by my cousin, in a room with only a lantern to
light it.
This is the story that my
cousin told me, as had been told to him by my aunt, his mother.
***
……….Our great grandfather
and grandmother lived in a village near a sleepy railway town called Jamalpur
(in Bihar, India). They lived in a rural area, and there was a graveyard not
that far away. In fact, there was even an overgrown path through the forest
that led to the unmarked graveyard, but it was not often used. As you know,
Hindus are cremated on a funeral pyre, this graveyard was a special one, used
on certain occasions. Very young children when they die or those suspected of
being churail are buried here.
The path had become unruly
and overgrown as it was only one of many ways to get to the graveyard and many
people did not use the path out of respect of my grandparents, for they would
have had to go through their property to reach it. Most of the villagers used a
path that joined up from the road, which led to the main entrance.
Shortly after their
marriage, grandmother became pregnant. Both she and grandfather rejoiced in
this happy event. Grandfather doted on grandmother, protecting her and
nurturing her and the baby. All good men did this, it was necessary to prevent
a churail from occurring, were the pregnancy to take a bad turn.
However, a churail ended
up in their lives anyways. Because she was pregnant, sex was out of the question
so grandfather began to sleep in the other room, so that grandmother would have
the bed to herself. He did not mind the arrangement; he wanted what was best
for his bride and the baby. However, he soon found himself in a very dangerous
position, under the deadly spell of a churail.
Grandfather began to grow
weaker, and he was looking frail and older than he should. The difference was
shockingly apparent to grandmother, but grandfather insisted he was fine,
despite his increasingly fragile health. Grandmother was worried and
rightfully so, one day, while outside, she noticed that the forest path to the
cemetery no longer looked so overgrown. The weeds had been tramped down from
somebody travelling along the path.
Curious, grandmother kept
an eye on the path but saw nobody that day. That night, she was unable to
sleep and so she was sitting by the window, in the darkness, when she saw the
woman. The woman was young, and beautiful, and she passed so close to the
window that grandmother could have reached out and touched her. Grandmother
said nothing, assuming that she was perhaps from the village nearby, walking to
the graveyard, perhaps to meet somebody in the darkness.
The next day, grandmother
went outside and saw footprints, in the dirt around the side of the house. They
were human and yet they were not. It almost looked as if they were backwards.
Most people walk heel to toe, so the heel makes a deeper impression. These
footprints had a bigger impression by the toes and the ball of the foot, not the
heel and they just looked wrong, grandmother got a very uneasy feeling.
The next night,
grandmother went to bed but did not go to sleep. Instead, she waited for her
husband to retire to bed and then she waited some time and then took a lantern
and entered the room grandfather slept in. She was so shocked that she nearly
dropped the lantern. She saw her husband, lying on his back in the bed, with
the woman she had seen naked, over top of him. The woman had her feet on
backwards; she was a churail!
Grandmother knew that her
husband was under the churail’s spell. The churail was sucking his life force
and it would kill him, then the churail would kill her and her unborn baby as
well. She needed to do something and she needed to do something quickly. The
next day, grandmother went to the village to ask if anybody had died recently.
She discovered that a young woman had died recently of unsuccessful child birth
and was buried in the graveyard, relatively close to where the forest path was.
They told grandmother that it could not be a churail because they had buried
the woman face down but then they admitted that no exorcism or rites had been
performed and none of the traditional protections had been placed on the grave.
You know that Hindus are burned but in some Indian societies and cultures and
certain circumstances, bodies can be buried too.
Grandmother gathered the
supplies that she would need from the village,
several
large nails, mustard seeds and hibiscus plants. Grandmother declined help from
others, this was her fight for her husband and her family, and she needed to do
it alone. She had to break the spell that the churail had placed on
grandfather.
Grandmother went straight
to the unmarked and unknown cemetery, following the path. She knew why the footprints
looked so odd, the churail walked with her feet reversed. The grave was easy to
find, it was new and the footprints led right to it. Grandmother sprinkled the
mustard seeds over the grave. The churail would be compelled to count the seeds
and it would keep her from seeking out grandfather, or any other man.
Grandmother than drove a
thick, large nail into the four corners of the churail’s grave and then over
the grave itself she planted hibiscus plants. The red flowers and the iron
nails would keep the churail in her grave.
Grandmother then drove
large nails into the threshold of the house to prevent the churail from
entering the house. To further prevent the churail, grandmother took stones
from the ground and built stone structures, similar to Stonehenge, in the front
of the house and the back of the house.
Grandmother needed to
clear the house now to rid grandfather of the spell. She performed havan, or
homa. She made her offerings to a consecrated fire while reciting prayers; she
prayed to god to help her husband by removing the spell and to make him well
again. Grandmother had holy water from the River Ganges, and she went through
their house, sprinkling the holy water while chanting hymns from the holy
Hanuman Chalisa.
It took a week, but grandfather
recovered fully. Not long after that, grandmother had a baby boy, a healthy
baby boy….
***
That is the story as it
was told to me by my cousin and he had been told the story by his aunt, my
father’s sister. They had learned it from their mother, who learned it from their
mother, our great grandmother.
I never had the courage to
ask my father or my uncles but recently when an uncle passed away, I thought
again of the story and I asked my aunt. I half expected her to say that my
cousin was just kidding but she told me that it was true. She said that the story
is passed down from generation to generation because it teaches us what to look
for. We know that when we see a beautiful woman, to always check her feet
because that is how we know she is a churail. Churail’s are real. Ask anybody
on my father’s side of the family. They will tell you.