Haunted Hotel in Kochi
My blogs are completely based on my own experiences, the real life stories that I get to hear from people who — in some way or the other — have undergone them. And since there is no intention of hurting anyone’s interests and sentiments, so I have concealed the actual names of the people and the places linked to them. Comments from only those who are serious about esoteric and paranormal/ parapsychology are solicited.
It was a warm but pleasant morning of early June 2008, when my sister, who was then working in the retail space of a reputed business conglomerate, walked into the reception of a five star hotel in a busy locale of Kochi (Kerala), at around 11:00 am. In those days, whenever she went for an office trip, it used to be at least for a week and invariably, the duration of her stay used to get extended. Surprisingly, during this trip, right after she had checked-in, she received a call from office telling her to complete her job within five days and return to Kolkata. She had stayed there for five days and four nights.
She was at Kochi for an official tour and for a span of five days she was put up in this old hotel that had its history etched during the Imperial rule in India. The dimly lit lobby with its yellow lights, wooden floor and ceiling, exuded an atmosphere of warmth and hospitality. The ground floor had the reception area, dining hall, kitchen; the first and second floors had the rooms for its customers.
While handing out the key to her hotel room, the receptionist and others at the lobby eyed her strangely and asked her — “Have you come alone?”
She replied a brief “yes”, took the keys from the reception and followed the hotel staff member who was carrying her luggage.
Her room was right at the end of the passage on the second floor next to the duct. It was quite clear that not many people frequented that side of the dimly lit passage and the atmosphere was a bit different from the other sections of the hotel. She stepped into a nice cozy well-lit room, which had some old brown wooden cupboards placed against a white-washed concrete wall on the left and a bathroom on the right side of the main entrance. A small wooden table with a stool stood between the cupboards and a television set, which diagonally faced a king size bed. The television set was placed between the white-washed wall and a heavily curtained glass wall (also served as a window overlooking the city houses below) from one end to the other end of the room. The glass wall ended into the duct wall that covered a slice of the room next to the bed and the bathroom that were divided by a wall. There was a strange thing about the room — the bathroom door next to the main entrance could be closed only from inside.
Being a person who prefers to be in her own world, she did not notice much as to what was going around her. She had to leave for the local office immediately after freshening up. In the evening after returning to her hotel and before going to her room on the second floor, she had placed an order for her dinner at the ground floor and was told that it would get delivered after 45 minutes. The moment she was about to enter her room she got the aroma of the food that she had asked for. How could the smell of the food, which was still not prepared, floated above from the dining area/ kitchen at the ground floor to her room on the second floor? She had formed an impression that the food was ready but due to their inefficiency they were delaying in delivering the same. After 45 minutes, the door bell rang and an attendant stood with a tray laden with her food outside her room that was attached to the duct. She noticed some strange smoke coming out of the light inserted over his head.
“What is that smoke all about?” she asked.
“Oh! That’s the herbal smoke! Are you staying all alone?” was his quick and well guarded response.
There was no fragrance of herbs but nothing suspicious crossed her mind. The night went smooth after having dinner she fell fast asleep. On the first day of her stay, most of the she was somehow not allowed to stay in her room. It was as if some unseen force was pushing her out of the room. It so happened that no sooner she stepped out of her room, the door got locked behind her with a soft creaking sound, and with the keys lying inside the room. She had to rush to the reception for the master key.
Next morning, she, had to leave for Parakkal (150 kms away from Kochi, in the Kozhikode City of north Kerala), at 8:00 am and slept on till a wakeup call at 7:10 am pulled her up. It was surprising that no instructions for wakeup calls were given at the reception but someone played the role diligently. Nobody was aware of when she was supposed to leave except for a lady from the local place with whom she had to go. She had a telecom with her the previous evening while relaxing in her room after a hectic day. Probably someone wanted to keep her out of the room and always tried to keep her away without harming her. After a tiring and busy day, she returned to the hotel, placed an order for her dinner at the ground floor and went up to her room. As usual, the food got delivered after 45 minutes but the aroma came from outside her room on the second floor, immediately after the order was placed. The third day saw her busy with local office visit, work but nothing noticeably different happened in the evening other than the usual receiving of aroma of the food outside her room no sooner the order was placed. Still nothing had struck her!
On the fourth day, nothing significant or unusual happened throughout the day. The evening transited into night peacefully and it was quite relaxing till her dinner got over. Post-dinner, at around 11:00 pm, she was walking around in her room conversing over the phone. She sat down on the bed and a little later leant against the pillows. In an absent-minded state her fingers tapped against the wall behind her bed. It was a hollow wall dividing the bedroom and the bathroom. For the first time, she felt that something was strange and quickly sat up! With her mobile phone practically glued to her ear while talking, she tapped again — once — twice — and was greeted by a hollow sound. It struck her eerie and she was gripped by immense fear. Her intuition was at work and sent out some messages to her!
It seemed to her that someone was smoking cigar outside her room. She did not have the guts to open the main door next to the bathroom nor could she disconnect the phone. She continued with her telecom and next she got up to check the bathroom. She stood transfixed in front of the bathroom next to the main door and uselessly tried to figure out if somebody in real was standing there outside. The cigar smell was bothering her. She got more frightened and entered the bathroom. It seemed as if someone was near the commode and was heavily smoking. Next to the commode was the area for taking a shower and in that section the smell was the strongest but she still could not see anybody.
She stood there dumb and mute for five to seven minutes because she was convinced that something unnatural was happening in the bathroom. While she stood inside the bathroom, lot of thoughts crossed her mind — she wondered if she would complain at the hotel reception, ask about her check-out timing the next morning, whether she would be detained for complaining and get into trouble and so on but finally she chose to keep quiet about it. Moreover, there was another problem — the bathroom could not be locked from outside. When she realised that nothing could be done, she came out and walked up and down the room. She tried to remain relaxed and kept her wristwatch on the television top before switching it on. She surfed through the channels and to divert her mind, she started watching ‘Tom n Jerry’ cartoon film. It acted as a respite during that unearthly hour! It was difficult to sleep but after 30 to 40 minutes she fell asleep.
Next day when she got up she saw three to four strange things — the television main switch was switched off from her room, her Titan wrist watch had stopped ticking at 5:30 am and the centralized AC was also switched off. The centralized AC could not have been switched off when the entire hotel needed it and that too there was no power failure issue. Somebody wanted her to get up and leave! She had her breakfast, went down to the reception to tell them that she was going to checkout at 9:00 am. She did not try to contact the reception from her room intercom in case she gets detained but she realized it later that she would not have been stopped because the invisible occupant of her room wanted her to leave. She was a source of disturbance for the entity. While leaving, she did not give any feedback at the reception despite seeing the curious look on the faces of the hotel staff members who were present there. Probably, they thought that all went well with her.
During those five days at Kochi, whenever she used to leave for work, she always used to keep her stuffs locked in her suitcase. On the morning of the last day, when she was about to pack her stuffs, she opened the locked suitcase only to find her Keo Karpin body oil bottle lying helplessly empty with a twisted lid, amidst her oil smeared clothes, official papers and other belongings. After she returned to Kolkata, we all were eye witnesses to the after effects of the wrath of her invisible roommate and later on she had submitted those oil smeared documents at her office. The wristwatch did not have any battery issue but had to be sent to the Titan service centre for repairing. Since she is always into chanting and meditation and probably that was what had saved her from all kinds of mental or physical harms during her Kochi trip.
I wish that during her stay, my sister had gathered some info about the invisible occupant. As our teacher and Wiccan High Priestess, Ipsita Roy Chakraverti says, haunting can be of various types and I wonder what this would be treated as — Residual (in case of accidents)? Trapped (like that of the trapped souls of Bhangarh fort in Rajasthan) or Emotional (in cases of people who had loved life but had to depart suddenly)? It is a point to ponder upon!
