I Ain't Afraid of No Ghosts

Do you believe in ghosts?" asks Shine, a slightly plump young lady of 21 years, late at night on my train to Ahmedabad.
"No.", I say shaking my head. (I don't know that this really translates - in India you'll often ask a question and get in response a sort-of bobble-headed side-to-side gesture which means, I think, "OK." The problem is that often times this is the response to questions like "Is there a bathroom? Toilet? Water Closet?!")


"I do." she continues. "Maybe I'm old-fashioned. But I watch all the ghost programs on T.V. Have you seen Ghost Hunters? The Exorcism of Emily Rose? I watch them all. My mother yells at me because I get scared, then don't want to sleep alone! "Why do you watch these silly movies?" she says. In my village we have a ghost. There is this bungalow and this woman was killed there years ago..."


At this point I start to fade out. I keep wondering if anyone has the top bunk above me, so that I can lay down, since my spot has been usurped by a very persistent middle-aged, gruff-looking Indian who knows I'm not going to start a fight at 12:00AM to get my spot back.


"....so about 20 people have been murdered there and no one can explain it."
That, of course, grabs my attention. "What? How long ago was this?"
"She was killed in 1987."
That really grabs my attention.


I ask her to start over, along with a lot of other questions along the way. She explains that there was this woman who worked at the house. She was pregnant. She slipped and fell, was knocked out, and the other people working and living there were afraid to call the police for fear of being implicated. So, naturally, they dug a hole in the basement and buried her. Alive. (They didn't know that of course. Well, maybe they did, and just didn't care for her all that much.) 


"As she lay there she kept wishing: "Please let me live so that I can have my baby!"" (Again, how one knows the final thoughts of an unconscious woman under six feet of soil... (And, it was probably only one foot. I've seen Indian construction standards.)) She continues to tell me that everyone involved was eventually killed - they were all found in the yard with "mysterious injuries to the neck". And, everyone who has stayed there since has befallen the same foul fate at the hands of "the witch". Apparently, even the "T.V. shows" have gone there, but wouldn't enter the house because it was so foreboding. The State Government called for an investigation, but "The police couldn't find any explanation." (Police investigation is, I'm sure, of the same high level as construction.) 


"The entire village is terrified. No one will go into the house anymore."


This really gets me thinking. The anthropologist in me is coming up with titles for a paper: "Modern Superstition and Urban Legend in Central India - a Case Study." (Scientific papers have to to have ponderous titles like that, or they're just not scientific.) Also, I figure that if I go inside, and come out alive, then perhaps the "curse" will be broken, and people will no longer be "terrified." (I could be a local hero!)
So, I decide that, considering I got screwed into paying far more for the ticket than I should have, I will oversleep my 4:30 AM stop and go on with her to the small town of Parbhani. I was lucky the new conductor we got in the morning sympathized with me getting taken for a ride (no pun intended) by his predecessor, and didn't fine me.


Me, Shine, and her mother, who speaks no English at all, get a motor-rickshaw from the station to their house. The town itself is small, rural, dusty. People stare at me with more than passing interest - they don't get too many tourists here, I'm sure. We pass kids playing cricket in the empty dirt lots. (Man, how they love cricket here.) Their place is a very nice, little white house with a courtyard in front, the deceased fathers small white sedan sitting on blocks,  partially covered with a canvas tarp. The living room is a fairly standard affair with pictures of various Gods on the walls, no-where to sit but the carpeted floor, and a TV in the corner. They're a middle class family with a few servants/ tenants living with them, who serve us chai (tea) and breakfast while the Rickshaw driver arranges, I am told, permission to go inside the house.


Did it occur to me to be worried at all? Only after I asked her if she actually knew anyone who had been killed...
"Yes. My fathers friend that he went to school with. He stayed there a few nights and was found dead, too."
Hmmmm. That was a little disconcerting, actually.
"Are you sure? I mean, it seems like the kind of thing that would be in the news."
"Oh yes, you can look it up in the newspapers."
Discounting that the local Indian journalism is likely on par with Rush Limbaugh's own "Excellence in Broadcasting" (Maybe not that bad, but still...)  I start thinking... What if...? OK, if  I learned anything from watching Scooby Doo, it's that the idea of a murderous witch from beyond the grave killing people is, in a word, absurd. BUT... what else could cause this? Is there a murderous monkey living in the house? No - somebody would see it. Cobra? No - different injuries. What about.... hantavirus? Is that even a thing in India? What about carbon monoxide? Is there mining in the area. Methane gas, maybe?
Now Shine is getting into it. "Oh - maybe! There was one lady who stayed there, who said she wanted to prove there was no ghost, and she burst into flames and died!"


Not really where I was going with that, but it was a nice bit of information to have.


So, just to be on the safe side, I pack up a few things to be sent home with brief notes explaining that I was killed by a ghost witch in central India. I mean, if you have to go, you might as well do it with flair. I bring a handkerchief, just for Hanta virus.


Finally, the two of us get into the rickshaw and go to the house. It was remarkably un-spooky. Just a plain one-story house fenced off of the main street with barred and shuttered windows, and a large padlock on the door. We stop at the all-purpose shop next door and a lengthy discussion takes place, the shop owner looking slightly more irritated than concerned. Cell phones are called, and conversations I don't understand take place. (Everyone in India has a cell phone. They pay about $1.00 a month for service. Try to tell me we're not getting screwed in the US.)
The rickshaw driver explains: "The owner says it's OK to go inside. He'll bring the key later."


Back outside the house a small crowd is starting to gather. Not wanting to wait for the rest of the town to arrive, I tell them: "Well, if it's OK, then I'll just take a look around." Without objections, I hop the fence and head toward the stairway off to the right, leading to the roof. At the back of the house is a small private, walled-in patio with two back doors leading into the house. Neither have padlocks. Hopping down onto a crumbly brick wall, I am able to then jump onto some stairs leading down to the patio. The first door seems to be unlocked, but a very heavy, 50 gallon metal barrel only moves a bit from my shoving before getting lodged on something. The next door is completely covered in Hollywood-horror-movie-style cobwebs, which I brush aside with my hat. The door handle turns, but it's latched from inside.


Like the front of the house, there are two boarded-up windows to the side of the doors, so I decide to climb up onto the window sills and look through the open upper transoms. Inside the first is a nightmarish scene. Pink paint, the the color of which would embarrass a 1959 Cadillac, covers the walls. And that was it. A few cobwebs and an empty water bottle. Really a boring room, minus the pink paint.
The second is a dingy, cobweb covered white room so boring it's painful. No blood spattering the walls. No axe with hair and dried gore clinging to it.
"William! Are you OK?!! William!!!"
I yell back: "Yeah! I'm fine! Just a minute!"
I climb back on the roof.  For a brief moment I consider screaming like a banshee as I wave my arms running to the edge of the roof, but decide it wasn't a very professional thing for an anthropologist to do.


By now, a large crowd has gathered and they want to see the photos I took of the rooms. There's a few laughs from the younger people in the crowd. The rickshaw guys says something to Shine. She tells me: "We should go before the press arrives. I'm serious - they'll come." (Secretly, I'm a little disappointed. Getting my picture in an Indian newspaper wearing my Indiana Jones hat would be kind of cool.)


Back at her house we have lunch. Time passes. I try to nap. I inquire about the key again. "Oh, we have to wait, the driver's brother will bring the key." Shine and I spend a few hours chit-chatting. I take a bucket water shower in the squat-toilet bathroom. I ask Shine, again, about the key, as I've now missed the first train leaving town and will have to catch the 5:30. She's a bit evasive and makes a  comment, half to herself. "If my mother finds I'm delaying you, she'll kill me!"
Hmmm. "Delaying" me?


After more tea (It's a wonder I'm ever able to sleep, with all the tea I drink here.) the conversation eventually turns to language. I explain I speak some Spanish, and we write down expressions and phrases for each other. For me, the Hindi for: "How much is it?" "That's far too expensive." "Thank you." "Excuse me." "I don't speak Hindi." "Where is the Train station?"
I write these down in Spanish for Shine. She adds a few to her list she wants translated: "I like you." "I love you." "I can't live without you."


Now, I'm finally starting to get genuinely worried.


My relief comes when the rickshaw driver arrives. He talks in a subdued tone to Shine. I ask: "Is this about the key?"
"Yes"
"Well? Does he have it?"
"Uh... It's complicated."


Complicated. Great. I ask her to explain and in a quiet voice she tells me. "Wait a minute. I don't want the workers to hear." (Not that the guys working on the electricity spoke English, but, whatever.) After they leave she tells me. "His brother was bringing the key on his motorbike. But he crashed. They are saying it's because the witch is mad you went into the house."


Oh oh. That's not good. This is usually the point in the endeavour when the guys in the pith helmets end up in a large boiling pot for bringing harm to one of the villagers.


"Is he OK?"
"Yes, he just hurt his leg."
Well, so much for that. "No key, then, I bet."
"You still desire to go into the house?" She asks, surprised.
"Well... no.... I don't care. I mean, I just wanted to help, but it looks like I'm just causing trouble, so I guess I better not."


Between the amorous Shine and a potentially pissed off village, I decide I really don't want to spend the night, so I get myself packed up. About a half hour before the train was to leave we get in the rickshaw. As we pass the house, Shine jokes: "Maybe you want to say goodbye to the witch?" I lean out the open door, and waving my hat at the passing house I yell: "Goodbye witch! Goodbye!!"


Scariest of all was the train station. The entire town had shown up to buy a train ticket. All 5,000 of them were gathered in the station. There was no way I'd be able to get a ticket in time.


The rickshaw guy muscles us through to the back of the building where he talks to a station guard, pointing at me. The guard disappears into the building, then comes out a few minutes later, with a ticket in hand. I pay the guard and shake his hand. Relief mixed with gratitude just as quickly fades at what I hear next from Shine, as the train pulls into the station: "The driver wants 500 rupees."
"What?!"
"For the day."
"He wasn't even with us most of the day!"
"For helping to get the key"
"He didn't get the key."
"But his brother got hurt."
Uhg. "I'll give him 200."
"I can give him 300, too."
"No... OK, fine, I'll give him.. uhg.. 400, but that's it!"
She translates. "He says OK."


I hand over the cash and get on board. As the train pulls away, Shine waves and yells to me: "Goodbye, William!! Goodbye! Call me!!"
The rickshaw driver, with a devilish smile and a wave, also yells up at me, in a slightly disconcerting way: "Yes! Goodbye, William! Goodbye!"


The train that night was so packed, and hot, I joined the locals and stood in the open doorway. It occurred to me that my demise would most likely come that night, not from a ghost, but from someone accidentally pushing me out the door.


But I held on extra-tight to the hand-rails, just to prove the old witch wrong.

Failures to communicate

Here I am in Mumbai, formerly Bombay. The Indians have taken to giving places the original names they had before British colonialization. They must still be a little bitter, as they've gone one step farther and started re-naming things the British built, such as Victoria Station. Most people can't pronounce the new Indian name, so it's still mostly known as Victoria station, or the abbreviated "CST". It is, without a doubt, one of the most gorgeous train stations in existence, especially if you like the Victorian Neo-Gothic style of architecture, which I do. 
 
Conveniently, the pages for lodging in Mumbai/ Bombay are missing out of the used, travel-worn Lonely Planet I found at a youth hostel in Jordan, so I am left to falling back on what is usually a last resort option - ask an auto-rickshaw (aka "Took-took") driver where to go. Oddly for India, however, there are none in this city - only cabs. The guy I pick, based on a none-too-common grasp of the English language, will undoubtedly take me to a brother/ cousin/ friend's place and get a commission in return. He takes me to three pretty scary dives in pretty scary looking neighborhoods which are in my price-range before I settle on one. It has a private bathroom, though, which is nice as I have finally gotten a case of "tourista", which had me going to the bathroom on the train all last night, so I'm pretty bushed. (A word about Indian train toilets - actually, Indian toilets in general. They are basically holes in the ground/ floor, usually with a spigot and a small bucket nearby that you can use, along with your left hand, in lieu of toilet paper. If this sounds a bit unpleasant, consider that cleaning of these facilities isn't at all regular, and also try to imagine using one as the train shakes you back-and-forth.)
 
Still, after a shower (Again, on bathroom facilities - I've been traveling for four months now and can remember one shower curtain in that entire time. The water, which is never warm, simply goes everywhere. Upscale places sometimes provide a squeegee for the floor.) I go out to do some sight seeing. I catch a Bollywood matinee only to find it really isn't as crazy as I expected. Production values were as good as any romantic comedy back home, and it looked like it might have actually been pretty funny. Still, between the musical numbers and it being in Hindi, I leave during the intermission. Very 1950's. (The intermission and musicals, not the Hindi.) 
 
The next day I go immediately to CST (Victoria) train station to buy my ticket for the overnight train to Ahmadabad and am told that the train I need actually leaves from Central Station. This ends up being the easiest ticket transaction I have ever had here. Usually you stand in line with half of India’s 1.2 billion people hoping the train isn't full. Of course, it's not really a line so much as a mob all trying to push in front of whoever is at the ticket window, usually me. (Oh, and I've learned women have the privilege of doing this any time, any where, they please. It's really irritating when you see a father pushing his 12-year old daughter to the front of the line to get the ticket he needs.) The one thing I have to say is very nice, is that there is sometimes a "tourist" window, where you can usually secure a spot on the train because of the "tourist quota" of berths/ seats they leave free just for tourists. I sometimes feel bad about this exclusive privilege, then I remember the 12 year old girls father. So, after getting my ticket, I go to Central Station and leave my bag in the cloak room so I can pick it up right before I leave tonight. 
 
I take the ferry out to Elephanta Island, about 1 1/2 hours off the coast, and check out the cave temples. This part of India is littered with these things, and they are amazing. Like Petra, people over 1,000 years ago carved entire temples out of the granite mountains. I'm looking forward to Cave 16 at the site known as Ellora -it  may very well be one of the seven wonders of the world. It's massive - 200,000 tons of rock were removed by workers over the course of 100 years. Unlike Petra, there are incredibly intricate carvings of the rock inside and out. Thousands of small statues, designs, and other sculptures cover nearly every surface of the dark grey stone.    
 
On the way back to the city that night, I crack open the guide book to see exactly how to get there. It's just outside of Arangabad. Arangabad? Why doesn't that sound right? I look at my train ticket - crap! I have a ticket to Ahmadabad in the North, not Arangabad to the East! Panic starts to set in. I have to get back to the station ASAP and change, hopefully if it's not too late, my ticket. As soon as the boat docks, about 100 million bickering women all push to the edge of the boat so that they can cross to the deck of a second boat, which in turn is docked next to a third, which connects to the main dock, all with the same desperately overcrowded situation made worse by the fact that most of the women feel pretty uncomfortable making the hop between the two gently rocking boats. It's at this point I decide I'm making my own tourist window, and discreetly move to the back of the boat, behind the cabins, and make much more substantial leaps between the three ships. One of the deck hands starts to yell at me, but when I point at the mass of semi-hysterical women, and then my watch, he shrugs his shoulders, gives me a "Yeah, I guess I don't blame you." look and lends me a hand across. 
 
I get the first cab I can who doesn't try to rob me blind, and head to Central station. I now have about an hour before the train leaves, so I grab my bag and run around, stepping over some of the hundreds of sleeping Indians on the floor, (they can, and do, sleep anywhere) trying to find out the name and number of the train I need, hoping the reservation office is still open. (They like you to have that info in-hand, and are not very happy about time-wasting inquiries.) There's monitors in the station here, which helps, since they scroll back-and-forth between Hindi and English, but there's no train that I can find to Arangabad. I ask around, and finally find an man who tells me: "Impossible - that train leaves from CST in less than an hour - you don't have time." "Victoria?!" I ask semi-rhetorically. "Yes - You'll have to cancel this ticket for a refund and go tomorrow or take a bus." The prospect of staying in Bombay another day is about as appealing as risking my life once again riding with one of the insane Indian bus drivers. (Here, most roads are only two lanes - at least, in theory. A third lane always opens up in the middle for passing vehicles going far too fast, edging opposing traffic onto the shoulders, and swerving back into the appropriate lane only millimeters before a head-on collision. This includes, especially includes, the buses.)

Not accepting "no" as an answer, I run outside and flag another cab. 
"I'll give you 150 Rupees if you can get me to CST before 9:30."
"Victoria?"
"YES! Victoria."
"200 Rupees."
"175."
"180."
"FINE - 180! I'll even tip you if we make it in time."
"As you wish."
 
As we speed through the congested streets I have the same thoughts I usually do riding with these guys: What happens if we hit someone? Would we stop? What if we get hit? I also note that I kind-of like Bombay. I reminds me of Europe. Fill a small European City with 12.5 million people and half as many cows, and you might have Bombay.

We make it before the train is to leave, but now I know I don't have time now to do anything but find and board it, so I do in the hope that the ticket collector can help me out. Often, if a person buys a general ticket, they can pay on the train to upgrade to a different caste, er... class. I've never had a problem doing that before, but tonight is a little different. I don't, technically, have a ticket. Not to the right city, anyway, and the ticket collector, dressed in a the standard black suit, tells me the entire train is full. He doesn't seem happy, either, that he has to help me. So, when he charges me three times what a ticket should cost and gives me his seat, I figure I've just paid my first pseudo-bribe. I ask a fellow who watched this all happen, and he explains: "You are the responsibility of the Indian government while you are here. He has to help you. If I boarded without a ticket, it would be much different - there would be no place for me on this train."

As it is, there really isn't any place for ME, either. After a while, the locals, who know I shouldn't be in the ticket collectors berth, start joining me. One of a group of young ladies nearby explains this to me and tells me I should chase the one man who seems to be settling in, out. I try, but he simply says: "OK, OK... Here, here..." and points at the half of the bench near the window where I should lay down. I do, but between knowing the guy is laying millimeters away from me and being ticked-off about what I just paid to have a decent night sleep, which is now obviously not going to happen, I decide to sit with the young woman who speaks decent English. We exchange to typical pleasantries: 'Where are you from?" "Are you married?" (This is usually the second or third question you get everywhere from everyone south of Bombay. I even had a young man start a conversation with it before I even knew he was sitting next to me.) I tell her no. "Ohhh.... single and ready to mingle!"  The other girls laugh. We talk for a bit before she asks me a question I haven't heard yet in India: "Do you believe in ghosts?"

This single question results in one of the most bizarre experience I have here, which is saying something.