A Trip to Bhangarh, Rajasthan on 10th Sep 2011 – The Most haunted place in India Narrated By: Arindam Basu (arindam_basu@yahoo.com)

Bhangarh, in Rajasthan, India, is believed to be the most haunted place in India. It is also listed as one of the top 10 scariest places in the world. History reveals that for nearly 500 years this town is deserted for some unknown reasons. There are beliefs of story of a saint who cursed the city because of the shadow of its palaces touching the saint’s dwelling and again the story of a Tantrik who cursed the princess and the people of Bhangarh when he

could not gain control over the beautiful princess Ratnavati and died an abnormal death. There are also reports of famine that may have left the city deserted for some 500 years. The actual reason for the city being abandoned is still unclear and it is left for the historians to decide, but what is currently left of the Bhangarh Palace and the nearby surroundings is what I would be interested to reveal. The ghost town is located at around 100 kms from Jaipur. One day in around last week of August, 2011, I was browsing Wikipedia and I suddenly noticed a place called Bhangarh, in India, which is believed to be haunted. It is believed that anyone who tries to stay there at night has never returned. It is even a ban to stay there after dark when sun sets. Meeting a real ghost is a temptation that very few people can avoid. When I revealed the details of the place to my office colleagues they were all very interested to visit the place to have some adventure. One of the members listed himself out of the journey, since he wanted to avoid any risks. So we four decided to visit Bhangarh, but among this another member had some personal problems and hence was listed out of the travelogue. Finally we were three members who were desperate to visit Bhangarh. The Team was I, Pravin Kumar and Amit Ghosal.

By the next week we have read almost all the stories of Bhangarh available on the Internet. We have checked almost all the feedbacks as posted by people who have visited the place in past. All these made us even more desperate to visit the place that we might get a chance to experience paranormal activities, which are read only in books but never experience by the Team. I and my Team were stationed at Haridwar, Uttarakhand and we decided to take a Train route. I tried to figure out which is the best possible way to visit Bhangarh and I noticed that there is a station named as Dausa, Rajasthan which is the closest Railway Station to Bhangarh. Bhangarh is around 24Kms away from Dausa station. Since most of the Indian Railway tickets remain booked months before journey, we decided to book a Tatkal ticket and we booked ticket in the Train 09639 (Haridwar-Ajmer Special) for journey on 9th Sep 2011. The Train left Haridwar at the scheduled time of 8:00pm. Though the scheduled time to reach Dausa was 5:35am, we actually reached Dausa Station at around 8:10am on 10th Sep 2011. At the station we tried to enquire how to reach Bhangarh and we were approached by an Auto driver asking Rs 400 for travel to and back from Bhangarh. We understood it was a good proposition since walking 2.5 Kms from the “Gola Ka Bas” stop, on Highway 11A, was tiring in this hot sun and time consuming which can be avoided by booking the Auto. Finally the Auto driver agreed at Rs 350 and we said we will stay there for around 2.5 to 3 Hours and will be back.

The Auto Driver’s name was Wasim Khan. He took us through National Highway 11A towards Bhangarh. The road had many bumps at start but then it smoothened out. On the way out from Dausa, we saw the Dausa ByPass overbridge, which is used by the Jaipur to Agra bound buses to avoid the Dausa city congestion. The distance from Dausa to Bhangarh was around 24Kms. The road was mostly empty. There was a local toll booth and most probably the Auto driver fished out Rs 20 as his toll fee during the

journey. The Driver took a shortcut from the 11A Highway and then again came back to the highway.

I was in the lookout for the pictures of the Bhangarh Fort as seen in Internet. Finally when we were nearing the Gola ka Bas stoppage, I noticed the ruins of Bhangarh Palace on the left at a distance. Near the stoppage there were many marble cutting shops. We reached the point where the auto leaves the Highway and enters the road to Bhangarh Palace, a 2Km ride. We noticed a

pillar indicating the direction and distance to Bhangarh from that place. The Auto moved on. Our enthusiasm was increasing since we were very near to the place which we have read a lot about in internet over the last few days. After few minutes of travel we noticed a

very beautiful architecture, a temple most probably, on the right side of the road. We did not stop since it was a midway, but I took snaps of it.

We reached the entrance to the Bhangarh gate at 9:55am. We could not find any sign board that warns the people to avoid entering the Bhangarh ruins during night. This sign board was much discussed over the Internet and I have read that it was recently removed by the Archaeological Survey of India since it was creating lots of confusion on the meaning of the warnings mentioned on the board. You can see me in the snap in black pants along with Amit.

Pravin wanted to take a snap with the Pillar that informs that Bhangarh is an Ancient Site, and it is a Nationally Protected Monument, notified – 1951.

The entrance had a detailed map of the ruins and its locality. At the entrance there is the Hanuman Gate, with other gates marked on the map like Lahori Gate, Ajmeri Gate, Pholl Bari Gate, Delhi Gate. There is Hanuman Temple, Modon ki Haveli, Jauhari Bazar, Mangla Devi Temple, Ganesh Temple, Gopinath Temple, Keshav Rai Temple, Someshwar Temple, Toilet, Well, Watch Tower, Purohit Ki Haveli, Kevada Plants and the Royal Palace.

The ruins started showing as we walked few minutes from the Hanuman Gate towards the Palace. There was evidence of broken houses which were marked as Main Market. It was obvious that once there stood a lot of brick walled houses which were part of the market. The broken structures were indicative of the grandeur of the locality. We roamed around a bit to delve into unknown sections of the ruins and went towards the right instead of straight path ahead and noticed structures in ruins.

There was a weird looking tree besides the Dancers Haveli. The lower portion of the tree was almost devoured and it was looking as if it was devoid of life. It was sure to look very spooky at night with its branches spread out like a human figure.

We walked and passed another such weird looking tree and finally reached the second gate. We saw the Gopinath Temple on the right side after entering the area. It was a beautiful piece of architecture. It was situated at a high level from the ground and there were a bunch of monkeys roaming here and there. We were very careful so as not to disturb the monkeys. We entered the Temple. It had beautiful crafted designs on its outside and inside.

Inside the Temple there were sculptors of Ganesh and other goddesses on the walls. But there was no god idol in the place of the worship. The place of worship only had marks of Sindoor. While moving ahead from the temple we suddenly noticed a pair of peacocks. One of them was very beautiful with beautiful feathers. The peacocks flew away as we were approaching them and didn’t give us any chance to take any photos or videos. Approaching ahead we saw the entrance to the Royal Palace. It had a stone with inscriptions on the history of Bhangarh as drafted by the Archaeological Survey of India. The nearby locality was filled with people who were doing some Puja near the Kewda Garden. We don’t know what was the occasion but we noticed localites both male and female attending the puja. There were around 100 people at that place.

We started moving ahead. We entered the Palace gates and moved ahead on the rock paved pathway.

There was a tunnel at the corner of the Palace gate. The tunnel seemed to take a turn and inside it looked very dark. We took snaps of the tunnel and brave heartedly entered few feet into the tunnel to take snaps. Nobody dared to go deep to around 5 to 6 feet and see what’s inside after the right turning tunnel. We feared animals more than ghosts! It is believed that these sorts of tunnels were used in those days as escape routes and most probably it was long and dark.

We moved ahead and started inquisitive search of ghosts in every corner of the ruins. We then went inside the Palace one level and noticed a very bad smell. I started taking videos, but the smell was awful to move ahead. We noticed a broken entrance in the ground of one of the rooms (see photo). We did not felt it was right to go inside the steps which were leading downwards. The smell was too strong and we suddenly noticed by looking at the ceiling that it was the bats that have dominated the place and have the whole ceiling covered in some weird looking dwellings. The whole place looked filthy and hence we moved away from that room and moved to the next level of the palace by taking the main stairs.

The next level was open and it had no ceiling. There were beautiful ruins all over the place and it can be understood that it was a royal location. We were on the 2nd floor of the ruins.

We went to the other side and noticed a place with a written note as Rani Ratnavati Temple. The temple was devoid of any gods inside.

We moved ahead and noticed another broken staircase that lead to next level. We went up and finally we were at the top of the Palace. We could see the complete Bhangarh ruins from the top.

This was the peak location and hence there was not much left for us to see. We finally started descending from top level of the ruins after sometime. I have read in Wikipedia that tourist have claimed to have experienced a feeling of restlessness and anxiety in the ruins. I don’t know the truthfulness of this statement, but we really felt extremely exhausted because of the intense heat and the body exercise we did to move up through the ruins. We came down to the Kewda garden and rested a few minutes and then moved on to the Someswar Temple.

The Temple had carvings similar to the other temple. We sat there for some time and watched the young boys jump to the water pond besides the temple. It was time for us to return since we were tired and it was 11:30am.

We started our journey back by walking through the ruins again towards the gate. We could notice a Temple high up at the top of the hill near the gate. It is assumed that the Tantrik Singhia is present there even today keeping an eye on the town. We came out of the ruins and took the Auto that was booked and stationed there and then went to Dausa.

We had a long journey ahead since we had plans to go to Agra and visit Taj Mahal by taking the Buses that ply between Jaipur and Agra and pass through Dausa. Though we could not meet ghosts in our expedition but we felt satisfied that we have seen the

ruins of a beautiful city and the carvings and architecture of the era which India is always proud of. We don’t know whether ghosts are really trapped in the ruins of Bhangarh, but it is always suggested to visit the place in day time only, since there is no artificial light in the area and also there is a high risk of wild animals roaming around after dark. I hope my notes on the expedition was detailed enough and with photos to describe the place in the best possible way. In case you have any query or want further details please drop me a line at “arindam_basu@yahoo.com”. You may also wish to checkout more than 100 photos of Bhangarh ruins at my Facebook page. The videos of our expedition is also available on the YouTube. © All Photos are taken with my Digital Camera, Samsung L201