A strange story one heard from the shikari Cyril Thomas is worth narrating. During the World War II years his cousin Lt George had come on leave from Dehradun (where he guarded Italian prisoners in the concentration camp) and went hunting and fishing near the Khooni Jheel on the northern ridge in Delhi but couldn't find much game, except for some rabbits and ducks, which he thought would come in handy for making Christmas roast. The fish somehow were not biting the bait because of shallow water. But just then he saw a deer coming into view. This was surprising as antelopes did not frequent the jheel area. He aimed his army rifle and fired a shot, which definitely hit the deer but still it bounded away, with the hunter in hot pursuit. It was getting close to twilight but George was intent on not letting his quarry get away. He entered a thicket by following the trail of blood left behind by animal – and there at last it was. As soon as George approached close, with his gun ready for another shot, the deer took the form of a Firangi women and asked him to stop which, he of course did, more out of fear than anything else.
A speaking deer was the last thing poor George had imagined. He stood rooted to the spot, with his hand too paralyzed to use the rifle. “Don't come here for a shoot ever again,” said the deer-woman. “Because if you do you won't return alive. I am the guardian of the place ever since my death at the hands of the rebel sepoys of 1857 whom I, an unmarried girl was trying to escape after my parents were shot. They killed me too but before leaving a bearded Maulvi among them tied an amulet to my arm, saying, 'After dying you will live on as a deer for some hours every week and take care of whatever animals roam about the jheel.' He left after sprinkling some water on me.” Then the deer-woman cursed George, “You have wounded me and the pain is intense and I don't know how long it will last but since it is my dual existence I cannot die again. Instead you will suffer for this misdeed well beyond X'mas that you were hoping to celebrate. And another thing: Don't ever marry or you will not live long after it.” She then took on the shape of the wounded deer again and limped away into the jheel, the sound of splashing water confirming to George the passage the wounded deer-women had taken.
When George returned home he was burning with high fever despite the cold. Cyril was surprised at the state in which he was in and asked him how he had become so ill suddenly. It was then that George told his story, at which Cyril laughed at first, saying he must have got drunk on the shoot. But his cousin's deteriorating condition and the game he had bagged made him think that probably there was some truth in the yarn.
George was bed-ridden till 6 January, the day Christmas ends, and most of the time in a delirium, in which he mumbled that the deer-woman was taunting him and warning him to keep away from the jheel and never try to enter wedlock but remain single like him. After his recovery George was a changed man, who did not go to the jheel again and was greatful that he had recovered in time to resume Army duty. Cyril Thomas died in 1992 and George two years earlier as a retired Major noted for many an affair, but whether it was because of the fear of the deer-woman or his own disinclination to wed, he remained a bachelor all his life. And one more thing: Whenever he went hunting or fishing he made sure that he had a companion with him – just in case the deer-woman accosted him again. With this sort of weird reputation no wonder Khooni Jheel is given the wide berth after sunset by people in the know.
Talking of the deer-woman incident, one is reminded of another shikari, Cecil Tilfari, who while fishing in the lake caught a big fish. As soon as he landed it, the fish turned into a beautiful woman who asked him to marry her. He sought time and returned home, vowing never to go to the lake again. Meanwhile, he married a girl of Padritole but died six months later. Some said it was TB that killed him while others recalled his meeting with the fish-woman. They thought it was her vengeance that was responsible for his untimely death.
Capt Alexander of the Jaipur State Army had a different experience while hunting. A Rajasthani woman, dressed like a bride, accosted him on a moonlit night. She told him that henceforth he was to regard her as his wife. The captain gave a vague reply and returned home. He fell sick after that but recovered to marry the girl of his choice and lived happily ever after. But he never went to the haunted part of the forest again.
Coming back to Delhi, the Khooni Jheel, now named after Sanjay Gandhi, is brimming with water because of the recent rains, but hidden deep in it are still many mysteries. As one walks towards it through wood, a veritable jungle, one sees a signboard warning visitors not to venture there after sunset. Many believe the jheel is a haunted stretch of water, though the commonsense explanation may be that it is the haunt of anti-social elements -murderers, thieves, drug-addicts and rapists.
Dr Khaliq Anjum, the Urdu scholar, writer and journalist, recalls that in the 1930s and '40s his father and uncles used to go for duck shoots and fishing to the jheel during the winter season, when a lot of migratory birds also flocked there. They went in the morning and came back in the evening with their bags bulging with game. Those were days of peace and tranquility, when except for the occasional forays of the freedom fighters into the streets of Delhi, there was not much else to disturb the even flow of life. To shoot ducks on a cold December afternoon could be an adventure, for if the birds fell into the jheel the hunters had to wade in it, sometimes waist-deep, to retrieve them. But when they fell in deeper water, they had to be left to their fate, for then it was not possible to reach them. Once a boy trying to earn a few paisas, dived into the water to retrieve two ducks and was fortunate enough not to get drowned as he was pulled out by some anglers just in the nick of time.
The Khooni Jheel (Bloody Lake) got its name in 1857, when several Indian sepoys and British soldiers, women and children died there. First the British trying to escape from Delhi were killed and later sepoys fleeing from the avenging firangis met their end in those surroundings. Besides the bodies of people, the carcasses of horses and mules were also dumped in the jheel. The water remained bloody for many days and the stink was enough to drive away anybody who approached it.
Would you believe it if you were told that dead men, women and children sometimes mysteriously cast their shadow on the lake? A girl, wearing a tattered frock, keeps waiting in the moonlight, while running after her mother, trying to escape from the clutches of a would-be rapist. An old man in army uniform emerges from the water, riding a horse without a head and a skeleton, armed with a long, rusty sword tries to thrust it in the back of the weird horseman.
Whatever the reality, fancy too can spin deadly yarns to scare the wits out of even rationalists. Blame it on the tragedies in the jheel or on the tales of the “Mutiny” time, Highlanders, who could hear the cries of their dead countrywomen, like those of Lord Ullen's daughter drowning along with her lover, the chief of Ulva's Isle, while being pursued by her ruthless (later repentant) father.
By RV Smith
