Welcome to the ‘spookiest’ Indian town. Two mad men made a visit and lived to tell the tale

But is it haunted?” my friend Ram asked as we discussed whether to embark on a road trip to Bhangarh, other factors appeared secondary. As we started our research about the abandoned city located between Jaipur and Alwar, legends emerged. There was the tale of an ancient sadhu, a holy man, who resided near where the city fortress was founded. He permitted the city to be built with the provision that its construction should not disturb him. He demanded that not even a shadow of the buildings erected should fall on his abode. The city was built and populated with his blessing but as time went by the rulers forgot their promise and continued to expand upwards. When the shadow fell on the sadhu’s home, he cursed it to a terrible fate. Disasters followed. The city was shortly abandoned as the tallest structures crumbled, demonstrated today by the fact that the royal palace located at the highest point is now a four-storey structure with three of its top stories having collapsed. Then there is the tale of the princess who died after being cursed by a tantric, a practitioner of black magic, which led to the demise of the city. The ruins of Bhangarh apparently wait for her rebirth and return. Others give less supernatural explanations—perpetual battles with neighbors—but legends aside, there are plenty of anecdotes from visitors and villagers of disembodied noises including anklets clinking in the darkness. Some claim to have seen apparitions, others have noted ghostly lights. Visitors claim to have been depressed to the point of tears for no reason inside the palace and some felt invisible hands holding them. Stories have led Bhangarh to be listed online as one of the most haunted places in India. Investigators of the supernatural have delved into the ruins. The romance of Bhangarh tales was undeniable. Ram, my companion on this tour and a writer, wanted to experience a genuine haunting. As an architect enamored by history, I am easily smitten by ruins. We decided that there was only one way to know the truth about Bhangarh. Driving, we went from Delhi to Alwar in a few hours which presented itself as a dusty township. It appeared to be a city which has rapidly progressed from the medieval to the slightly banal modern. The imposing Bala Kila Fort, was visible from several places and we resisted the temptation to drive up in lieu of more ghost hunting. Later, we explored the bustling Kalakand Market near Hope Circus and gorged on Alwar’s most famous sweet. Varieties available were impressive; the sweet itself was gorgeous. We stopped briefly at our hotel where we were amused when we ambled into the gift shop. Like avid tourists we asked to see what was local and were promptly offered printed T-shirts with Bob Marley prints. When further prompted, the shopkeeper declared us to be men of the world and surreptitiously fished out Kama Sutra-themed playing cards. Soon after we left we were at the Sariska Forest Reserve; tiger country! We were politely informed that we could not drive through the reserve. The highway rapidly deteriorated into a broken path and our city car was virtually challenged off the road. Our pace became sluggish and tempers frayed as we spent more than an hour grinding through a 10km stretch ignoring the jungle around us. Traffic thinned the further we drove away from Alwar. After Thana Gazi, it virtually disappeared. Our enthusiasm started to wane with the realisation that we were possibly lost on a desolate stretch while going to a ghost town with the possibility of light fading—almost appeared that we were driving into a clichéd horror movie scene. When we finally reached Bhangarh, we were tired but raring to go on. The first thing one notices about Bhangarh Fort is that despite being a tourist spot, it presents itself as isolated even from the nearby village. Locals shun the fort at night. The Archeological Survey of India prohibits entry into the complex between sunset and sunrise, a guideline which only adds to the legends. The fort nestles against a small hill in the Aravalli range. The sense of abandonment is acute. The surrounding jungle breaks through into the fort in parts. A single neatly paved stone pathway winds its way up flanked on both sides by shells of buildings. Most roofs have collapsed and rectilinear walls appeared to have been whittled by time to no more than a foot or two in places. The bases which once were rooms and houses appear to be the last stand against the invading forest relentlessly inching towards the path in the center. As we walked, we played guessing games about how the buildings must have been lived. Seeing some obviously recent etchings on the walls, Ram remarked about how poorly some Indian historical sites were maintained and how this site could easily mirror a photo-op site in Rome. He was right. Bhangarh could easily be as a pristine ruin in another part of the world. At the hill top behind the complex stood a conspicuously single chattri, a covered pavilion. It was visible from everywhere, and we wondered if that was the source of the legendary offending shadow. Later we were told that the chattri was the one of the places of ghostly evil. Hordes of monkeys appeared to rule the place as dusk set in. As we walked past an inner gate now populated by hundreds of simians, we were pleasantly surprised to see a large quadrangle with two temples and the entrance to the palace which appeared to have survived the ravages of time better than the rest of the complex. The temples were both impressive with lovely stone details and tall shikharas. One of the carved stone bands of a monkey-like face stood out as creepy and wonderful. The palace, higher up the hillside appeared relatively austere. As we explored some of its chambers, we remembered the stories of the terrible despair indicative of haunting. We roamed, we waited, and sadly, we felt nothing. The palace despite its regal past, defied legends. As we descended we were treated to a beautiful fading landscape at the palace entrance and were forced to stand and stare. The caretakers, while clearing the complex of stragglers, acknowledged our presence and indicated their leniency with the rules towards us since Ram had claimed earlier to be a writer in search of his truth. As we walked down, we stopped and tried to explore every ruin we hadn’t seen and take every path we missed on the way up till we could see no more. We were the lone ghosts of Bhangarh then and were sad to leave. A caretaker doubling as a parking attendant hastily locked the gate behind us. Before we could enter the car, he hopped on a bicycle and raced away from the fort; whether to family or away from ghosts was not clear. As we drove back to Aligarh guided mostly by starlight we both decided that Bhangarh was definitively not haunted, but certainly haunting.