THE WINDOW GHOST

Journals of an Itinerant Army Officer

Ghosts have distinct personalities and favour to move by lunar cycles. I have yet to hear of a ghost who simply rang the doorbell and entered through the main door of the house. I had always had a wish to be allotted a house with a ghost but had almost given up. Then at last, luck favoured me and we got a house that came with a ghost reputation.

Every cantonment has that one haunted house that nobody accepts. There are stories associated with such houses. The stories circulate in whispers between orderlies, maids and newly posted officers, acquiring embellishment and intrigue with each transfer season. This was one such house. They said it was haunted. Naturally, nobody wanted it.

I was not a believer in the supernatural and, more importantly, urgently needed to shift into an MES house. So, ignoring advice, warnings and the dramatic widening of eyes that accompanied the mention of the place, I accepted the allotment. Many officers before me had inspected it and hastily declined. That alone should have served as a warning.

The house stood on the fringe of a forest, a lonely ground-floor structure encircled by a sagging wire fence. Porcupines had dug tunnels beneath the fencing and their quills lay scattered around the compound like abandoned arrows. It had been lying vacant for years. Officers had come, inspected, frowned and rejected it.

The outer walls were neglected; the paint had surrendered long ago and green moss covered the plaster. The house had that peculiar, torn-apart, disrobed look that army accommodation acquires the moment occupants vacate it.

In quartering meetings, the house was routinely offered to newly posted officers. Nobody accepted it. Some said it was too close to the forest. Others complained about the bathrooms and kitchen. As I later discovered, they were all right.

The bathrooms were old, cracked and dirty in appearance. Tiles were broken, the floor fissured and the air stank of damp and neglect. The kitchen looked suitable for a prehistoric cavewoman who cooked on a log fire. It had no cupboards, no chimney, no shelves, and had a rusted sink with a rusted tap.

Grandfatherly spiders had spun webs across the rooms. The bathroom shaft windows had no glass; their rusted frames were jammed in cement plaster. When doors were opened, swarms of mosquitoes rose. The previous occupant had attempted repairs using cardboard pasted over window frames. Over time the cardboard had decayed, trapping dead lizards like archaeological exhibits. Geckos hunted mosquitoes in extended line formations across the walls. At night, jackals crept up to the windows and howled.

Under these grim auspices, a cheerful administrative commandant palmed off the dreaded house to me, promising to get it “tip-topped as per your desires Sir.” Then, like all efficient and good administrative commandants, he promptly forgot the promise.

I wore old shorts and T-shirt and spent an entire month scraping, cleaning, sweeping and restoring the house. When my wife finally arrived on the scene and surveyed the residence, she delivered her verdict, “Poore cantt mein yahi fatichar ghar mila tha tumhein?” (In the whole cantonment you could get only this dilapidated house?)

We began the slow migration from the guest room, shifting cartons and furniture bit by bit. A hired carpenter arrived to install our new water purifier, a Kent RO, on the kitchen wall. That evening we locked the house and left, exhausted.

Meanwhile, the cantonment rumour mill had reached my wife through the ayaah network. “Madamji, iss ghar ko toh koi leta hi nahi. Kai saal se band pada tha.” (Madam, no body takes this house. It has been lying closed for many years)

“Why didn’t anyone take it?” my wife asked.

“Pata nahi madamji… hogi koi baat.” (Don’t know madam – there must be some reason) In a cantonment, that sentence carries the weight of official intelligence.

Next morning, as I opened the house, an eerie stillness greeted us. Moments later my wife screamed from the kitchen. I was working in some other part of the house and rushed to the kitchen.
The newly hung RO lay smashed on the floor.

All doors and windows had been locked the previous night by me.

“Someone broke it,” she whispered.

I inspected the wall carefully. The carpenter had used small screws. Gravity had simply done its job. The RO was repaired and refitted with longer screws. Soon after, it developed a slow leak. Water began dripping from the tap in spaced, theatrical drops, perfect background music for a ghost house.

That evening my wife cooked a few chapatis for our dogs and left two chappatis in a casserole on the kitchen shelf. Next morning we again came to set the house. I was working in the servant quarter when I heard my wife call out my name loudly.

“There were two chappatis in the casserole. Did you eat one?”

“No.”

“I left two. Now there is only one.”

She whispered gravely,

“Maan na maan, iss ghar mein bhoot hai.” (Whether you want to believe or not, there is a ghost in this house)

Later that day I found the missing chapati behind a carton, half eaten.

“Found your ghost,” I said.

My wife examined the evidence and declared, “Rat’s teeth marks.”. I got a rat trap that day.

But suspicions of ghosts still lingered. The maids fuelled it further with stories of someone allegedly hanging herself in the house years ago. I investigated. No such incident had ever occurred. Still, the house had acquired a chilling atmosphere.

A few days later I left for temporary duty to a far-off place. At 1 a.m., my phone rang. My wife whispered in terror,

“I think someone is outside my window. He is knocking on the window glass.”

“Could be the wind.” I said.

“No, it’s knocking on the glass. It’s not the wind.”

I told her to get my khukri from the study table drawer and just plunge it into whatever came inside the room, if it tried to break in.”

The knocking grew louder.

Thak… thak… thak.

In the meantime, neighbours were called. Lights were kept off. Everyone sat in tense silence waiting.

The knock came again.

The curtain was yanked aside this time to confront the intruder ghost. Lights flashed on.

And there sat the ghost.

A desi monkey on the window ledge, scratching itself vigorously. Every scratch drove its elbows to tap onto the window glass.

The ghost looked rather annoyed at the interruption. He bared his teeth and then leaped off and was lost to all.