Every office of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) has a control room. And a control room is not an ordinary office room. It is a place that functions round the clock, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. After all, it is a paramilitary force, and emergencies do not come with prior appointments. An eventuality can occur at any time, and someone must always be available to receive an emergency call and alert the concerned authorities.
My office has one such control room too.
During the daytime, there is plenty of activity. But at night, the scene is rather different. There is usually just one constable sitting in front of a telephone, waiting for an emergency call. A CCTV monitoring system is also installed, with cameras positioned at various locations across the office complex. The footage from these cameras is displayed on a television screen in front of the duty operator.
Most of the time, when there are no calls to attend to and nothing particularly exciting happening on the CCTV screens, the constables find ways to keep themselves occupied. Some scroll through their mobile phones, some watch videos, and some listen to music.
On one such night, sometime past midnight, around 12.30 a.m., a constable was on duty in the control room. Although sleeping on duty is strictly prohibited, staying awake through the long, silent hours of the night is not always easy. Sleep has a way of sneaking up on even the most disciplined personnel.
Our constable was fighting this battle in his own way. He had put on his earphones and was listening to music on Spotify, hoping that the music would keep him awake.
Suddenly, he heard something.
Ting tong!
It was the calling bell of the AC (Ministerial).
He jolted out of his half-sleep.
What on earth was that?
The AC (Ministerial) had left the office hours ago. Her room was locked. There was nobody inside. And more importantly, the calling bell could not possibly ring on its own. The remote switch was kept on the AC’s table inside her room. Someone had to be inside to press it.
He sat still for a moment, trying to make sense of what he had heard.
Perhaps it was his imagination?
He had worked as a runner for officers earlier in his career. He knew how habitual the sound of a calling bell could become for someone in that job. A runner gets so accustomed to rushing to his officer’s room whenever the bell rings that sometimes he hears it even in his sleep. It becomes almost a reflex.
Perhaps he was experiencing something similar.
He tried to calm himself down, convinced that his half-asleep mind had played a trick on him. He adjusted his earphones and went back to listening to music.
And then it happened again.
Ting tong! Ting tong! Ting tong!
Three times!
This time there was no room for doubt. He had heard it. The calling bell had actually rung.
He sprang up from his chair.
But now he was frightened to go anywhere near the AC’s room.
And suddenly, an old piece of advice from his mother came rushing back to him. His mother had always warned him to keep away from Bengali and South Indian women. According to her, they practised jadu-tona — black magic!
And the AC (Ministerial) happened to be a South Indian woman!
His imagination began running wild.
Was there something supernatural happening inside that room? Was someone practising black magic? Was the AC herself somehow involved?
He even wondered whether she was locked inside the room. But that was impossible too. She had a mobile phone and there was an internal telephone in her room. If she were trapped inside, she would certainly have called someone.
Then who was ringing the bell?
And from where?
He was sweating profusely, despite the pleasant weather. His legs felt weak. He did not know what to do or whom to call.
Finally, mustering whatever courage he could, he walked towards the entrance where the security guard was on duty. He called him inside and narrated the strange incident.
“The calling bell of the AC Madam’s room has rung twice! I heard it myself!”
The guard looked at him incredulously.
“Arre, no, no! Madam left in the evening. I saw her leaving. Her room is locked. Nobody has entered it since. How can the bell ring? You must have imagined it. Relax!”
Just then, an advertisement began playing on Spotify.
A rather unfortunate advertisement, as it turned out.
“क्या आपको भूत-प्रेत में विश्वास नहीं है? क्या आपको लगता है कि ये सब वहम की बातें हैं? तो सुनिए ये पॉडकास्ट, जिसमें असली भूतिया कहानियाँ सुनाई जाती हैं। आपको यकीन हो जाएगा कि भूत-प्रेत सच में होते हैं। ये काल्पनिक बातें नहीं हैं। सच्ची कहानियों के लिए सुनिए ये पॉडकास्ट, only on Spotify!”
The two men looked at each other.
The advertisement had arrived at precisely the wrong moment!
Both were now thoroughly frightened. The guard, who had come to reassure the constable, was beginning to wonder whether he himself was in danger.
And just then…
Ting tong! Ting tong!
The calling bell rang once again.
It was almost as though someone inside the AC’s room was impatiently summoning them.
But neither man had the courage to respond to the summons.
They decided that discretion was the better part of valour. The guard stayed back in the control room, and the two men remained awake for the rest of the night, keeping a wary eye on the corridor.
Time moved painfully slowly.
One o’clock became two. Two became three. Then four.
Thankfully, the bell did not ring again.
At around five in the morning, the reliever arrived to take over the control room duty. Our frightened constable did not tell him a word about what had happened. He was afraid of being laughed at. The moment his duty hours were over, he hurried home, though the memory of the mysterious bell continued to haunt him on the way.
By morning, the office was back to normal.
The cleaning staff arrived, opened the AC’s room and went about their routine work. There was nobody inside. Everything was exactly as it should be. No strange happenings, no mysterious figures, no signs of anything unusual.
The AC arrived at the office, settled down at her desk and began her day’s work, blissfully unaware that her room had become the centre of a supernatural investigation the previous night.
But stories have a way of travelling in offices.
The guard told his Guard Commander. The constable confided in a few fellow constables. Before long, the story had spread through the office.
There was a ghost in the AC’s room!
And this ghost had a peculiar habit. It rang the calling bell at midnight.
As the story travelled, it acquired several new versions. Some began looking at the AC rather suspiciously. Was she really who she appeared to be? Was she a ghost? Was she a jinn?
Some even began wondering whether her feet pointed backwards instead of forwards!
The office had suddenly acquired its very own paranormal mystery.
And the following night, the bell rang again.
Ting tong! Ting tong!
A different constable was on duty this time, but the experience was much the same. The mysterious calling bell rang in the dead of night, and once again nobody dared approach the AC’s room.
This continued for a few nights. The bell would ring once or twice at odd hours, sending whoever happened to be on duty into a state of panic.
The fear was now quite real. Nobody wanted to go anywhere near the AC’s room after dark.
Interestingly, the only person who seemed completely unaffected by these developments was the cleaning staff member who came to clean the room every morning. He was rather fond of his drink and, perhaps because of that, remained blissfully unaware of the supernatural reputation the room had acquired. He would simply unlock the door, clean the room and leave, without the slightest suspicion that he was entering what everyone else considered a haunted chamber!
Finally, the office decided that enough was enough.
Someone suggested that the mystery had to be solved once and for all.
“Tonight, let’s not lock the AC’s room. Keep it open. We will also leave the lights on. Let us see what exactly is happening.”
And so, a small team of five or six brave souls volunteered to stay back after office hours.
As midnight approached, the atmosphere was nothing short of a scene from a ghost movie.
Some had brought the Hanuman Chalisa. Others had tied sacred threads associated with Kali Maa around their wrists. Someone had even arranged for a small lamp to be lit, just in case the evil spirits needed to be kept at bay.
The room was left open, the lights were switched on, and everyone settled down to wait.
They were determined to get to the bottom of the mystery.
But determination and courage are two very different things!
As the clock struck midnight, everyone sat with bated breath.
One o’clock passed.
Two o’clock approached.
And then…
Ting tong! Ting tong!
There it was again!
The mysterious calling bell!
For a moment, nobody moved. They looked at one another, their faces pale. Then, gathering whatever courage they could muster, the group slowly made its way towards the AC’s room.
The door was open. The lights were on.
They peered inside.
There was nobody!
No ghost. No spirit. No jinn. Nothing!
Then what was making the bell ring?
They looked around carefully. And finally, someone noticed something rather interesting.
The calling bell remote was kept on the table, right next to a potted plant near the window. One of the plant’s long leaves drooped downwards and rested close to the remote. There was also some loose wiring in the calling bell.
The breeze coming through the window was making the plant sway. Every now and then, one of its leaves brushed against the remote. And because of the loose wiring, even the slightest touch was enough to activate the bell!
The mystery was solved!
For the past three nights, the AC had happened to place the calling bell in exactly the same spot, next to the potted plant, before leaving for the day. And the night breeze had been doing the rest.
The ghost was nothing more than a potted plant!
The entire team burst into laughter. All the Hanuman Chalisas, sacred threads, protective lamps and midnight vigil had been undertaken to ward off a ghost that was, in reality, a harmless plant with a little assistance from some loose wiring.
The following morning, the calling bell was repositioned, the wiring was attended to, and the potted plant was moved away from the table.
Normalcy returned to the office.
But I wonder what the poor constables will think the next time they hear a calling bell in the middle of the night.
And perhaps Spotify should also be advised to exercise a little discretion with its advertisements.
After all, in a CRPF control room, where personnel are trained to face all kinds of emergencies, the last thing anyone needs at midnight is an advertisement asking:
“क्या आपको भूत-प्रेत में विश्वास नहीं है?”