Trip report: 22Apr12; Bhangarh - India's most haunted place.

Bhangarh, a set on Flickr.

Complete set of images can be found here.

Here are some pics of my visit to Bhangarh. Bhangarsh is listed as the most haunted town of India. Do not take my word for it, just google Bhangarh ghost haunted on the net, you will see what I mean

Pictures taken on Apr 22nd, 2012 - Sunday.

Map: Here is the google map link - http://g.co/maps/f9z65

From Delhi, at 212km (4hrs) milestone, you turn left and drive another 60kms (2.5 hrs) on NH11A, to reach destination. Just in case, you want to seek a face to face appointment with the ghosty residents. 

Jokes apart, this is a very well maintained ASI heritage. Worth a days visit.

Wikipedia leak - "Legend states that the city of Bhangarh was cursed by the Guru Balu Nath, who sanctioned the establishment of the town with one condition, saying, "The moment the shadows of your palaces touch me, the city shall be no more!" When a descendant raised the palace to a height that cast a shadow on Balu Nath's forbidden retreat, he cursed the town as prophesied. Balu Nath is said to lie buried there to this day in a small samādhi.
Another myth is that of the Princess of Bhangarh Ratnavati, said to be the jewel of Rajasthan, who on her eighteenth birthday began to get offers of marriage from other regions. In the area lived a tantrik, a magician well versed in the occult, named Singhia, who was in love with the princess but knew that the match was impossible. When one day Singhia saw the princess's maid in the market, he used his black magic on the oil she was purchasing so that upon touching it the princess would surrender herself and run to him. The princess, however, seeing the tantric enchanting the oil, foiled his plan by pouring it on the ground. As the oil struck the ground it turned into a boulder, which crushed Singhia. Dying, the magician cursed the palace with the death of all who dwelt in it. The next year there was a battle between Bhangarh and Ajabgarh in which Princess Ratnavati perished."

I would not argue for the facts of the case - haunted or myth, the site receives several thousand visits per day and is generally regarded as haunted site.

This was my second visit to this place here. In the first visit, last year me and four of my friends - reached here at around 5pm, we stayed upto well over 830pm.
The idea was not to do a scientific research but to generally have fun.

1. People generally are not willing to take name of bhangarh, when you ask for directions - they would give directions to Pratpgarh, Ajabgarh etc. (all close to bhangarh) but most people will NOT react to your asking question about how to reach bhangarh.

2. Even before you get to Bhangarh, the village/city/town of ajabgarh is pretty much in ruins and the narrow street actually takes you through very recentlyt deserted houses. We had stopped here to speak to locals - all of them had 'abnormal' reason to leave - 5 of 6 members of a family died in one night, 2 families started coughing blood, youngest member never survived, hence couple grew old and died. All can be explained in a perfectly scientific way, but...

3. During our stay there (in our 2011 trip), we had video camera - and were recording off and on. Nothing abnormal was caught on the camera. during the 2 and half hour stay at the fort.

4. However, there were a lot of sounds - and most of them can be explained by the fact that bhangarh is on the periphery (about 30km) of the wildlife park of Sariska. So wild animals can make similar sounds that may seem haunting during the nights.

5. There were, however, clear kinds of sound, which is still in store with me, that we were not able to attribute to any natural cause - it was pretty much rhythmic and it was difficult to imagine that coming from a natural action. Like somebody trying to knock his way out of some enclosure.

6. The site is still open for religious rituals, apart from a temple in the complex - there is a separate place for doing the hawans, and even today small time tantriks and believers come and do occult kind of prayers... one was in progress when we had visited last year.

7. Unlike last trip, where there was almost zero population within the 2 km vicinity of the fort, this year we did see some homes coming up...

8. In order not to promote superstitiion the ASI has taken down the board which prohibited people staying after 530pm, though the rule still prevails. It is to do with protecting the heritage site, ith over night occupation and protection from wild animals, than anything else - but I guess romanticism of haunting can be flared with even the smallest of information.

9. During our stay, one of our friends did feel extra ordinary chilled, but it can be attributed to his mild fever that he was running through the day, and the booze he was gulping in - so a fever flare up is a fair possibility.

10. This trip, yesterday was with my wife and kids - my idea was more to shoot pics, while they got to do the digging... and we were in the ruins bang middle of the day... so nothing very extra-ordinary to report except the same shyness in the people to direct you to this place.

Summary: Is the place haunted. Do not know, don't care. Personally I am non-believer of such things so it does not matter to me. But I guess, for some people ( i suspect hundreds of thousands - going by the internet search) the haunting and the myth around it needs to be kept alive. So I would vote to let it be.