Decorating The World

(Dare to live in a haunted…)

A New York-based Indian writer of a new book tells Dhamini Ratnam why India’s circuit houses are still known for furious ghosts and delicious chicken.

As a child whose mother was a former government officer, Rajika Bhandari spent a fair amount of time in dak bungalows, or circuit houses. In her soonto-release book, Dak Bungalows and Circuit Houses, the 41-year-old social science researcher based in New York, revisits them to unearth the folklore that continues to persist about them. Excerpts:
How did you go about your research?
My interest was sparked in 2005, on a visit to Sardarpur in Madhya Pradesh, where my mother and I stayed at a Dak bungalow. I realised very little literature was available on these buildings that had existed since the 1840s. In 2007, I visited 20 bungalows that the PWD helped me identify, from the hill stations of Kasauli in Himachal Pradesh to Munnar in Kerala. The other, equally significant bit of research was undertaken over several months at the excellent archives of the New York Public Library, where I read an exhaustive array of original travelogues of British men and women who lived and travelled in India from the 1800s through Independence.
Why are Dak bungalows such a trove of ghost stories? Was this a way for the British to ‘storify’ the threat they felt in an alien, and often, inhospitable land?
The British brought with them their own Anglo-Saxon folklore of fairies and witches, which melded with Indian paranormal elements like the figure of the chudail. Dak bungalows, with their remote location, often atop an isolated hill, provided the perfect setting for wild imaginings. Further, India was a strange land for the earlier generations of the British who lived here. Ascribing many of its oddities and mysteries to inexplicable, supernatural phenomena perhaps helped them make sense of it. These buildings were often thought to harbour ghosts also because many British soldiers, women and children died in Dak bungalows during the Revolt of 1857. Still others died of cholera or malaria. Like the bungalows, their stories have persisted and form part of present-day folklore. For instance, the Circuit House at Damoh in MP, which dates back to 1899, has an imposing and brooding quality to it. The bungalow is apparently still haunted, according to AS Kureishi whose father, Abdul Salim Khan, used to be the khansama there. The story goes: The spirit of a man and a woman haunted the site of the Circuit House even before it was built. The spirits did not take kindly to occupants of a different religion and would try and scare away British visitors: objects would fly around; pieces of furniture would march across the room. Any visitors who attempted to resist the ghosts would meet their end, as was the case with the Douglas family. General Douglas shot his wife and two children for no apparent reason, while staying there. Room 1 of the Damoh Circuit House was where most of these tragedies occurred, and continues to be haunted, it is believed. Another of its dubious distinctions includes it’s ability to attract those with suicidal intentions. The bungalow staff reported that dead bodies can often be found hanging from the trees in the forested area surrounding it.
Did you face a supernatural encounter?
Not directly, but I was struck by the eerie and dark atmosphere of the Damoh Circuit House. Something about its design, and the heavy stone architecture made it seem ominous. Of all the Dak bungalows I visited, I know that I will not be returning to stay in this one!

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