Shimla is a popular summer destination in India and often becomes crowded during peak summer season; as with the heatwave in plains (Chandigarh, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, etc.) - a lot of people tend to rush uphill for the weekend or for a vacation.
I live in Chandigarh and on a Friday evening, 3 of my friends picked up 3 cases of beer and asked me to be ready with my ice box as we were heading to Shimla for the weekend. It was a guys road trip, so no clothes were packed - we had 2 cases of beer in the car's boot, 1 case in an ice box in the 2nd row seats and we left from Chandigarh around 7:00 PM. We had no idea about the accommodation in Shimla, our friend who was driving just told us that one of his friends has a guest house in Shimla (that's all we knew). Some of our other friends were ahead of us, in another vehicle and our friend who knew about the guest house shared the location with the people in the other vehicle.
While we got stuck in a traffic jam, the friends in other vehicle ahead of us managed to reach the guesthouse in time (around 8:30 PM) and they called us to tell us that the place looks weird and felt uneasy; so they left from there and booked a stay elsewhere towards the center of Shimla (someplace lively). They told us to go to that place only if we had no other place to go. We didn't think much of it.
We got out of traffic and three of us had consumed 2 cases of beer (kingfisher light, 24 bottles x 650ml) and we had put our last case of beer in the ice box as we reached Shimla. We had dinner at some place there and went on to Summer Hill to the guesthouse.
The route is unlit with tree branches lying across the road like its some abandoned ghost town; it was around 10:00 PM as we got there and the place looked like a total haunted house. We were resistant to step into that place, we were all 6 feet tall and the roof at this place was 5 feet off the ground, we couldn't stand straight at any spot; the friend who owned the guest house showed up shortly after and showed us the rooms. As we weren't carrying any clothes or anything, it was just the beer in the ice box that was to be unpacked.
We kept the ice box in one of the rooms, we were given 4 separate rooms and just as the guest house owner was leaving, he mentioned, "do not open the windows or the doors, no matter how badly they are being knocked" and that's when goosebumps took over and I asked him, who would knock the windows at this hour? And as I was about to undo the curtains on the windows, he held my hand and mentioned, let the night pass - do not open the curtains or the windows. At this time, we were mildly drunk (2 cases of beer) and that was only reason to sleep that night. After the owner (friend) left, we all shifted into 1 room that had a window from where we could see our car parking, four of us slept on a 6x6 feet bed and shared the one attached washroom.
The night went by, there were knocks at night, but the bigger problem was four of us trying to fit on that bed. We got up the next morning and the beer in ice box was still chilled, we had that case of beer as pre-breakfast appetizer and as we were to vacate the place; I had this curiosity to see what was behind the window where he stopped me to open the curtains; so, I went from outside the guesthouse to see the area behind the window and it was a deep ditch - not even an inch of space for someone to stand and knock. It was unreal and we never went to that place again or trusted that friend to book a stay (ever again).
In fact, the four of us never went on a hillside trip together again. Few months later, the friend who knew the guesthouse owner delivered the news that the guesthouse owner (his friend) committed suicide at that same guesthouse. We never spoke of this again.
Thoughts?
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