Swapnil Narendra finds comfort in horror. He will make you see ghosts even if you are standing in a crowded Metro. If you allow, you will be asked to describe your comfort zone—be it your home, office or anywhere you feel secure. From these details, he will spin a story, guaranteed to send a shiver down your spine.
In one of his Instagram Live sessions, a girl tuned in. She was troubled by her PG’s malfunctioning balcony latch. “She diligently closed the balcony door, only to discover it wide open every morning,” Narendra said. This one sentence, he says, was enough to catalyse his imagination.
…Another girl once occupied the same room…the balcony as her retreat... However, one day, she lost her life in an accident...Eventually, her room was reassigned to another girl….
“Hence, every night,” he went on to narrate with unflinching eeriness, “even with the door securely locked, she revisits her room, unlocks the door and lingers at her favourite spot.” The girl, shocked and scared, asked Narendra to stop. She flicked out a sticky-note in her cupboard, which she had found after she moved in.
“Don’t worry,” it read, “I’ll be back soon.”
Ghost in the mall
For Narendra, to churn the chilling out of nothing means having to follow certain cues. “Nuances like a broken door, a creaking hinge, a moving chair, flickering light bulbs, long hallways or elevators are perfect for crafting a horror story,” the 35-year-old explains. The spark for his first story lay in an isolated mall with a reputation for eeriness. “When I used to work in Noida, I crossed this old mall behind the Wave City Centre.” He made it the setting for a story that brought him his first wave of recognition—thanks to the story telling club he started on the app, ClubHouse.
It was the height of Covid-19. The club—called Aavirbhaav, Hindi for emergence—began as a meeting ground for fellow enthusiasts to exchange stories. But soon, it turned into a virtual space. Narendra’s Noida Mall story reached many; people tuned in to listen to him as late as 11 in the night, and stayed up till five in the morning. The virtual room turned into a YouTube podcast series with the same name in June 2021 with 6.7K subscribers.
Before the virus wrecked the world, Narendra worked in the creative field. Beginning as a children’s book writer, writing fairy tales, his first break in screenwriting came in 2010, with Cartoon Network’s Roll No. 21. “I wrote for Disney and many other animated films too,” he says. “But with the pandemic, there were no new shows, I had nothing to do, so I turned towards my comfort area—horror,” he says. Recently, he began conducting ‘Ghost Heritage Walks’; the first one was at the Feroz Shah Kotla, one of the city’s well-known landmarks. In this ‘Bhoot Sair’ (‘ghost walk’), he does not directly launch into ghost stories, but first explains the historical significance of the place. “Feroz Shah Kotla was not always known for djinns. It was an architectural masterpiece, not a ministry of djinns,” is how he explains it. He then tries to place the Djinns in a historical timeframe and reasons out their existence with events of the past.
Spooky grounds
“This is where the chief djinn stays,” he says poker-faced, pointing out to the three-storey pyramid that accommodates the Ashokan pillar. “You cannot see him, but he can be heard from different corners. You can only see him if he wants you to. The closer he gets, the bigger he becomes.”
A resident of Delhi since 2005, Narendra is from Uttar Pradesh’s Khurja. He grew up with local horror stories, and claims he has seen people being possessed by ghosts. On the days he misses home, he turns to horror films or books. Some of his favourite films are The Ritual, Hereditary and Pet Sematary; his favourite book “of all times” is Ruskin Bond’s Ghost Stories from the Raj. “Horror gives me comfort as it oddly enough reminds me of home and the tales I grew up listening to. But I never thought I would get paid for this,” he says.
Narendra is in love with Delhi and its monuments, which he likes to people with ghosts. For him, it is a lot about what he whisks in his head. The library at Rabindra Bhavan is one of his haunts. This is where he started keeping a story bank for himself and finding books, many by the city’s famed chronicler, the late RV Smith. “I also spend a lot of time at monuments. I used to go to the Khooni Darwaza and think about the spirits of those who were hanged here,” he says. Reading books, observing the city around him, and speaking to the locals who witnessed the supernatural, helps him nourish his craft. He then lets his craft take over and unspools a tale of horror.
At the end of our conversation, he offers to spin a tale around me and TMS office—but that’s a story for another day.
Swapnil Narendra finds comfort in horror. He will make you see the dark side even in a well-lit crowded Metro. Meet an unusual Delhi podcaster, a former Cartoon Network screenwriter, who is in communion with most of the city’s ghosts.