A ghost town in India known as Rajasthan was once the site of several ghost stories, a few abandoned buildings, and a howling wind that would flow through the dusty streets on eerie nights chilling to the bone anyone who ventured through there. But lately tourism has been picking up for the haunted hotspot surrounded by legends of eerie happenings and mysterious sightings. As the tourism industry breathes new life into this monument of a bygone era, some wonder if the new traffic will bring with it new legends to surround the town.
The legend of the ghost town surrounds a shadowy figure of Indian folklore known as Singhia, a magician skilled in the occult. Singhia had fallen in love with a young woman of royalty and intended to seduce her, but was rejected by the princess several times. Spurned but determined, the man cast a bewitching spell on a small flask of oil the princess had purchased. The spell was intended to make the princess forever drawn to him, falling madly in love. The princess, however, was made aware of the plot and quickly discarded the flask out the window of the palace where it shattered on a large boulder. The boulder then rolled down and crushed Singhia, itself drawn to him in a painfully poetic twist of fate. Singhia’s dying words were yet another enchantment to curse the palace and surrounding village that had once been the source of great merriment. Where once there was a thriving marketplace and adoring throngs of well wishers disease quickly sprouted and the entire town was abandoned. What remained were the spirits of those angered by their ill fortune at the hands of Singhia. Buildings fell into disrepair and the roofs collapsed. In time the entire village would be overgrown – until now.
The sounds of trade and tourism are once again in the air as visitors pass through in an attempt to witness the several ghosts that have been said to inhabit the area. Tour guides tell tourists that the entities can often be heard either by the music they play or the sound of them passing behind a stone or through a corridor in the shadows just beyond the sight of the tourists. And if the stories of ghosts in the village of Rajasthan are not enough, they are accompanied by photographs of equally perplexing origin. The objects seen in photographs here seem to represent shapes that were not there when the photos were taken.
Spectral figures peek out from the shadows or mysterious misty shapes float through the hallways and streets in front of people, apparently invisible to the naked eye. Witnesses are left to wonder what the objects they are seeing mean, and if perhaps the legends surrounding the area are true.
So are the entities in this case happy to see the streets once again filled with life? Or are they mourning the loss of their own lives and appearing jealously to scare away tourists?