The haunted hospital ward. Part 1

This story is based on a real life experiance. It was the month of December last year when my friend who is also a nurse with a reputed Govt. Hospital in Ramgarh was posted to the oldest wing of the TB specialist hospital. She reached through a very tiring journey of 18 hour road ways and was exhausted when settled in her luaggae in her new mess quarter Room no.606 A wing east. She was put up in the surgical ward for next 15 days for duty and hence had to be seated in the duty nurses room just outside the ward. This room was a small 5 by 5 mtr room with 2 doors….one which opens to the ward and another which was closed down and sealed from outside. She arrangedthe table and chair in the direction perpendicular to d closed door so as to face the ward. There was a wash basin with a mirror on d wall opposite the closed door. A godrej cupboard with medicines stood against the wall facing her chair. Everytime she entered this room, she felt she was not alone. The wash basin was always wet and the towel always soiled. She fired the ward boy and medical assistants who sweared they never used the wash basin. There were strands of long silky hairs on the towels some days. On the night duty days she also could hear bangles. Knowing that this was a male ward, it was very difficult to believe that some woman patiants or ward sahayikas came to this ward all the way from the main entrancewhich was almost half a km away. Structuraly this was the last ward and was almost at the outer line of the hospital. On keen observation, she understood that between 3 to 4 pm and 3 to 4 am this room becomes absolutely unbearable. It becomes very difficult to stay in this room. A sense of suffocation…nausia and restlessness grips you and you would want to leave this room immediately. Once out of the room everything feels normal. For 1 month she continuesly felt the strange issue and discussed this with her Matron Principal and other collueges.  But this being the newlyshifted ward nobody had these experiances before and most of them took it as her excuses to wark for the surgical ward. One night around 3 am, she experianced a strange thing. She had kept the door of the room opened and lights of the ward dim as the post operated patients needed rest as well as had to be monitored regularly. Suddendly the door shut down and refused to open. She initialy tried to open the door gently with out disturbing the patients. But when things did not workout, she banged the door vigorously crying for help. Allthrough out shefelt a strong force holding her hair. She was traumatised. One of the ward boys ran for her help, he broke open the door latch to rescue her out. All patients woke up and medical chief was informed. Ramani was taken to the chef’s office. She narrated the entire story and was advised rest and conseling by the visiting psychatrist Dr. Sargham Sodhi. Dr. Sargham did herlevel best to comfort Ramani. Butdown in her heart, she was so much gripped with fear that she did not open up with Dr. Sargham. Those days Ramani had kept a maid for all household tasks, Sati. Sati was a middle aged village woman who stayed in the nearby village. Poverty and debts forced this mother of 3 girls and wife of a useless drunken man to do household work to earn a days livelihood. Ramani was disturbed that no one understands her. Dr. Sargham, shows sympathy but doent believe that the door had slammed by itself. She treated her like a dipression patient with unleased emotions trying to grab attention, which further irritated Ramani. Once Sati was making tea for Ramani, when Sati noticed long strands of silky hair….a bunch of them lying under the gas stove. Sati asked her to do a puja immediately. She said her mother always said that long silky hair strands means the place is infiltrated by ghosts. She decided to open up with Sati. She narrated Sati the entire incident and she promised to take her to the vaitarna forest to meet baba nawab a very well known pyscho analyst of super natural spirits. On the next day off both the ladies travelled to vaitarna. Baba was a old professor of the London school of Psychology and had mastered in the art of communicating with the super natural spirits. On hearing them bada expressed need to visit the ward and hence all of them travelled back to Ramgarh. It was evening 7 when they entered the ward. Baba pulled out a Kanjara leaf from his pocket and gazed through it into the room. He immediately stepped out of the room and from the ward again repeated the process. Next 3 days Baba spoke to lot of people in and around Ramgarh and understood about the history of the hospital. This hospital was built on a barren land , which belonged to the farmers. The land had leeched out due to frequent floods and was immposible to grow anything. Many families left the village. The ones who did not, were in starvation and had lost few family members to hunger. The village was headed by the Majumdar family. Bade Sahab had lead the village in thick and thin but his 4 sons were like wild beasts… They considered each human…each rock…in the village as their property… They would storm into any house and just carry away children. Many a mothers died crying after they were left stumped when their kids were carried away forcefuly infront of their eyes. Nobody knew what hapened to the kids after that. They never came back. Bade Sahab was powerless infront of his own sons. Baba could not understand why these kids were kidnapped and what happened to them aft that. What Baba understood was that the hospital and its adjacent land was a part of the outskirt of the village and was a old haveli which the hospital architect had demolished during the construction of the hospital. Many a artifacts were collected from the site during dat time and were preserved in a half built construction dome(temporary room built during construction to store necessary construction materials). This room was left unattended after a construction worker died mysteriously

in the room trying to steal the artifacts. It was this room which was demolished now to build the new Upper Surgical Ward.

Baba feels that the artifacts would also be hidden or must have got burried inthe foundation of the Surgical ward.

But why does the Door shut by itself ? why does it become immpossible to be in the room around 3 am/pm everyday? Whose are the long strands of silky hair ?

Baba to find out this mystery, while Ramani waits impatiently……..To be continued….