OF LOVE AND OTHER Demons

When star-crossed lovers meet in the afterlife, love and longing often persevere

- Sandip Roy

Years ago, a walking tour company in Kolkata asked me to research a "Ghost Walk" of the city. That project went nowhere but as I dug around, I was struck by how many ghost stories were all about love gone awry.

Established in 1872, the Calcutta High Court is the oldest high court in India. An imposing red-and-cream neo-Gothic building, it bustles all day with a thrum of lawyers in black and white, the clickety-clack of typists, and the hubbub of food stalls for those waiting on the law to take its course. But, at night, it's a different story. One that is far less concerned with matters of this world.

A diamond merchant named Shalikhram was said to have fallen head over heels for a ravishing prostitute named Nistar Raut. He promised marriage and she went to the court to take her name off the register of sex workers, much to the horror of the genteel society. In 1881, her headless body was found in her lover's garden house while he was framed in a robbery. Her headless ghost, anklets tinkling, is said to still hang around the corridors of the court.

The National Library in Kolkata, with its enormous columns and grand steps, is all about books during the day. But, at night, the woman who was the reason for a duel between Governor-General Warren Hastings and his friend, Philip Francis, is said to still loll on a tree branch.