It was during the industrial tour of Nov 2008, that we made a visit to this hill station in Kerala, Munnar. Its 2 years since this incident, but the occurrences of the night are still fresh in my mind.
The people who were lucky enough to be a part of this legendary night were, Me (Abhinav), Santosh, Jeevan, Vineeth, Kaushik, Sandhya, Anusha and Dhana.
The 60 people of our class and our lecturers had settled into this hotel, with 4 students in each room. And everybody was in their respective rooms sleeping, but the names mentioned above were not sleepy and happened to meet in the gallery of the rooms. Santosh, Jeevan, Vineeth and Kaushik were from the same room, and me another.
Before I get into the details of the night, the reader should be given a clear picture of what this gallery looked like. We were on the second floor of the building. With this Z shaped gallery (of 90 degree bends), and two sets of stairs at each end. The lighting of this gallery was also not very bright and one fluorescent lamp lighted at its dimmest possible brightness. This group of ours sat on one set of stairs, and because the bend was 90 degrees, we were clueless about who comes or goes from the other stairs. You must be wondering what made us sit in the stairs in the middle of the night, well girls were given the first floor rooms of the hotel and guys the second and third. The two lecturers who accompanied us had taken the two rooms in the terrace. And it was not advisable for guys to spend the night in girl’s room or girls in guy’s room. Hence we were sitting on the stairs and playing Dumb Shiraz.
Santosh, Sandhya, Jeevan and Me were one team remaining another. The person enacting would stand in front of the stairs (where his team members were sitting) and act. And the other team would sit behind this team on the same stairs. The game was going good, and we were leading, until one point where Santosh was unable to enact a simple movie name, and thus gave them an equalizer. Santosh quite disappointed with his effort went and sat behind everyone on the top most stairs. After sometime unable to bear the guilt he decided to leave (without informing anyone, he climbed up till the terrace, took the other stairs at other end of the Z gallery and went the reception). And none of us realized that Santosh had mysteriously left. Half an hour into the game, with scores still the same, we realized Santosh has disappeared. And all of us got the eerie feeling of something going wrong. The sudden disappearance of him had made everyone extremely alert to the slightest of noise. We decided to look for him, all one knew was he hadn’t gone down, because for that he would have to cross us, which he didn’t (and it didn’t strike that he could use the other stairs for this purpose).
Hence I followed by Kaushik and Jeevan went up, to the terrace to look for him, and Vineeth stayed back to take care of the girls. We climbed the stairs with sweat pouring on November night (if you are thinking what kind of scary people we are, then you are not really imagining the situation we were in, with our friend missing under mysterious circumstances, and we three walking into darkness completely unaware of what awaits us). The terrace was empty and we looked for Santosh in every possible hiding place of the terrace, when Kaushik found an Ouija drawing on the wall, made by someone. It looked like someone had tried to call the spirits there using that Ouija drawing. It freaked us out from top to toe, and we ran to the second floor shouting and panting like dogs. Hearing all this noise, the missing guy Santosh (who was sleeping in the couch of the reception), came running to see what happened. And everyone was very happy to see our dear friend alive. So we narrated him the entire incident of how we freaked out on not finding him, and about the Ouija drawing on the terrace (which we found out next day was scribbling by a small child using the red stone, apparently the child has tried to make triangles which made Kaushik think they were the Ouija drawings). Santosh told us, how disappointed he was for losing that point, and left via the terrace, all this created a humorous atmosphere among us. (Anusha seemingly tired already, retired for her room).
Santosh then wanted to see that Ouija drawing, so Vineeth lead the way for him to the terrace. And remaining of us was standing on the gallery a little away from the stairs, talking. Just when I needed to fart, I didn’t want to embarrass myself so I quietly walked away from the group towards the stairs which lead downstairs and farted noiselessly in peace. But none of the girls or Kaushik and Jeevan realized that I had moved away, and Sandhya saw a figure (me) standing right under the lights near the stairs (now the lights were falling straight on my head, thus making me stand under my own shadow, making me unrecognizable) and she thought it was a spirit and she let out a cry. Kaushik, Dhana and Jeevan all looked at me for split second, screamed loudly, jumped and ran into the gallery.
Well look at the situation I was in, these 4 had just looked in my direction, have let out a cry and ran, and all this in a fraction of seconds. My entire body shook with the thought that someone was right behind me (it couldn’t have been Vineeth and Santosh because they had gone upstairs, and I was standing near the stairs leading down). In split second I took two leaps and was in the place where a second earlier Kaushik and others have stood, I looked into the direction where I was standing a few milliseconds back to look for the ghost which had propped behind me, only to find air. This entire scene happened in not more than 2-3 seconds, (I understood the reason for their fear and scare and made me laugh out loud). At this exact time, Vineeth and Santosh were just stepping into the terrace, when they heard the cry which freaked them completely and in just 3-4 steps they descended down two floors, to find me rolling with laughter. We regrouped then to discuss this new happening. On realizing what has just occurred everyone had a good laugh again.
It was Dhana’s turn now, who seemingly had gotten bored of this funny happenings had retired for her room (again without informing anyone) and Sandhya found her missing and freaked out, everyone assured her that she must have gone to her room, but Sandhya was still getting scared. So I went to Dhana’s room (which was located exactly at the bend of the 90 degree of the Z gallery) to check if she was actually in the room. I knocked. Dhana opened, saw me, and let out a cry right on my face (I don’t know why), this shrill cry of her’s freaked me, and I cried out myself and in my fear I yelled at her “Wtf did you shout for? It’s me Abhinav. Just stay in your room. Sandhya was getting worried about you.” So I came back, and told Sandhya that Dhana was in her room, it was then that everybody decided to go to their respective rooms. Sandhya who was from Dhana’s room was going, and Kaushik said, ‘I will accompany you, so that you don’t get scared’. This sentence was hell funny. Because Kaushik (better known as Cow-Shit) is a pussy himself and he was going to accompany her. So I decided to screw Cowshit. As they left, taking the stairs. I ran from the other side and stood right at the turn of the gallery where they were about to come. As they were approaching, Kaushik was scaring the girl, telling her “Look there is someone” just as he completed this sentence I pounced on him like a tiger. He cried out like a cat, jumped 3 feet in the air, and crouched on the floor. It was worth a video. Sandhya got really angry and was letting out curses on me. Cowshit was still in fear and just survived a mini heart attack.
Sandhya came back to 2nd floor to scold me more. When she was done scolding, she instructed everyone not to follow her, and she would go alone. But Vineeth disobeyed and accompanied her. And I, Cowshit, Jeevan and Santosh had entered Santosh’s room. (You might remember that this was not my room, but I had come here for time being. But others didn’t realize this) And Santosh saw that there were 4 members in the room, so he went to close the door, as he left the door knob, it rotated back (Vineeth who was still out was trying to open it from outside) and Santosh not realizing this, thought that it was a ghost, and we all saw the face expression of his changing from ‘Nothing’ to ‘A Freaked Out Nut’, his mouth wide open, he peeped outside to see which ghost it was trying to open the door, and found Vineeth, yet shouted aloud (only he can explain why he did that). And thus entered Vineeth and thus ended all the happenings of this legendary night.
I stayed back in their room for some time, discussing and re-discussing the entire night’s occurrences. None of us had witnessed such a night ever in our lives, and nor will we do (until something extraordinary happens again to one of us).
Nothing in this entire story is self made, and if you have found any part of this story boring, it only means that I have not been able to recreate the magic of that night through my words.
2 years have passed by, but that Munnar night remains THE MUNNAR NIGHT of our lives.
