In Munnar, ghost stories have a ‘planting’ flavour of their own. Passed down over the years, these have enhanced the aura of spookiness that halos some of the old colonial bungalows and clubs in the tea town. Here everyone likes to talk about ghosts though few have ever seen or heard one.
Answering a knock on her front door, a British planter’s wife once found an old man in planter’s gear smiling at her. Wordlessly, he doffed his hat to her, turned and shuffled down the drive into the fog. Somehow his face seemed strangely familiar. She was soon shocked to find the same weather-beaten visage smiling at her from an old photo. The man, a former planter and occupant of her bungalow, had passed away years ago.
One night in the 1950s a planter heard the rhythmic ‘clip-clop’ of a horse’s hooves coming up his cobbled drive. Peering through the curtains, he espied the rider beckoning him to come out. On closer scrutiny, however, he recognised the visitor to be his predecessor—who had passed on a few years earlier. The terrified planter could only stare in utter disbelief as the spectre cantered away, still beckoning him.
Then a deceased planter’s favourite bar stool in a local club was sometimes said to squeak all by itself at night as if his bulk were perched on it. So much so that none ever dared to occupy it even for a short time—and the bartender sought exemption from late-night duty! How the spooky stool eventually disappeared from the club is itself a mystery.
Relaxing in his bungalow below the gigantic mounted skull of a gaur he had shot years ago, a veteran planter was telling a friend, over a drink, about his shikar exploits. “This gaur bull,” he grinned, indicating the massive skull above him, “almost killed me. But I managed to fell him in the nick of time —a really close shave it was!” Just then a deep bovine snort was heard and the gaur skull came crashing down inexplicably, missing the planter by a whisker!
Another British planter unearthed an ancient burial urn in his estate and transferred it to his bungalow as a showpiece. Soon, however, the urn’s unseen occupant began to express its displeasure at night, quite audibly, disconcerting the planter and his family.The urn now reposes in a local tea museum and its ghostly occupant is no longer vocal—perhaps having taken a cue from the other silent exhibits!
Email: gnettomunnar@rediffmail.com