Bhoota Gappa: Petals From The Passing Glass

You remember that iconic moment in the cult classic Aradhana, where a man falls in love with a woman he glimpses on a train? Something similar happened to me — only far more chilling.

It was in 2008, just before I boarded the Howrah-Alleppey Express. I stood on the platform, sipping a lukewarm cup of tea, when I saw her — a woman with eyes so hauntingly beautiful they seemed almost unreal. She wore a white saree with pink floral prints, her hair loosely braided, a few strands dancing across her face in the breeze. She didn’t look at me, but I felt something — a pull, like I had seen her in my dreams before. An overwhelming urge made me rush to board the train and find her.

But once inside, she was gone. Nowhere to be seen in any compartment.

That night, I ordered a veg biryani from the pantry and waited by the door of the train at the next station, hoping for another glimpse. The wind had grown colder, unnaturally so. As I stepped back in with a fresh cup of tea, a pale white figure appeared at the door — so sudden and still that I nearly lost my balance. For a second, time froze. The figure didn’t move, didn’t breathe. But when I blinked, it was gone — as if it had never been there. I told myself I was imagining things.

Back at my seat, I poked absently at the biryani, my appetite lost. And then, through the window, I saw her again — sitting in a window seat of a train passing ours. Same floral saree. Same wind-swept braid. Only this time, she was staring straight at me. Her expression was unreadable — part sorrow, part silence, part... something else. The two trains moved in opposite directions, and she vanished once more.

The next morning, a co-passenger leaned in and asked if I had experienced anything strange the night before. He described going to the bathroom past midnight, only to hear a woman sobbing quietly near the door. As he reached for the handle, a gust of cold air pushed through — and a white floral saree drifted past the door, seemingly without a body wearing it.

Disturbed, we asked one of the older train staff members about it. He hesitated, then told us that years ago, a woman had jumped off the train one night — near that very door. Ever since, passengers had reported odd sightings and cries in the dark. In fact, the staff had now been instructed not to open certain doors after midnight.

The memory still lingers like a stain — a beautiful face that wasn’t meant to be seen, and a pair of eyes that weren’t meant to look back.

*pic courtesy - Adobe Express