Delhiwale: Houses of spirits

Delhi's haunted landmarks include Khooni Darwaza, where blood is said to drip, and Ghamandan Sarai, where a merchant felt ghostly breezes.

Who’s there?

The Khooni Darwaza, also known as Lal Darwaza, was erected 500 years ago by Sher Shah Suri — then it was called Kabuli Darwaza. (HT Photo)

Bhoot!

One existential question for this city of djinns is—do ghosts exist? We’ll never arrive at a definitive conclusion until perhaps after our own death. Until then, you may like to snoop around certain landmarks in the Delhi region considered (at least by some!) to be ghost-friendly. Here are two of them.

Khooni Darwaza means ‘bloodied gateway’ and legend has it that blood drips from its ceilings during the rainy seasons of July and August. Erected by Sher Shah Suri about 500 years ago, it is in the middle of the four-lane Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, conveniently close to the ghostly Dilli Gate graveyard. Also known as Lal Darwaza, the red sandstone gateway was originally called Kabuli Darwaza, presumably because it marked the way to Kabul. The stone edifice is said to have acquired its presently dreadful name after the Mughals got into the habit of displaying the heads of executed criminals from its battlements. Aurangzeb did so of his brother Dara Shikoh’s head following the khooni war of succession to the throne. After the British crushed the 1857 uprising, they shot dead in cold blood the three sons of the last Mughal emperor at this gateway. It is believed by those who believe in such things that the restless spirits of the doomed princes continue to linger about the gateway, including its many prison-like iron bars and its arched jharokhas. This sunny afternoon, no one is to be seen here. No one, but for a silent stationary figure in black—see photo.

The other gateway in the megapolis that is said to be haunted is the so-called Ghamandan Sarai in Gurugram’s Sadar Bazar. The arched gateway lies across the park from the iconic Jama Masjid. Flanked by small stalls and shops, it is considered by local shopkeepers to be hundreds of years old, though the district’s archived records place its origins firmly in the fairly recent colonial era. The gateway’s colloquial name is understood by some to have been inspired from the wife of a ghamandi (arrogant) British administrator. Anyhow, an elderly clothes merchant who used to sit under the gateway, and died during the Covid years, would claim to experience sudden gusts of cold soury breeze under the stone arch, while the rest of immediate surroundings, he insisted, would stay unaffected. The merchant would ascribe it to the visitations of a “bhoot.” Whatever, in the evening’s twilight, the jagged stones atop the gateway walls turn liquid gold, and then the only haunting thing sensed is the monument’s sublime beauty.