Delhi, as one may
guess, is a city filled with ghosts and spirits and all manner of
spooky things. The setting is ripe for ghost stories, as the city
consists of layers and layers of history built and accumulated on
top of each other. Repeated tales of haunted houses, restless Sufi Saints and women in white saris in the middle of the Ridge forest abound and many are
familiar of the headless British horseman of Old Delhi and
other stories of epic apparitions. This spooky incident, however, happened quite recently.
One evening around 10pm, my girlfriend Meg was
getting fuel at the Safdarjung service station near Safdarjung's
tomb, a station I pass every day on my way to work. As she was ready
to head out back to the road, her headlights hit the face of the car coming in. Her
eyes met with those of a woman in her mid 50's, hair entangled all over,
pitch black kajal all over her face and a ghoulishly penetrating gaze which
would discourage anyone to try and maintain eye contact with her. The
car looked like it was about to collapse any second; both ends
completely crushed, dents and scratches everywhere, headlights smashed
as well as all windows save for the wind screen. It was as if she had
just miraculously survived an otherwise deadly car crash and with her
remaining strength she was trying to make it to the service station.
The
gas station attendants seemed unafazed by the sight. Instead, one
routinely wiped her windscreen, the only window left in the car,
while another filled up her tank. After tanking up, the car started
perfectly with one try and headed off to the night. Freaked out by
the driver's gaze and the general eerieness of the incident, Meg had
left immediately after snapping a photo with her phone camera.
A
few days later, me and Meg returned to the station and thought we
might catch one or two of
the
attendants who were serving this strange car crash victim so
nonchalantly and ask a few questions. None of the boys were on shift
that afternoon, but the other attendants teamed around us after
hearing what we were talking about. Intrigued and visibly bemused by
our interviewing, all of them knew exactly who were talking about. It
appeared that this was no car crash survivor, rather a regular patron
of the station for years. Nobody knows who she is, where she comes
from or what happened to her and her car. All they knew was that twice a week, always precisely at
the same time, this lady with a completely maimed automobile
with plates registered for Chandigarh comes to Safdarjung station and
always buys gasoline worth exactly 500 rupees and gets the windscreen
cleaned. She is very curt and unpredictable in her demeanor and always insists
to be served by the same attendants, no one else is allowed.
From
inside, the car is equally trashed, filled with garbage and in the
backseat she is always carrying two empty 20 liter bottles of mineral water,
always the same ones as if they've never been touched. It remains
unclear where the car is coming from and where it's going but due to
it's consistently unaltered state, it seems the car does not stop at all.
The
car disappears as quickly as it appears and none of the attendants
knew where she was from. All they could tell us that she would always
come from the direction of the big temple next to Safdarjung's tomb
around the corner. Lately, it seems, however, she had stopped coming.
The attendants said they were already missing her and wondering what
had happened to her. ”After all, we want to take care of our
customer relations”, one of the older employees added without a
hint of sarcasm in his tone.
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| The mysterious smashed car, as captured by Meg |
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