The last days of the Samvat calendar month of Asadha (June-July) are said to be marked by optical illusions that sometimes charm and sometimes baffle the viewer, especially at historical sites. The Mughal prince Rafiushhan out hunting, got caught in a thunderstorm in a thicket beyond the Jamuna in the 18th century and was accosted by a beautiful woman with long flowing hair in a ruined monument. He was charmed by her sudden appearance, but she never reappeared though he made frequent visits to the place.
Some centuries earlier Raja Ugar Sen had a similar experience when an ‘apsara’ (angel) appeared before him at a ramshackle Shivalya (Shiva temple) while he was on a shikar (hunting) trip. She asked him to build a baoli (stepwell), which the raja did, and his creation is still there on Hailey Road. Firoz Shah Tughlak built Bhuli Bhatiyari ka Mahal in similar circumstances on the part of the Delhi Ridge that now falls in the Karol Bagh area.
Some years ago, the Delhi papers reported an incident in which two men taking shelter during a stormy evening in late June at a deserted shrine in Nizamuddin saw images of people in medieval clothes rotating on the walls as though somebody was operating a magic lantern. They ran out when they could not stand the effect of the eerie scene any longer.
At the Taj Mahal, according to gossip, Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal can be seen at midnight sitting on the lotus pond seat when the Malhar, the rainy season raga is sung in neighbouring Taj Ganj, originally built for the artisans who erected the edifice of love in a labour lasting more than 20 years.
The sudden death of an English lady during a moonlight party at the monument in the 19th century and the impulsive murder (also at night) there two years later by a British Army major of an Irish woman and her lover are also probably pointers to the psychic effect evident at historical sites.
Weird energy from thunderstorms can bring strange events from the past to life, say psychicists. On a monsoon night near the Qutub Minar in 1950, five history buffs sat in a British-era Dak Bungalow attending a seance by Nawabzada Farooq-ur-Rahman Khan of Datoli. Among them were a thakur, a doctor, a noted shikari, a zamindar and my elder brother, Maxie. Dr Dayal wanted to establish contact with a medical student who had committed suicide and whose heart was later found missing from the body buried in the ITO graveyard. At the time, police investigation had shown that the medical student’s lover had approached an Ustad, well-versed in the occult, with a request for her heart as a keepsake. Later the same day, after dusk, the Ustad, the lover and two others made their way to the mud grave, exhumed the corpse and cut out the heart despite a chilling feeling after their dastardly act, for which they were arrested and tried. But the case failed for lack of evidence, as the heart could not be recovered from them. At the 1950s seance when the girl’s spirit was ‘conjured’, some years after her death, a thunderstorm broke out. Lightning flashed all around the Dak Bungalow, there was a clap of thunder and an image became visible. The assembled men looked out of the window and froze in their seats, for there standing in the waning moonlight was a girl with a bleeding heart. She made a gesture of despair and vanished.
According to the late Sarfaraz Khan, tourist guide, prior to certain monsoon nights, murdered Mughal princes can be seen at the Red Fort, Khooni Darwaza and Humayun’s Tomb but the ASI dismisses this as plain superstition.
The writer is a veteran chronicler of Delhi
