It is not uncommon for me to feel something eerie when passing through the popular 'haunted' places because we all agree, at least my demographic does, that Delhi in many ways has been host to he supernatural. Blame it on our childhood that had us watching the scariest horror shows in the remaining of the 90s, but the horror culture has an audience of its own. Some people I know tag the chill in the air or random noises or whisperings to be coincidences but not all seem to agree these are 'mere coincidences' rather something sinister or evil hovering above their shoulders.
I come from the hills and to hear ghost stories was common and extremely repetitive at times because we all knew who the headless kid was and which nun did what, stuff like that. Over the years, the panic surrounding the paranormal sidelined as I read more on dimensions and inter- dimensional entities. Not exaggerating, but if you really should see how nonchalant I actually am, you should watch me staring blankly at a distant spot if things like objects flying across the room ever happened. And I am not joking, William Dalrymple would tell you more of the lore in the urban landscapes in his much loved work, The City of Djinns. One of my primary reasons for picking that book up was the fact that strange things kept happening to me in the metropolis. I could either live my entire life fearing the unseen or get enough knowledge about the same and stop pondering if I would be harmed or if harm by the paranormal was even a matter to think about. Because TV shows and films always have a different opinion. I am quite sure people think most of these narrations are closer to truth than fantasy because it is incredibly easy to sell something to the public as long as you shroud it with a storyline that either makes the hair on your nape stand upright or you face a rush of adrenaline immediately after being a consumer.
What really does make the cut in such stories is the fact that there is always something sinister behind every shadow lurking-- I would think it is because the dead or the 'undead' have a tough time accepting the idea that they no longer belong in human spaces. Yet, they try to squeeze in because it is lonely on the other side. How much of these sightings are true though? Do they happen or is it just something sold to the public for crass entertainment?
There was a time when ghost shows and films had a hold over the audience much more than the effect seen when people flock to watch Marvel productions or basic action flicks that run in franchises. The craze did not die down or lessen but took its roots elsewhere-- short documentaries and YouTube videos. The audience there were selective but the creators did have a field day whenever there was some ancient story or a folktale involved. From a larger audience, the viewership then moved to smaller, indigenous spaces where superstition coupled with stories of human sacrifices led the way to more investments in the OTT spaces.
The cover- ups are far more interesting in these cases because any element that has mystery cannot be seen sans a plot to conceal something that has repercussions if left out in the open. And to tell you the truth, nothing that is shown in the movies and the films of the horror genre are close to real life ghost- sightings. The primary factor being the situation and the witness's own prejudice. Some stay in denial out of shame and the rest romanticise it preferably because it is quite like a badge of honour to survive the encounters. I feel like most of my childhood was spent in reading stories of this genre and I had ample time to learn how to separate fact from fiction. However, when push comes to shove, all the learnings jump out of the window because you are too stunned to utter a word so you rather watch the havoc and let the paranormal drift away because if you don't fear it, they can't feed on it.
I think it was only one specific time when an encounter made me question reality, not because I made peace with the context within which this happened, trust me, I would never want to go back to that dark space again-- it just made me think if those that pass on still somehow possess the power to protect someone they had loved when they were living beings. I stand divided on that idea because as much as I want to believe there are entities that have a chokehold over the unwanted and the abomination you face in this dimension, I also have inferred that it is not like they just protect their own, they do have the power to make their presence felt because when you feel lonely they feel the same too. Levitating objects or things flying across the room is not to scare you, it is to establish a fact that they are around and they never left. It is a pity that shows and films use screeching noises and creaky floorboards to denote the shadows are existent, sometimes with very bad makeup, there is hardly any agency to understand connections between those who belong to different dimensions. Not that there can be a witty storyline to vocalise it but what if everything we know that pertains to 'horror' is just a lack of awareness that people live on even after they stop breathing because they leave their bodies but they were never tired of loving those who meant something to them. And when they find someone similar, they revisit their own journey because it seemed 5as if they were alive again.
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