Kolkata is a land, weaved in its culture of oral stories and folklores, amalgamating together to form a rich tapestry of history. Journalist Svetlana Alexievich says that there is a small piece of history in each of us and together they get accumulated to write the book of time. These stories together gets concocted as truth to us.
These personal truths or experiences, aid in developing a haunted place. Surely, a place is deemed to be spooky when it is corroborated by certain facts backed up by the advanced scientific technologies, which help detect the presence of something supernatural. But a site is ascribed notorious, primarily based upon people’s experiences that gets transmitted by the word of mouth.
Folklores are an inherent part of Indian culture and Kolkata, which surrounds these uncanny places forms a larger part of history. Lets have a quick glance at the three places of Kolkata, which are famous for its historical essence, but also gets acclaimed as the spooky places of Kolkata.
The National Library - Where Lady Metcalfe Breathes
The National Library is one of the best places in Kolkata of doing research and gaining knowledge, but it is also one of the spooky places of Kolkata. It is believed that the ghost of Lady Metcalfe roams in the library halls. It is heard that her presence can be felt by people when they are alone in the library, as someone seems to whiff down their neck.
There is a rumour that if books are not kept unkempt in the book shelves, the ghost of the Lady, seems to be breathing heavily upon the reader to express her dissatisfaction. She was a maniac as she always wanted to organize things in place and a certain displacement used to irk her.
Another spooky incident gets to be heard is that during some renovation work, a handful of laborers died due to an accident and that ghosts have been spotted there ever since. According to a news report, an English graduate student went into the library to complete his research work but never went home. No one knows what happened to him.
Even librarians have claimed that their chairs were pulled away by some invisible spirit or that books were laid around randomly. Sometimes, even pages are torn away and strewn on the floor. Once, the apparition of a random British noble-lady of the mid-colonial period was believed to be caught on the CCTV camera of the library.
South Park Street Cemetery - Where the Death Tombs Reign
Though the Park Street Cemetery holds historical importance and has a beauty of its own, the folklore that surrounds this place has earned its place in one of the spooky places of Kolkata. Even in contemporary times, it has been reported that a schoolgirl became frequently nauseated while visiting this place, and the effect subsided after a few days. Rumours also surround the fact that many people have felt dizzy and sick after entering the premises.
While some people have complained about having breathing problems in this place, others complained that the pictures captured seemed to have weird structures in them. A travel writer mentions that he had chewed garlic cloves before entering the premises in fear of being possessed by spirits because he felt afraid after learning about visitors who had observed some weird and unexplainable shapes peeking over their shoulders while snapping selfies.
Folklore surrounds the place, and a tomb sometimes also bleeds. It is said that when a group of friends entered the place, all of them seemed to be okay. Though it was a summer day, the sky was overcast and all the friends began discussing about the possibility of seeing a ghost in a cloudy day.
At that time when they were pondering upon the matter, suddenly a woman guard came up to them and told one of the girls whose hair was untied, not to go near the graves with her open flowing hair. The voice and words of the female guard made all of them uncomfortable. After raoming for a while, two other boys of the group started shouting as they felt their legs being pulled by someone.
Writer’s Building - Where the Souls of Unhappy Writers Rest
Many strange and unbelievable events started happening since the inauguration of Writer’s Building. Folkores surround that there is noise of screaming, the sound of rolling thunder and the suddenly dropping temperature at certain nooks and corners of the building.There are even some empty rooms near the controversial corridor, which are believed to be haunted by dissatisfied spirits according to the locals.
It is a rumour that the Writers’ Building, once used by British scribes, is haunted by unhappy writers who died prematurely. Then there goes a rumour surrounding the famous old peepul tree, whose branches are favourite places for the Bengali ghosts. Rumour goes that, at one point in time, there used to be a notorious forest of banana plants around this campus where the British had executed many ordinary people and buried a few Englishmen.
According to another published account from the late 1970s, a young night guard named Mehboob was on duty on the first floor of block four. He sat down to ease a bit and dozed off, but then he was suddenly awoken by a heavy thud nearby. Rushing out into the corridor, he came upon a body lying diagonally across the floor of the protected area, dressed in a very expensive suit.
Mehboob started to scream being white in fear, which brought several night staff to the spot, but all they saw was a deserted corridor. This fact has been corroborated by Fanindra Mohan Roy, the-then caretaker-in-chief at Writers’ Building in 1970s. He also heard the sounds of heavy boots coming up the staircase. Being panic stricken, he called out to the sentry on duty in block one, but he himself immediately fainted.
Conclusion
It is quite interesting to know about the incidents and folklores that surround the ‘City of Joy’. However, with the coming of the digital age, there has been a slow paced transition in folklores. Nowadays, before visiting a place, visitors prefer to conceive a preliminary knowledge through net surfing, scrolling through their social media sites to know real life experiences.
People who have visited the haunted sites and even paranormal investigators, share their experiences on internet, sometimes misrepresenting the legends surrounding the place or debunking the ghost myths. Digitally bogged down people are missing out the nuances of storytelling, which aids in our imaginative faculty of a notorious place.
Therefore, the spooky places of Kolkata no longer excite or charm the people as they used to do before. As once the mystery is unravelled, it no longer delivers the same thrilling experience. Do you think that in this digital age, folklore still holds importance? Will Kolkata be able to hold her charm of the spooky places?
What do you think about the same? Let us know what you feel in the comments section below.
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