Bhangarh - The Lost Kingdom

Watching horror movies and reading spooky ghost stories were still considered normal in my family until I decided to actually travel a 1300 kilometers to get to the den of the devils in Rajasthan. People claim to have heard the tinkling of payals, seen the ruined market come to life at this place I am talking about, one of the most haunted places in India, Bhangarh Fort. I must admit that being a horror story addict, these narratives were something that drew me there.

Between Jaipur and Alwar in Rajasthan, Bhangarh is a beautiful and tranquil landscape at the edge of the Sariska Tiger Reserve, now known for its ruins of the then seventeenth century kingdom.

It was on the day of Holi sometime in March, I headed for Bhangarh in the morning from Alwar, where I stayed. On our way to Bhangarh, was the long empty roads convoyed by the morning sun playing hide and seek, peering through the branches of the trees, and not to miss those small little hamlets beside the roads. I was already in a different world. I took a small muscle-relaxing stop-over at Ajabgarh village and luckily got hold of a firmer who gave me a half-an-hour shelter at his cottage, a typical traditional rajasthani mud cottage with a thatched roof with multi-hued hand painting on its exterior walls, so beautiful!

People in Bhangarh are predominantly poor and hardworking. The area does not have electricity and needless to mention its scarcity of water. Wild animals coming out of the forest frequently prey upon their livestock; still they don’t complain about anything and are enthusiastically happy about their co-existence with the wild animals and well, the legendary non-living beings of Bhangarh. I, for the first time ever, was up, close and personal with the local folks talking to me and more importantly, treating me like an empress and offering me their mouth-watering daal bati churma. I was elated. Asked about the spirits of Bhangarh, they sniggered, “Bhangarh mein har saal kuchh log marte hain. Unke bhoot toh yahin par rukenge na!” They believed that the princess Ratnavati has taken birth somewhere else and that the fort and the empire of Bhangarh is waiting for her return to put an end to the curse. Amazing analysis, I thought and resumed my rest of the journey that I was, now, waiting with bated breath, to conclude.

“Staying after Sunset Is Strictly Prohibited in the Area”- the signboard stated, at the main gate of the Bhangarh Fort. Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) was supposed to setup an office in the fort but the government did not dare to do that and the nearest office of ASI was around a kilometer away from the ruins of Bhangarh.

The pujari of the Hanuman temple at the entrance of the ruins, declared, “Jiske grah kharaab hote hain, usko bhoot dikhta hai.”

There have been deaths. ASI reasoned it out as “people try to enter the ruins from the hills at night, the boulders are loose and they fall!”

As I entered, the ruins of Dancers' Haveli and Jauhari Bazar were there to allure us with its magnificent charm. Further down was the Gopinath Temple, perhaps, first of its kind, as I had not seen such a time defying architectural brilliance. Then came the Royal Palace at the farthest end of the fort area followed by the Palace of Prostitutes and Shrine of the Muslim saint, Sayyed Ji. The arches, the walkways of the ruined city leading me to the Royal Palace charmed me so much that I almost forgot where I was, supposedly, amongst  supernaturals!

More than half a dozen temples were there inside the sprawling premises. I kept wondering how ghosts stay somewhere so full of temples! However, surprisingly, except for the hanuman temple, there were no deities in any of them and that was something bizzare.

One of the popular myths says that the Bhangarh was cursed by a tantrik who was in love with the beautiful princess Ratnawati of Bhangarh. The tantrik added a love potion to a bowl of oil that belonged to the princess, but his hopes were dashed (literally) when Ratnawati hurled the bowl on a wall that collapsed and buried him. While dying he cursed the kingdom of Bhangarh saying that the city would be dead overnight without any rebirth in the destinies, and that’s what happened next. I was excessively ruminating on the myths and needless to mention that I started feeling a little cold and uneasy standing in between the two broken parapets which was once Ratwati’s bedroom. The sky was getting overcast and the boundless landscape of the uninhibited town ahead of me devoid of any human being apart from myself felt unnerving, for a moment. I took the almost ruined stairway and rushed, at a lightning speed to the sprawling green pasture ahead of the fort and that’s when a secluded chhatri (umbrella) on the hill top caught my attention against the great Aravalli Range stretching for miles. I recalled the myth told to me a while back that the tantrik used to stay there and kept a watch on Ratnawati. Standing in the shade of a big banyan tree in the backyard I gradually felt unruffled and the splendor, the peace and the serenity of the place sunk into me. I heard myself whispering, “SPECTACULAR!”

It was already 5 o’clock in the evening and I was playing a wild wild photographer clicking pictures of every nook and corner of the place. My wrist-watch came for the rescue and alarmed me to get out before it was five. No I was not ready, not because I had not meet whom I came for – the spirit, but because I was filled with an overwhelming emotion and transported to Ratnawati’s era and yes I was not ready to come out so simply, but I had to when asked by the one and only janitor-come-security officer-come-care taker of the fort, “Madam, 5 baje ke baad rukna allowed nahi hain, andhere mein yeh jaga thik nahi hain.”

No, Bhangarh was not ghostly, rather incredibly peaceful, it was haunting rather than haunted, and startling only in the sense that it was hard to accept that, other than a few locals, I was the only traveler.

Bhangarh Fort was designed to impress. And even if you are not a architecture or history lover like me, I strongly recommend you to come, at least once, to this abandoned town; the ruins are sure to give you a strange feel of a lifetime, unlike any other forts in Rajasthan and I bet you will be impressed like never-before! For those who are scrunching their teeth already and wondering “all this supernatural stuff…so all puffed up”, did you know the spirits keep a watch at Bhangarh even during the daytime and they can only be felt if one believes in their existence? Don’t believe me? Get to Alwar, then take the broken road to Sariska, it’s around 90 kilometers from there. The closest train station is Dausa, 8 km away from Bhangarh. Not for the faint-hearted, remember. Good Luck!