Colours of life

Life is full of experiences in varied colours. Since it has been a long time and I did not get a topic for my new blog, I chose to write something very interesting which happened with me. I love being adventurous and have always been a game for trying new things.
It happened to be a birthday of one of our friends and we decided to celebrate it in style. What followed was not planned. It all started with a customary cake cutting and dinner with friends to commemorate the occasion. We were three couples. Apart from Dev and me, there were Akhil - Shalini(the birthday girl) and Rahul - Nidhi. The kids had their own company and were busy in their selves.

The dinner was arranged in Jaipur’s upmarket Sharma Dhaba right in the spine chilling cold. We were through with our usual masti at around 12 in the night, and being good and decent people, we decided to head for home. Until I got this wild wild idea and everybody jumped to it. I suggested that we should drop the kids home with Nidhi’s maid and we should head for Nahargarh. To those who are not familiar about Jaipur, Nahargarh is actually a very popular tourist attraction here and stands on the edge of the Aravalli Hills overlooking the pink city. Breathtakingly beautiful during the day and equally scary at night. Legends say that it was name after Prince Nahar whose spirit haunted the place and obstructed construction of the fort. It used to be the hunting residences of maharajas. Nahargarh Fort forms a remarkable backdrop of Jaipur and offers a glittering view of the city lights. Presently it is partially in ruins with its deserted places being notorious for people boozing on roads and couples sneaking in for their private moments.

We dropped the kids home made some tea and headed for our next destination. We sneaked into Nahargarh around 1 in the night although the official timings are from 10 to 4. It was now that these people decided to have some fun at my expense. Once we were near to the place, Rahul started scaring me with some ghost stories which he claimed to be true about the spirits haunting the place in night and so on. We were in Akhil’s Scorpio. Rahul was driving and Nidhi was sitting next to him. On the middle seat there were Akhil and Shalini and right at the back was me and Dev. Once we started climbing the hill it was all dark and deserted. We were in the midst of a forest at 1 in the night and Rahul kept on warning us not to open the windows or stop anywhere. To add to it, he even talked about people being murdered at the place and everybody sharing their side of a spooky story they knew or had heard, making it all the more frightening for me. Hats off to Rahul who played his eeriest best that day. I could not take it anymore and I told them to return back. After much pestering, Rahul agreed to return back but he still had this creepy thing in mind.

Suddenly he got very serious and said, “Jokes apart, what I am now going to tell you is something very serious that happened last month here.” Targeting me, he said that there was a couple from Delhi who had hired a driver to have a round of the fort at night last month. Right in the middle of the forest, the driver stopped the car and ran away. He is still not being found by anybody. Before I could feel anything or say anything, he stopped the car, switched off the lights and in split seconds he ran out of the car yelling. It was all dark outside, we didn’t realise what happened and before we could get our breath back, we came from behind and started patting the car from the rear window. GOD!!!!!! I could have died of a cardiac arrest that time. The spectre of actually seeing a ghost was the most bizarre thing I have ever witnessed in life.

To add to it, everybody knew about this plot except me. I did not have the courage to stay there for any longer and yelled at them to go back. I came to my senses once we reached Hawa Mahal. We got down from the car, had tea and wandered round the place till 2.30. We had our share of fun and scare and we returned back at 3 am only to find all the three kids cuddled together with each other in Devanshi’s bed, fast asleep.
This actually was my first brush with terror.