As the city ushers in the spookiest festival of the year, ghost stories are afloat and urban legends are told and retold. From the hair-raising Tower of Silence in Malabar Hills, associated with the Parsi tradition of leaving dead bodies in the open, to the Mukesh Mills, which was ravaged by fire, the hauntings in the city are many. “Mumbai has many urban legends, especially woven around the British era. There are some 15 or so places around the city, whose stories are told and retold. Then there are those places that only the locals know about,” says Bharat Gothoskar, founder of Khaki Tours, which organises a special ghost walk around Girgaum and is taking participants on one such walk on Halloween.
One of the most well-known stories that are afloat happens to be that of the Tower of Silence or Duggar Wadi in Malabar Hills, a final resting place for Parsis. There are many instances of hauntings that people in the area have reported, but the most popular is of a young lady who asks for a lift. “She asks for a ride to Warden Road, chats with the driver all the way and after she gets out of the cab, she disappears, according to word-of-mouth,” says Bharat.
Several tales also surround the Meera Datar Dargah, also known as the Reay Road Dargah where exorcisms take place each Thursday night. It is said that unearthly sounds and the beating of nagadas can be heard late into the night as the supernatural activities play out inside the 300-year-old dargah.
Girgaum, where Bharat conducts his ghost tours, have a number of less-known ghost stories surrounding them — especially because most of the area was once a part of a graveyard.
Tower of Silence
“The entire area around Girgaum, outside the Apollo Gate of Fort, there used to be an English graveyard. The stretch of shoreline, which existed from the Bombay Natural History Society to the Wellington Mews used to be a graveyard for the British. However, since invaders started using the gravestones as shelter during battles, they realised that it was at a strategically problematic position. So, they demolished the stones and shifted the graveyard,” explains Bharat, adding that there have been reports of human bones dug up during attempts at tunnelling under the ground in the area.
It is not just the area around Fort but also the shoreline from Chandanwadi to Charni Road Station that reports of hauntings can be found. “This used to be nothing but a sandy shoreline dotted by palm trees. So, at first, different communities built their graveyards in the area. Then, settlements started forming in between those graveyards,” says Bharat.
That one stretch of land, according to the Khaki Tours founder, has graveyards for communities ranging from Bohris to Portugese. “S.K. Patil Udyan, which once had a British graveyard is where we start our tours. The area has had many reported mishaps — dug up bones and kids whose injuries don’t heal as fast as they should when they get hurt,” Bharat elaborates.
Though the older parts of town definitely have ghost stories galore, it is not as though the suburbs are immune to them. The D’Sousa chawl in Mahim, where a woman is said to have fallen into a well and can now be heard wailing on some nights, Banganga tank, which used to be a burial ground, the dark unlit lanes of Arrey Colony where many have sworn that they have seen spirits and the Vrindavan Society of Thane, where even the security guards get spooked, are just a few examples.
“I don’t know if the places are really haunted or not as I have never personally encountered a spirit. However, one must admit that urban legends make for an intriguing part of the city’s fabric,” smiles Bharat.
