The ghosts that the wind and wildlife mimic

I couldn't be someone knocking on my door, could it?

- NEHA SINHA

(from left) A spotted owlet; a Pied hornbill; and a shrike.

(PHOTOGRAPHS BY NEHA SINHA)

I was in a building that was over a hundred years old, and it seemed alive. It wore its quaintness like an extra layer, as if its age invited doorways of conversation—a walk through a museum rather than a stay in a building.

I was in one of the many forest rest houses that dot India. This one was in Uttarakhand, and standing next to an old banyan tree, the house creaked just as much as the tree did. It was nighttime, not late by city standards, but in the jungle, mornings are early and so nights must be too.

A spotted owl screeched. Another answered. And there was the sound of shuffling outside my door again. These sounds are normal for old buildings, a part of my head always tells me. This place isn't historical for nothing, says another.

In another rest house in Rai-mona, Assam, recently, I was jolted awake because of the particular sound of something walking—many, many steps—in the walls. I had but a few hours of sleep before I had to resume travel, so the interruption was not welcome. Yet, sleep seemed impossible. When seized by the idea that one is not alone, one also (illogically) feels that things will be fine when morning arrives. Light can mean a banishing of spirits, the return of rationality, and a helping hand.

Morning came, gritty and grey, shy of 5 am. The "walking" sounds continued, magnified by the wooden components of the rest house. The mystery was revealed as I circled outside the side of the building, unable to take it anymore, and buoyed by the weak sunlight.

Scores of bats were returning to a gap in the wall near the corner of the roof. They poured towards their roost from the sky like water, and then they crawled in like infants into that space favoured by horror stories—the space between the walls.