Geetanjali Krishna: Halloween in Sanjay Van

Given that there's practically a festival for everything in India, not having a desi equivalent for Halloween seems like a big omission. After all, go to any small town in mofussil India, and you'll find your fair share of churails, jinns and bhoots haunting lonely stretches of jungle, road and bridges. Sadly today, big city kids grow up amid too much logic and rationality, preferring to get their chills from the latest Hollywood slasher flick. Which is why we decided, this weekend, to take our children to explore Sanjay Van, said to considered one of Delhi's most haunted spots, to recreate some of that ghostly childhood magic.
 

Till a few years ago, Sanjay Van in the capital's Mehrauli was a wasteland inhabited by drug addicts, the occasional tantric and a ghostly lady in white. Many have reported seeing her over the years, hanging from a tall peepal tree. Others have reported hearing eerie screams and noises emanating from the many unmarked graves here.

However, when we walk into Sanjay Van at four in the evening, all we see are walkers, cyclists and a couple of ungainly blue bulls. Things start looking up as we near the ruins of the Lal Kot wall, the last remnants of the first city to come up in the region we now know as Delhi. Later, Prithviraj Chauhan enlarged the Lal Kot wall, and renamed it Qila Rai Pithora. Lal Kot proved to be a bad omen for Chauhan, who was soon overthrown by Qutubuddin Aibak. Even now, they say that the ruins of Lal Kot resound with screams from a bloody past.

Not today. Lal Kot is quiet, except for the clucking of jungle fowl. I see something white fluttering in a tree, but it's only a plastic bag, not the woman in white. Ahead, in a clearing, there's a scattering of Muslim graves. One of them looks like it has been opened. "Many people have heard clawing sounds from under these graves," says a voice behind us, making us jump. It's only the guard, out to have some fun at our expense. Hearts beating slightly faster, we move ahead to the shrine of Hazrat Sheikh Shahabuddin Ashiqallah.

Hazrat Sheikh Shahabuddin Ashiqallah and his father Abdal Baba were some of the earliest Sufi monks who entered Delhi. The story goes that the pir organised a feast on the day of his father's death anniversary, but the food fell short. His servants were mortified but the unfazed saint covered the utensils containing the food with a cloth, and they kept getting miraculously refilled. Till date, the people of this area believe that the pir walks among them, and the dargah offers free food to all wayfarers.

We've walked seven kilometres in search of ghosts by now, and are tired. I rest my feet against stones paving the path to the shrine. "Don't do that," say a couple of devotees. "The pir walks every night to his lamp under the tree ahead, and these stones are his footprints..." They light the pir's lamp so that his spirit can see the way, talking about him as if he were still around. I wonder at the simplicity of their faith, while the children just listen incredulously. I can't help but feel that with science and rationality, our lives have become somewhat bereft of magic.

"Let's hurry back," I say. "It's getting dark and we don't want to meet the pir!" The children smile and say, "Of course, you know there's no such thing!" Of course, I know they're right, but a part of me hopes that the pir does continue to take his daily constitutional here, 700-odd years after he departed this world.