It was Tuesday and I was sitting in the class. The boring lecture of physics was going on. But the arrival of our principal sir filled us with excitement. He came into the class.
“Who are interested for a trip to Alwar?” he asked.
We all raised hands. A feeling of joy and excitement floated in the class. There was no more mood of study. The bell ringed and we picked our bags for home. On reaching home, the first work which I did was surfing the internet sitting before the computer. I explored the websites for exploring the tourist sites in Alwar. My internet connection was slow. But I managed to search the whole information. There was one lake and many of the beautiful palaces like the City Palace and many of the forts. But one fort named the Bhangarh Fort captured my special attention.
I downloaded its image. It seemed to be very old and scary. Below the image, it was written that this fort is India’s most haunted place. The horror flowed through my blood. I was wondering that we got ready to go to that fort which was full of scary figures. But we shouldn’t make any opinion at first sight. I searched the whole story behind it.
It was built by an ancient king centuries ago. It was a very happy and prosperous kingdom named Bhangarh. There was a famous princess named Ratnavati. The stories of her immense beauty were widespread. She used to go to the market every week. One day, she was purchasing some item on a shop. A tantrik used to live at a place near the market. That day, he saw the queen there. He got attracted by her beauty. He prepared a perfume which on applying would attract that person towards the tantric. He offered it to the Rajkumari Ratnavati. She got annoyed by his act and threw the perfume bottle on a large stone which got crushed and all the perfume got spread on the rock. As per the rule, the stone would get attracted towards the tantric. He soon realized that his end was near. But before that, he gave a curse to the princess that she and her whole kingdom would never rest in peace and would soon get attacked by invaders and would demolish. Their souls would get trapped in the fort and wouldn’t get salvation. The large stone fell on him and took out his life. After some days, the same thing happened. The neighbor kingdoms attacked on the fort and all got died in the bloody war. Their souls got trapped there. Till today, their souls are present in the Bhangarh Fort.
After reading the whole story, I became excited to visit the fort and paid the tour fees in the school. We were asked to come in the town park after two days. The night before the tour day was sleepless. I couldn’t sleep well because of tremendous excitement. Finally, the tour day came. I reached there sharply at 4:00 a.m. The journey was long, of some six to eight hours. But with friends, this duration was not more. We enjoyed very much and played several games in the bus. At last, we reached the Alwar, our destination. Finding a way to travelling sites was very much difficult there. We were allotted our rooms in a hotel.
Then, we boarded the bus again. The path was unknown to us in that new city. We were going to the City Palace. Someone guided us the wrong way. Anyhow we reached there and travelled the whole palace. It was a masterpiece of artwork. I came to know that we were not going to the Bhangarh Fort. It was a heart-breaking moment for me. I thought my journey useless without a visit there. I got very much disappointed. Our teacher announced the same after some time. But trekking on a mountain made me happy. But the sorrow of not going to Bhangarh was still residing in my heart.
Next day, it took a long time to have breakfast. We were already too late. Our next journey was too long. In between, one of the bus tires got punctured and we had to cover a long distance of eleven kilometers on foot. Finally, we reached an ancient temple and visited it. I prayed to the god for a visit to the Bhangarh Fort. Now, we were to go home. Everyone got disappointed because of the poor tour.
After some time while sitting in the bus, the way to Bhangarh came in between. Our teacher discussed with us that if we would go to the fort, it would be late to reach the home. We all said that the home wouldn’t change its place. We should go there. We all accepted to go there. A rush of excitement and horror travelled down through my nerves. In the bus, my one friend told us that at night, the sounds of bangles and ringing metallic beads have been heard by villagers from the fort. The souls dance at night inside the fort as believed by the villagers. We reached the fort after two hours. The sun was almost to set. The fort doors were closed.
“Ugh! Was this our final destination? Can’t we enter the fort after coming here from a far away place” I thought. But to our utter surprise, the gate-keepers opened the door at our own risk. It was believed that nobody had been able to come back who once entered the fort after the sunset. We all entered the main gate of the fort boundary. The market of the fort was the first sight. No seller or buyer was there. Only, four sided spaces surrounded by walls with no roof were there. It was very strange and below them it was written that this is the dancer’s shop, this is the perfumes shop and so on.
The main fort was still one kilometer away. It was somewhat high and looked very ancient. My breath slowed down as I entered in it. Inside it, there was a great silence. It seemed that it was in wait for something since many centuries. Our teacher told us that when we were in the bus, going to the way to the fort, a freshly fallen down tree had blocked our way and we had to follow a large distance route. All of us were in a mental shock after listening such incident. The blocking of the road by fallen tree was indicative of something but we couldn’t find it out. We went to its roof. The fallen pieces of fort walls were lying there and grass had grown on them.
I also came to know that the animals from nearby wildlife century used to come in the fort. The peacocks were flying inside the fort with a high speed and were producing scary sounds. We took a photograph there and returned back to the bus. There were other sites also like Ratnavati’s temple. But we were so much scared that we were not in a condition to go there. The horrorful story of Bhangarh Fort still haunts me.
–END–
