Col Grant in his diary mentioned that Ranikhet cantonment which was established in 1860 or so and he was engineer incharge in the British regiment,by that time the East India Company was taken over by British Government.
I was feeling elated to stay in such a heritage building but the isolation of the building from the rest of the world was disturbing me.
Me,my wife with my younger brother amu,his wife Purnima,their two sons Shubho and Rony plus Rony's wife Amrita are the Royclan members made this yearly trip of ours.
I am not writing a travelogue but a particular experience which happened the next evening.
It was getting dark when my wife pointed out that the cloud has descended to the level of our room in first floor, I opened the window to let the cloud engulf us. 11 degree temperature then didn't effect me much, I was mesmerized by the ambience it was eerie though.
I closed the window and got down by the wrought iron spiral staircase in front of our room. My wife shouted , "Where are you going ?"
"To the lawn "saying this I walked down like a zombie.
The staircase leads to the library in the ground floor and the a door leading to the lawn. I walked out to the lawn was enjoying the cloud around me but then the chill hit me,I hurried to the library. I went to the bookshelf and riffled through the collection. I got a strange feeling as though I was being watched,I turned around and found a stout gentleman with a pointed beard in an old fashioned tweed coat and corduroy trousers smiling at me. He came towards the shelf and pulled out an old diary and gestured to me to read. I was more or less under a spell,without any hesitation I took that dog eared old diary,nodded at that man and headed to our room by that spiral staircase.While climbing I remembered the words of Stairway to heaven by Red Zepplin .
There's is a lady who's sure
All that glitter is gold
And she's buying a stairway to heaven
I exactly don't remember whether in my mind I was hearing the song or that old fashioned gentleman was singing it. I looked back,he was smiling and waved at me.
I didn't go to our room, sat on the chair at the balcony to read that diary.
"Why don't you come inside,it's pretty comfortable with the room heater." I could hear my wife's complaining voice.
"I will come in soon let me first read this diary."
It was a strange feeling when I opened the first page, it felt like I was watching flashes of the incidents in front of me, it was a kind of 20 minutes short film.
The diary
I am Mohamad Ali khan of Bundelkhand, I did my engineering in civil from Roorkee Engineering Collage in 1854. Though I was graduate but got a job of surveyor under a half educated Englishman in Lucknow Garrison. The cruelty of English officers was making Indian soldiers restless, there was plan for revolt. Already news of revolt in Barrackpur in Bengal reached. Nana Sahab was organizing the revolt in UP. He was a illusive leader ,British was looking for him frantically to capture and execute and thus I got trapped in the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857. Indian soldiers took control of Cawnpur and killed all including the ladies and children. This brutality was not acceptable to me,I was a trained engineer so was trying to keep myself away from all these. Finally Lucknow also fell under the sepoys ,I left the Garrison , took a horse to move away from the movement. You may think I am a coward but as I wrote
earlier the cruelty to ladies and children was not acceptable to me. I rode towards Rampur and towards the hill.
On the way I found two ladies in burkha running , I stopped my horse and wanted to help them with food which I was carrying with me. They turned towards me and to my surprise I found one of them to be a memshaheb, the other one was a Muslim jenana. That Muslim lady requested me to save the English lady. It seems she was the ayah of the lady. First I was hesitating but the ayah pleaded me. I yielded and pulled the English Lady on my horse. She was Beth wife of a British army captain. My destination was Ranikhet as the Garrison there was under construction and I would certainly get a job.
Yes,I reached got a job in the army and because I saved an English lady so I was readily accepted.
I was attached to Col Grant who asked me to look after the construction of his bungalow. He took Beth as his wife.
So far everything was fine but unknowingly I had fallen in love with Beth,she would come to supervise the construction of the bungalow and would talk intimately with me.
Often we would walk in the lawn,for me everything was going fine.
One evening when the cloud came down I was leaning near the periphery of the property when I felt someone pushed me and I rolled down the hill,some people buried me alive. My soul couldn't escape and it still haunts the edifice. I don't know how my soul will get free.
I was holding the diary and was sitting there like a statue, my wife came out and said , " Why are you sitting with a blank face as though you have seen a ghost and you said you are reading a diary ,where is it ?"
-There it is .
To my surprise the diary has vanished after I finished reading.
I had no explanation and didn't want my wife to get disturbed so gave her a shy smile and said my oft repeated words , " Oh,the old age is catching up with me.! I often hallucinate."
