BELIEVE WHAT YOU WILL

There are a lot of unexplained theories we encounter in our lives: God, ghosts, alternate universes, afterlife, aliens, even government conspiracies! We gather the information, we rationalize, we weigh the opposition; and eventually, we come to a conclusion. Either we undergo with an array of thoughts, or we simply wing it.  Either way, most of us hold an opinion. We were taught to be loyal to God and frightened of ghosts, so we are. We are what we are taught, after all.

Do you remember the times you hid under the blanket trying not to breathe too loudly, scared that the boogeyman might get to you? Sprinting towards your bed once you’ve turned off the bedroom lights, because you’re afraid of what secrets darkness holds?  Praying to God every time you drive past Teenkune at night, because you’re scared the fabled woman in the white saree and inverted feet will chase after your car? These are some of the stories you know about because of movies, novellas, and those people who’ve either experienced something similar or know of someone who’ve had something similar happen to them.

Tales of the dead remain live for years after their demise. We repeat it as stories, to keep children just scared enough to obey and not go off at night or in the hostel when we whip out an Ouija board and pretend to be possessed by a demon.

I believe in ghost. It’s only fair, because if I also believe in God, a deity so strong I have put my blind faith in Him. Nature balances all, and so when there’s good, there’s bound to be evil. They say a spirit sighting is like your worst nightmare, except it's a nightmare. You can’t wake up from it, and can’t stop the fear from creeping under your skin. Most of the time, you can sense the presence, even if you can’t see it. You know something is out there. It’s a lot worse, when it happens so often, you’re no longer scared. When you feel invincible – because that’s when they come back – they familiarize with you, they recognize you and they cling on to you.

0 km - Welcome to Pokhara

Year Incident unkown

Many residents of Pokhara believe this area is harmless by day, but unnatural and unexplainable events occur after 2:00 AM. Old and young people alike have narrated the same stories: cars crashing into trees that bear the marking of a crash but no sighting of the tree, people being hauled off their bikes by a force as powerful as a tornado. None of these stories can be explained, but there is one in particular that is alarming to say the least.

A couple on a motorbike, fleeing their homes to get married in Kathmandu, were last seen saying their goodbyes to their friends and loved ones near Nadipur, Pokhara. They promised to call upon their arrival, and promised to visit when the situation cooled down at home. *Pratik and *Nandita drove towards 0 km in the dead of the night, so they could get a head start and hopefully get ahead of their parents, when they found out the next morning. The next day, Pratik reported Nandita missing to the police beat in Pokhara. He says they never made it past 0 km. When he was questioned, he said there was nothing wrong with his bike, but as he was riding, he could feel the handle turning left. He lost complete control of the bike, and fell off it crashing down. He remembers Nandita being by his side when they fell. Dazed, confused and with a possible concussion, he opened his eyes to see his girlfriend being dragged back the way they came. He opened his eyes wider, and when his vision started to clear, he could see his girlfriend and the figure in front were about a feet above ground. His girlfriend was being lifted by a naked woman, four inches above ground level. He fainted.

His stories have never been confirmed – how would they? Why would anyone believe what he had to say? No one really knows what became of Pratik. Pratik’s story has been passed on, altered and presented in so many ways; no one can really know what happened that night at 0 km. No records, no witnesses, and therefore no evidence.

Gufa: A girl coming  of age

The Newari culture is a beautiful and complex part of Nepal. Newars generally, hail from Kathmandu, and are rich in traditional values, customs and literature. The Newari culture is perhaps one of the richest ones in stories, proceedings and family ties – the most exquisite practices there prevail. A most interesting cultural practices is the Gufa- a girl’s coming of age and her marriage to the Sun. Newar girls are married thrice in their lives, once to Lord Vishnu, once to the Sun and lastly to their life partner.

A Gufa is a 12 day long ritual where a Newar girl of 12-14 years is kept in a dark room, with no sunlight as precedence. A “Bahra Khyak/Tayegu” (a harmless ghost) is a doll made out of cotton or cloth, which the girl prays to as it is believed that she is, until then, possessed by evil. This prayer, along with numerous other customs such as her marital uncle oiling her hair, being fed a traditional sagun – egg and curd, and her grandmother tying a thread around her hand, pronouncing her and the sun, husband and wife. The Sun is then said to protect her from all evils. The Gufa is an extremely moving ceremony. The young girl isn’t allowed to see any male members of the household for 12 days, which can be a tough ordeal for a girl at such a young age. It is believed that the girl is not to play with, or disturb anything in the room without an elder present, unless she is asked to. When summoning the Bahra Khayak, she is asked to play a number of games with the Bahra Khayak, requesting him to come forth. This story is of a Gufa gone horribly wrong.

You can never tell when things take the wrong turn, and in this young girl’s case the how of the story remains a mystery, but many a hypothesis has continued to churn after the incident. The story suggests that a simple Newari family in Patan, prepared for the 8th day of their daughter’s Gufa. Inside the room, this girl of 12, *Asha, played a typical Nepali game called “Gotti”, which would bring forth the Bahra Khayak. Her family members believe the Khayak was angry upon arrival, when it saw the girl playing for her own amusement, alone, and not out of respect for it. Neighbors claim they heard the girl scream for about 4 seconds before her mom burst in the room, to find her lying on the floor, vomiting out liters of her own blood. Asha had choked on her own blood. As custom suggests, since the 12 days of the Gufa wasn’t over, Asha was to be buried (not cremated, as opposed to how it’s normally done, for fear of enraging the Sun) under her house. Her parents were modest people, who lived in a three storey house on the top floor, with separate exits to each floor. To bury her, they had had to seal all windows, trapping the light outside, and demolishing the floor each three story, to get under the house, without the light falling on their daughter’s corpse. Residents of the neighborhood still heard her scream and called out for her mother by name at night. It got to such a point where the family was forced to have the largest Rudri done, to pray for her soul to rest in peace.

A gentle presence: Thamel, 1926 AD

The story of the haunting in Thamel is more fascinating than frightening, more so because the family the house belongs to has familiarized with the presence, and welcomes it. According to them, the presence “hasn’t ever tried to hurt anyone in all these years”- and by anyone, they mean 4 generations of their immediate family.

Generations past, the house belonged to the Ranas of Thamel. It still has the white rustic look of a palace, with green wooden windows, and eerie looking passages that connects room to room. There is one particular room in the house that has been shut for the longest period of time, and the oldest member of the family (now 93 years) recollects that it was first shut, out of respect rather than fear, before she was even born, never to be opened again. The room supposedly belonged to Kanchhi (Meaning: youngest daughter). Who she was, what relation she had to the family, what tie she has to the house is a tale that may forever remain incomplete. Her death, however, is known. She was standing in her window, brushing her lovely long curls, when she happened to fall onto a massive pear tree inside the compound of the house. Her hair tangled up in the branches, and her scalp ripped apart from her body. Her death was horrific. Rumor has it she was pushed. Many members of the family were completely beside themselves by her death, analyzing the faults of her fall. The then head of the household shut the doors to her room to avoid conspiracies, and that was the end of it.

The oldest members of the family, who live to tell the tale, have experienced having their mosquito nets pulled at night, the temperature in the room drop down to freezing, until another person enters the room and then everything goes back to normal.

 Two young boys playing hide and seek with their cousins, had a sight of a woman with brushing her hair, and humming to herself. At the time they didn’t comprehend what they were seeing, and no one from the family told them either. It is only when the kids of the family are deemed old enough that they’re told of what goes on around the house, night and day. But the presence has been most attached to one person in particular, *Man Bahadur. He said, “I feel cold hands gripping my ankles every time I walk down the main stairs (the one that faced the peach tree), I’d stop, wait a while, and she’d let go; I’ve had doors opening and closing, candles burning on their own, but I’ll never forget the time she saved me. I had had my share of drinks that night and was stumbling back home, I hadn’t quite reached the gate of my house, but had passed out right outside. It was a sketchy neighborhood in those days, and I come from a wealthy family. Had I lain there for a while more, I’d have been kidnapped, robbed or killed. She switched every light in my bedroom on and off, on and off, until my wife was so scared she raced outside, originally to go to my mother, but finding me passed out on the floor. I’m grateful, but it still scares the daylights out of my wife.”

Everyone has experiences, some worth it and others we wish we’d never had. So believe what you will, for now, because eventually reality catches up to you.