The Horror Story Unfolds
Wraith On Rails
A ‘haunted’ station reopens 42 years after it shut due to fears of the paranormal
- Established at the behest of a Santhal queen in 1962, in tribal-dominated Purulia district of West Bengal
- Closed down in 1967, allegedly because it was ‘haunted’
- Locals virtually cut off from train services—the nearest train station now 43 km away
- Reopened in September 2009 on the orders of Mamata Banerjee who says she “does not believe in ghosts”
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as it a woman in white crossing the tracks in the dead of night who sealed the fate of Begunkodar? The same spectre that a railway guard sighted, shortly before he died “mysteriously”, in the best traditions of detective pulp fiction? Or was it mere mortals—mischief-making local goons dressed up in white sheets—who drove railway staff away from this tiny station in West Bengal’s tribal-dominated Purulia district over four decades ago? Maybe it was neither: the ghost story, some suggest, was conjured up by creative employees itching to get away from this back-of-the-beyond, middle-of-the-paddy-fields place on the Bengal-Jharkhand border. Another facetious theory attributes it to insurgents keen to disrupt rail links at the heart of the Naxal belt.
Trying all these years later to find out precisely why Begunkodar shut down in 1967 is like watching Kurosawa’s Rashomon: the “truth” depends on who’s telling the story. Still, some facts are clear. Established at the behest of a local Santhal queen, Lochan Kumari Devi, in 1962, Begunkodar station functioned for only five years before it fell into disuse. For 42 long years, railway staff refused to take up positions at this ‘haunted’ station. Trains bypassed it, forcing the people of the many villages scattered around to depend on cramped, overcrowded buses to cart them to the nearest railway station 43 km away.
As these hardships mounted, demand grew for trains to stop at Begunkodar—ghosts or no ghosts. But railway staff still seemed to believe in them. They refused to spend not just nights, but even days, in a station that lies in the middle of vast stretches of paddy fields bordered by forests; one that even today can only be reached on foot by crossing fields dotted with old wells.
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Commuters buying tickets at the station booking window
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oliticians stepped in, even from the ruling party in the state. Among them was Basudev Acharia, the CPI(M) MP from the neighbouring Bankura district, who had set up a TB hospital a few kilometres away from Begunkodar. Acharia was keen the station be reopened so patients from Purulia (there are many bidi-rollers in these parts who contract TB because of exposure to raw tobacco) could get to the hospital by hopping onto a train. From 2002, he had been campaigning for its reopening, even petitioning the railway board. But Acharia did not succeed, despite having served as chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on railways. Put it down, if you like, to the inexplicable power of the supernatural (or of bureaucratic inertia dressed in ghostly garb).
Enter another woman in white in 2009, aka, Mamata Banerjee, and mysteriously, the supernatural recedes. All it seems to have taken was six magic words from Mamata, shortly after she became Union railway minister: “I do not believe in ghosts.” For two weeks now, trains are once again stopping at Begunkodar and the staff are on the job, albeit with some trepidation. “I was scared initially,” confesses Jogeshwar Kumar, nightwatchman at the station. “But I have been spending nights here alone for three months now, since renovation work began, and I haven’t seen any ghost.”
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The station is a one-room, one-storey brick-and-cement structure, only partially painted, and does not have a platform. Passengers board and alight on the track six times a day, when three trains that ply up and down this route stop here, for barely a minute at a time. Dolu Mahato, the railway agent, arrives at the station half-an-hour before the first train of the day pulls in, at 9.36 am, and opens the ticket counter. He leaves shortly after the last train departs, at 6 pm, before darkness descends on the vast, silent sprawl of Begunkodar, and quickly makes his way home to a village near the “Maoist-infested” forest. As does the lone vendor who provides tea and chilli pakodas to passengers.
It’s not exactly Victoria Terminus, but for those queuing up to buy tickets it might well be. Intimidated by the prospect of getting into a bus crammed with men, 30-year-old Fulrani Bagh has rarely visited her parents, living about 70 km away, since her marriage a few years ago. Now, she points out elatedly, they are just a train ride and a short walk away. For the first time in decades, ailing 70-year-old Srinath Mahato is able to visit a doctor in Ranchi to get his condition diagnosed. Not surprisingly, a lively debate has begun on who the “real” ghostbuster is. The local Congress MLA Nepal Mahato says it was he, after all, who brought the problem to Mamata’s attention, while the CPI(M) cadres speak insistently of Acharia’s crusade to get the station reopened. But despite the palpable acrimony between his CPI(M) and Mamata’s Trinamool Congress, Acharia himself graciously says: “This is beyond politics. The locals were virtually cut off from civilisation because of lack of proper access to transport. I am very happy to have the station working again.”
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Some locals, like 21-year-old Hemanta Kumar, a graduate, have quickly got used to the new level of comfort and are now chafing at the fact that the trains that stop here only connect them to a few big towns in the region. They want more, longer-distance trains and more halts, but railway officials say that will only happen, if it does, after a six-month trial period during which the average demand for the train will be gauged. Not happy with the idea, Damodar Kumar, a student, unveils a “vote for trains” plan. “Our MLA is Congress, our MP is Forward Bloc. If Mamata gives us more trains and better links, we will vote for the TMC,” he says firmly.
Go on, wave your wand again, lady in white.
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