by Shalu Sharma
Real Ghost And Paranormal Stories From India
By
Shalu Sharma
Copyright:
Copyright 2013 Shalu Sharma. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.shalusharma.net
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.
Table of Contents
Introduction
My Great Grandfather And The Churail
My Out Of Body Experience
The Haunting In The Mirror
Death Pact With God
Ghost Near The Bedside
Possession By A Dead Man’s Spirit
Ghost In The Toilet
Message From The Author
Introduction
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.
My Great Grandfather And The Churail
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.
My Out Of Body Experience
I have a secret about an ability that I had when I was a child. I never told my parents or any of my friends because I did not think that they would believe me. They knew that I often knew things that I had no way of knowing but they had no idea how I knew them. They usually thought that I was just making lucky guesses but they had no idea what my secret really was.
I was able to have out of body experiences as a child. I discovered it by accident one night; I was tired but having trouble getting comfortable to sleep. Trying to find a comfo
rtable position, I ended up lying on my back, with one hand on my chest. I fell asleep in this position and something extraordinary happened.
I found that when I fell asleep that I float up out of my body so that I was hovering just above myself. I held out an arm and I could see that I was almost transparent. I could hold up my arm and see through it to the wall. I was also able to fly. I floated up and hovered at the ceiling, watching myself sleep, with my one arm on my chest. My chest rose and fell with each breathe and I thought that perhaps I was just having a very weird dream but it felt like no dream I had ever had.
I discovered that I could simply float through walls and so I floated outside, into the night. I was curious to see how fast I could go, so I tried to fly fast and the ground beneath me flashed past. I stopped and had no idea where I was. Scared, I started to panic, how would I get home. I closed my eyes and pictured myself in bed and in a rush of movement; I was back in my room, hovering above my own body. I willed myself to sink back into my body.
I woke up the next morning and was excited. Unlike dreams, which fade as soon as my eyes opened, I could remember last night very clearly. I had traveled outside of my own body! I vowed to try it again the next night and so when I next went to bed, I lay on my back, with my hand on my chest. I wanted to recreate the exact position so that I could do it again.
It worked, when I fell asleep, I once again rose up to float above my body. I thought of my best friend from school and in a flash, I was flying and into her house. I hovered in her bedroom and then quickly bored with watching her sleep I went to her backyard. His brother was there, working on a motorbike. I watched for a while and then went back to my own room and sank back into my body.
I asked my best friend the next day how her brother’s motorbike repair was going along and my friend was shocked that I knew. Her brother had just bought the bike yesterday and nobody but family knew about it. I just smiled and said that it was my secret.
