The infamous Holkar Bridge in Pune has a bad reputation—that of being haunted. In the daytime, one would not think much of the bridge as it looks like any other normal bridge with the usual flow of vehicular and pedestrian traffic. But when night falls, human activity dwindles because of an inexplicable fear. Rumours of serious paranormal activity hound this place, and the presence of an ancient graveyard just across the bridge doesn’t help. People talk in hushed voices about bodies found in the stream under the bridge, often with terrified expressions frozen on their dead faces, and at times mutilated in unimaginably gruesome ways. While there are the usual sceptics, there are also a significant number of people who have witnessed unexplained phenomena such as apparitions and disembodied voices.
This terrifying reputation has arisen from many historical stories. The Holkar Bridge was built in the early 1800s by Yashwantrao Holkar, after whom it was named. Yashwantrao Holkar was the Maharaja of Indore, who rebelled against the policies of Peshwa Bajirao II. This led to the Battle of Pune, during which Holkar’s troops camped in what is now the park below Holkar Bridge. Later, the same spot was used as a military camp by the British. Over the years, the tragedies of wars and their aftermath gave rise to the many hair-raising stories about the place.
Sarbajeet and Pooja narrated to me the details of their investigation at Holkar Bridge in December 2019. They had gone there in the dead of the night after conducting intensive research on the history of the bridge and listening to the stories told by locals. Some people had claimed to have seen a mass of white smoke floating through the park area, sometimes brushing against them and causing goosebumps. A few willing locals had also spoken of the bodies occasionally found floating in the stream near the bridge. These deaths often went unreported and uninvestigated, and most of the bodies were not even identified.
As their curiosity was undeniably piqued, Sarbajeet, Pooja and two other team-members of PAIRS reached the Holkar Bridge on the cold night. Vehicular movement on the bridge was minimal. After thoroughly scanning the bridge and the graveyard, they came to the shallow
stream under the bridge. The stream was hardly a stream at all, just an oversized puddle of dirty water. Across the stream, they saw a spacious park that was the exact spot where the military encampments used to be. After a preliminary investigation, they took out their equipment to do a more detailed study. That was when horrific things started happening.
The night suddenly took a turn for the worse when they came down the bridge to the stream. As they walked on, one of the team-members suddenly felt something brushing against her arm. Thinking that it might be a hallucination caused by anticipative fear, she didn’t mention it to anyone. But moments later, the man walking ahead of her also felt something, and he immediately retracted his arm. This was when the group realized that there was something afoot.
Pooja had already equipped herself with a ghost meter. The device had been detecting some kind of activity for a while, but it intensified dramatically when they came to the spot under the bridge. The device started blinking continuously. In the darkness of the night, the constant blinking of the lights on the ghost meter seemed even more eerie. She then took a deep breath, and said out loud, ‘Hello. I am Pooja. I am here with my friends. We just want to communicate with you. I have a device in my hand that can tell us about your presence. All you have to do is to come close to it.’
Sarbajeet added, ‘We are not here to harm you, and we know that you can feel our presence. You also know that we are only here to understand you better. Let us know if you are around.’
Also read: Bollywood legend Daisy Irani was starved, beaten, abused as a child star
There was a moment of silence, and during the calm, Pooja felt that the meter in her hand blinked. She immediately brought it to Sarbajeet’s attention. The team now needed a confirmation. A second request was made by Sarbajeet, ‘Thank you for indicating your presence. For confirmation, could you please make our device flash again?’
This time the blinking was prolonged. They had entered what paranormal investigators call ‘communication mode’.
Sarbajeet described his elation to me in the following words, ‘It is extremely rare that the ghost meter lights up fully like that. It means that we are in the proximity of a strong paranormal presence. Of course, it’s scary to the core, but for us it is also very much exciting.’
The ghost meter was still lit up. As Pooja was continuing her investigation, something very odd happened. The team member who had felt something brushing against her arm earlier exclaimed that the battery of her camera had drained by more than 40 per cent. It was just unexplainable how the battery had gone down so suddenly.
For confirmation, Pooja asked, ‘Are you draining the energy from our battery?’
Almost immediately, the reply came—it was a strong blinking on the ghost meter. Simultaneously, their backup battery also drained.
Sarbajeet explains, ‘Spirits, when they need to manifest themselves in any way, need energy. They try to derive this energy from electrical devices and appliances in their vicinity. This is the reason why lights flicker, or machines behave erratically when there is a paranormal presence. The draining of the battery meant that the spirit was particularly communicative.’
Now realizing that the spirit was willing to communicate, the team decided to try out a special device to have a direct conversation with the entity.
This excerpt from ‘Ghost Whispers’ by Neil D’Silva and Sarbajeet Mohanty has been published with permission from Rupa Publications India.