There’s a certain attraction to telling and listening to “true ghost stories”, especially when set in a real-world location. They serve to make the location mysterious, the history more personal, and add that dash of intrigue that makes you want to visit it. Most of us are not believers in all the lore, but are unwilling to let go of the possibility that it may be true.
Somewhere in that purple-prose valley between belief and disbelief, sits Cursed At Kedarnath, a new collection of stories by Deepta Roy Chakraverti. Chakraverti, of course, avers that every single word of this book is true. But isn’t that par for the course? The tales here follow all of the unstated laws of the ghost story (and this is different from the broader “horror” genre)—the victims are telling the truth, they have no mental illnesses making them imagine things, no other professionals such as the police, doctors, or psychiatrists can help in any way, and of course, the neat resolution or twist at the end that explains everything.
The book alternates each story with a diary section, where Chakraverti talks of the documented history of the story’s setting, references from other sources, and also about the supernatural phenomena that the story included. These last range from reincarnation, possession, spirit communication, to the usual “ghost wants her story to be told”. Also in the end of the book is a list of all the references used by the author to collect the material.
One refreshing thing about the stories is that they’re all deliberately set in India. The places range from the well-known (a tantric worship spot near Kedarnath, Nahargarh fort in Rajasthan), to the unfamiliar (a Kolkata street that was the site of a deadly fire, a Metro train station that’s a popular suicide spot). I can imagine a reader remembering one or the other story when she next travels by one of those spots.
In each case, Chakraverti herself is a character in the stories, usually that of the subject matter expert who guides the troubled souls (both human and ghostly) towards a solution. The book is written in a narrative style, making you feel like you’re sitting in front of the author. Of course, the prose is pretty purple, so in your imagination the author is probably dressed in a gypsy-type outfit with coloured lighting in the room and a crystal ball in front of her.
Although she’s narrating everything as if it’s all true, you get the nagging feeling that she doesn’t quite believe in all of it. The feeling extends to the introduction, written by her mother, Ipsita Roy Chakraverti (“India’s leading Wiccan practitioner”) which again refers to sources like Arthur Conan Doyle to convince you of the existence of other worlds. For the experienced horror reader, Cursed At Kedarnath is old wine in a new bottle. The locales are probably the only interesting thing. For the casual or young reader, this is a fun one-time read.