After a gap of several years, I got the urge to come back to this website again and share my experiences, more particularly one of them.
Railway tracks are often said to be a hotspot for paranormal activities, hauntings etc. The reason is quite simple - many people die in a very violent and sudden manner when they are mowed down by trains. Such violent, traumatic deaths are bound to greatly disturb the natural order of the surrounding environment by its negative vibrations, causing what we term as hauntings.
Those who live in Mumbai central suburbs would know that the long stretch of railway tracks between Bhandup and Mulund is considered especially haunted. Many people have witnessed paranormal phenomena in this site over the years. Due to the burgeoning population of the nearby town, a small new railway station named Nahur was built in 2006 between Bhandup and Mulund.
The incident which I am going to relate now took place in 2016, when I was working in Andheri (a western suburb of Mumbai). Sometimes I would work at office until very late and then rush to catch the last metro train to the central suburb of Ghatkopar. Then I would catch a late-night local train and alight at Nahur, after which I would walk down to the highway to get a bus to my neighbourhood.
There is a narrow path that one has to take to reach the highway and it runs parallel to the railway tracks, with a fence separating it. On the other side of the path is a heavily wooded stretch. The path is almost half a kilometre long and ends in stone steps which one has to climb to reach the highway.
On this particular day, it was an hour past midnight when I got down at Nahur station. Nobody else got down and the station itself was totally deserted, which wasn't unusual for that time of the day. However when I climbed up the stairs of the overbridge to gain the pathway, I could see a stray dog restlessly pacing on the bridge.
When I started climbing down the stairs, the dog followed me and kept following when I started walking along the path. It was then quite evident to me that the dog wanted to go to the highway, but was afraid to go alone and therefore was looking for some company.
There were no lights on the path and the moon itself was not shining very brightly. In addition, it had rained and there were puddles of water everywhere. The dog stayed almost at my heels, but never passing me and taking the lead. From time to time I could hear it whimpering softly. A solitary train roared past without stopping, momentarily lighting up the surroundings.
I had almost reached the steps leading to the highway, when I could see a small black lump lying on the ground a few metres from me. I took out my mobile phone and switched on the torch to see better. It was a dead crow and as I drew nearer I could see that it was badly mutilated. One of its wings was broken and stretched out. Its body was crushed and some of its guts had spilled out. I carefully stepped around it, taking care not to tread on it. The dog was whimpering at a feverish pitch and that puzzled me as dead crows are not uncommon.
I had taken a few steps ahead when I heard a coarse squawk behind me. I turned around in surprise to see the dead crow spring to life and take off fluttering its wings wildly. As soon as it crossed the fence and flew over the railway tracks, it completely and inexplicably disappeared. I blinked my eyes in astonishment and my shocked mind tried hard to make sense of what had just happened.
The dog which was so far slinking behind me decided that it had enough. Its nerve broke and with a howl, it ran past me and sprinted up the steps as if the devil himself was its heels. The dog's action broke my reverie and I swiftly walked up to the end of the path and started climbing. I didn't run up the steps though, because several of them were broken and slipping on them was the last thing that I wanted, and reached the highway safely. All this happened in the space of 10-12 seconds.
The rest of the way home was quite uneventful. However to this day, I cannot forget the strange incident. It still gives me goose-bumps whenever I recollect it. I have used the same path several times after this incident, both during the daytime and at night.
Once I stuck up a conversation with a middle-aged fellow who sits on the stairs and sells butter-milk. I asked him if he ever witnessed anything strange and he told me that eunuch prostitutes use the wooded stretch to service their customers. Once a gang of drug-addicts raped and murdered one such eunuch in the woods, close to where I experienced the strange phenomena. They left the body to rot; and crows and dogs devoured it. Since then, dead crows and dogs are frequently found in those woods. The butter-milk vendor himself would always wind up his business at 9 PM and never stay back for a minute more.
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