The Lonely Trek

It was in the month of October four years ago when I had a chance to visit my aunt’s house in Uttarakhand during an official trip I had nearby that area. Though my aunt had died few years ago and no one lived there now. But I had remembered my childhood days when I used to go there and enjoyed my days being in the lap of nature. If I talk about the beauty of Uttarakhand, I might leave you stranded for words. Beauty is so inherent to almost all the things over here stands for the magnanimous mountains, the holiest of the rivers, stunning landscapes, the incessantly colorful play of nature, a mesmerizing floral and faunal plethora and the simplest of the people. The expansive snow carpets in winters, oozing of nascent life with frozen springs making way for the singsong of unsullied streams in springs attracted me a lot. Every festival I used to celebrate with my maternal aunt over there as we had strong bonding.

 Our evenings used to be spent sitting close to fireplace where she used to cook food for me of my choice and that was the time when she used to tell me stories of supernatural things used to happened on the lonely trek we used to follow during afternoon. Even I had experienced something unusual there many times but didn’t take it seriously. But I enjoyed these kinds of stories.

 This time I had to stay alone over there as my cousins have settled abroad and the keys of the house used to be with her best friend next door. Who so ever wanted to stay there could get the keys from her and could stay there. She used to keep the house clean and takes great care of the house. We treat her like our aunt called Ragini.

 That was my first day there staying all alone. It was like a body without a soul as my aunt was no more. Around 3 p.m. I thought of strolling on my favorite trek that I used to do along with my aunt.

Walking along a certain part of trek. I have had a very uneasy feeling when walking along it alone, a feeling like someone is following you and at some point so close behind me that its terrifying. Whenever I did look behind me there was no one. It seemed scary sometimes as during this period the big cats move around stealthily and pounced on who so ever they find. The weather was cold and foggy at that time and on the hills it gets dark early. So I thought of returning. I walked back as fast as I could. On my way I met with one of my known friends and I felt relieved. I told her about my fear. She told me that she also had the same feeling many times and she also got scared for no reason. She told me that she felt as if someone was telling her to keep away from that trek. It seemed haunted.

 After taking dinner, I asked myself what could that be? In the morning when aunt Ragini came to get the room cleaned, I asked her if she knew about the haunted trek. On hearing this her face got pale and she asked me to forget about this. That action of hers provoked me to know the truth. I insisted her. Then she narrated the incident and I started shivering and felt goosebumps all over my body. It was quite scary. She told me that four years ago, a boy called Mohan of the same village was working in Delhi as domestic servant. He used to visit that village once in the year to meet his parents. He had one beautiful sister who was seventeen years old and was very intelligent and hardworking. Like all other girls of poor families, she used to go to forests to collect firewood for cooking. All these girls used to go together and collect the woods. It was their daily routine. One day she thought of staying little longer to collect more wood as her brother was coming back to meet her. She thought next day she would spend with her brother and won’t come to collect wood. She could have never imagined about her fate. All her friends had left. She started collecting the woods as fast as she could as it was getting dark. When she was collecting the woods she heard mysterious sounds as if wild beast was growling and suddenly the voice became louder. She got scared and looked around but before she could get ready to face it, a hungry leopard like creature pounced on her. He injected his teeth in her soft skin. She cried for help with lot of pain. She fought hard to free herself. Her hand was cut off by the beast and her body was torn off into pieces by the beast. This was witnessed by one of the boy hiding behind the bushes and could not gather courage to save her. She died on the spot. The wild animal ate her bit by bit and vanished in few minutes. After that the boy ran back fast and narrated the whole incident to the villagers. After telling this he lost control over his senses and till now he was not able to regain his senses. That night no one could sleep and when her brother arrived and heard about it, no one could stop his sobbing. The whole village got scared. No one had the courage to go on that path in the evening for some time. Now the girls used to come back before 3:30 p.m. from that area. It is said that time is the biggest healer. People slowly forgot that incident and everything got normal. No one saw the wild beast after that but suddenly after my aunt’s death this trek became haunted again. Whenever someone crossed that place one got spooky feeling. Ragini further told that once she was crossing that area and she felt that someone staring at her. It was around 5 p.m when she was returning back from her fields. She could not see anything but two red eyes. She got scared and ran from there but at the same time someone called her by her name.

 On hearing this she stopped and looked around. She was shocked to see that it was none other than my aunt who had left for heavenly abode a year ago. My aunt simply told Ragini not to stay at field late evenings as it was risky for women. She informed that she is scaring all women folk to be away from that area as she knew that the girl who was killed by the beast was pushing down the villagers from high hills as no one came for her help. She was taking revenge. After telling this my aunt vanished and was never seen again. Now I knew why Ragini looked pale when I was insisting her to know the truth. The whole night I kept on thinking about this. Next morning, I left the place as I had to travel back to my own city.