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Hello, I'm Nicholas Gordon, host of the Asian Review of Books podcast, done in partnership with the New Books Network. In this podcast we interview fiction and nonfiction authors working in, around and about the Asia Pacific region. Delhi, according to historian Eric Chopra, is a city of ghosts and djinn. With stories told about sites like Jamali Kamali, the Muni Memorial, and Malcha Mahal. Chopra tells the story of these monuments and others in his new book, Delhi's Haunted Monuments from Speaking Tiger, in a work that covers Sultanates, colonial empires, independence, and the present day. Eric Chopra is a public historian, writer, media creator, and podcaster. He is the founder of ichihasology, a platform dedicated to making Indian history and art accessible to wider audiences. He also co hosts the For Old Time Sake podcast and the Jaipur Literature Festival's channel Jyper Bites podcast. So, Eric, thank you so much for coming on the show today to talk about kind of these monuments, you know, Delhi's haunted monuments. Where did the idea for this book come from?
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A
Thank you for having me, Nicholas. It's a pleasure to be here. You know, I say this in the book too, that my love for horror predates my love for history. And I grew up with this sort of eternal fascination for goosebumps. And there was this particular story that you were told in India of Vikram and Betal, which is the king of ghosts who hangs off a tree and asks riddling questions to a king. And I grew up with a love for shows like American Horror Story with goth figures like Lady Gaga. So I always knew that I had the ghost in me. And when I moved to Delhi, I realized that it is inevitable for you to fall in love with history because the city is rich with the past and you stumble upon history every single second. And so when I decided that history is what I'm going to chase after now, and I began my work in public history through something called Itihaasology. Itihas quite literally means thus, indeed it happened and it translates to history. So when I began my portal on public history, one of the things I wanted to do was heritage walks and experiences across monuments. And when I started curating these experiences, I realized that there were a lot of questions that emerged during our excursions. And a lot of times, many people would ask me. You know, they would obviously ask me about the monument, its historical backdrop, who made it. But there would be people who would sometimes ask me, you know, I've heard this place is haunted, so is there a ghost here? Is there a spirit here? And then I started looking this up. I started to think about this question more deeply. Why do people believe monuments are haunted? And as I went down the rabbit hole, I realized that there have been news documentaries on these. There have been many blogs and many anecdotes, even from people sharing it on the Internet. And I realized that there is something deeper here to look at. So my love for horror married my love for history, and I started looking at the haunted monuments of Delhi.
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You know, before we start kind of talking about these ghost stories, I want to ask, you know, are Indian ghost stories or urban legends around these hauntings? I mean, are they different from, you know, Western counterparts? Do they. Do they draw from different mythologies or legends? I mean, how are. Mean first are. And if they are, how are they? How are Indian ghost stories kind of different from what you might hear about a haunted place in London or New York?
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You know, when I was looking at the type of ghost story, I realized that, well, all of the things that all of the entities that haunt a city or a monument or just a geography, they're not all ghosts. Because I think the belief of a ghost is that somebody passes to the other side and then they return. And thus it's a revenant. So the ghost is an apparition that returns. But what you will see here are various categories. There is a universal spirit and entity known as the jinn. People will think of the genie from Aladdin, but jinn are these entities made of smokeless fire in Islam, and they are supposed to choose for themselves whether they want to be good or bad. And Delhi is inhabited by a lot of jinn, and a lot of these stay in the monuments. According to the stories, when it comes to the ghost, the idea of the ghost may be the same, which is an apparition or a revenant. But yes, they do adapt themselves to both the geography and the history of the place. So even if you have, for example, in Delhi, a headless phantom who belongs to the British era, because that area of Delhi is very colonial, you would notice him adapting himself to the geography of the place. And then there are Also unique ghosts that come up in places. You know, the idea of this white sari clad woman who has twisted feet and she stays under a tree or she moves around people trees is a recurrent motif in the Indian ghost story. So, yes, you do have a lot of uniqueness, but you also have a lot of adaptation and a lot of movement, because, after all, when stories travel, they morph and the legends sort of adapt according to the contours of the place, but they also bring with them the uniqueness that they originally began from, according to their geography and their origin place.
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B
Well, so you quickly mentioned the jinn. I mean, so again, you think of djinn, you think of genie, even note in your book as kind of like people. You straight on the imagery from the Disney Aladdin film. But what exactly kind of are the jinn in this context?
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I will give the idea of a jinn through an example. The idea of the genie that is popularized is one who grants wishes. And quite honestly, in some of the monuments in Delhi, this is not so far from the truth. So jinn, unlike humans, who are made of clay, according to Islam, jinn are made of smokeless fire. And as I said previously, they get to choose whether they want to be good or bad. But here's the thing, they get a lot of opportunities and let's say, a lot of supernatural abilities. So they can shapeshift, they can stay in niches, they can come in your hair, they can just slap you. And so there is that side of the jinn, but then there is the jinn who chooses to be good. And so in Delhi, there is this monument called Firusha Kotla, which is actually a fortress. It's a 14th century fortress. And in this fortress there is an ancient pillar which goes back to 2,000 years. And this pillar, according to popular belief, now has become the saint of the pillar. And he's seen as the chief of the jinn, who are supposed to live in this entire monument. And people go to this monument mostly on Thursdays, and they go and they ask for their wishes to be, you know, met through the jinn. They also go with their problems, which we call gilleshikwe. And they hope that the jinn are going to be their guardians in many ways and they're going to help them resolve their issues. So much like what happens at the shrine of a saint, of a Sufi saint, where you go and you tie a knot. Here too, they tie a knot and the jinn is beholden to them, and they go with letters, they go with official Government ID cards. They deposit all of this. And you cannot see these jinn, obviously. And as somebody who was just observing this from the margins, you know, you never can understand what is going on because you're not seeing who they're talking to, but they're talking to the jinn. They tie a knot, and then they come back, and if they have their issues resolved, they come back to the fortress, they untie the knot, and they invite the jinn for weddings and for, you know, for dinners and for these huge feasts that we call dawats. But then there are other monuments in Delhi, like Jamali Kamali, which I begin with, where the jinn are supposed to be notorious. They're supposed to slap you because you're disturbing their peace. So they. They are different from the ghost in that sense because they are created and they are not revenants. But a lot of the otherworldly lore in Delhi is focused on the jinn or emerges from the jinn.
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How do these stories. So the monuments you kind of talk about that kind of span the entire kind of run of Delhi's very long history. You know, the. The various Sultanates that controlled the city, the time during the colonial period, and even kind of the immediate post colonial period with Maltra Mahal that we'll get to in a second. But, you know, like, how do you see, like, how are these ghost stories kind of connected to kind of Delhi's very long history and kind of the rise and fall of different. Of different powers?
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So that's what happened when I began my research, right. I started to realize that all of the ghosts and the jinn and the otherworldly entities that we're seeing at these monuments, they emerge from a historical backdrop that is far more intense and very nuanced. And it's very easy to dismiss a ghost story at the face of it. And usually when I've been talking about this, you know, I have to be very clear. I'm not a paranormal investigator. I'm not somebody who's a ghostbuster. I am a historian. I'm trained as a historian. And so when I did speak about this book in its nascent stage with fellow historians and people, there was a skeptical lie about, you know, but these are ghost stories. And then you start to think, you know, these are oral histories, though. These are legends that sort of reveal that people form a relationship with monuments. And in a place where this is already so rare to see an engagement with the past and a love for history is seen as extracurricular. While you're growing up, you know, nobody really grows up thinking, at least here, that when I grow up, I'm going to become a historian. So when you see these stories around monuments, you realize there is an active engagement with the past. And even if somebody does not know about the historical backdrop, they'll go ahead and tell you, you know, don't go to this monument in the night because there's a headless phantom that comes out. So I began to look at the history of Delhi first, which. Well, this is such an antique city, and it is called a city of cities because over centuries, all those who conquered the place, you know, built cities in their own names with their own aspirations. And it kept on, you know, going through various cyc of rebirth. But you do see on one end the stretch, the prehistoric stretch, you know, the Aravallis, for example, or these hilly areas in Delhi which we call the ridge. And this takes us back to our prehistoric pasts. And then you slowly, over the years, as you enter the ancient, early medieval, medieval period, you see various political formations. You see the Sultanate coming in. You see each sultan building a city of his own. And then you see the entry of the Mughals. And then after the Mughals, we see the entry of the East India Company, and finally the British crown. And Delhi witnesses all of this. And so when I began to look at the monuments, I chose five monuments. But all five monuments quite literally go from what we historically locate as the first city of Delhi, which is Mehrali, and we go all the way to what we now call New Delhi, which was the Delhi that the British built. And then between that are these various cities that are no longer recognized as cities because these are just fortresses and abandoned lodges. But you had places like Firozabad, Tughlaqabad, Shah Jahanabad, which has become Old Delhi now. And so when I began to look at these monuments, I realized that each monument that is haunted goes back to a historical moment in time. And it reveals that there are certain answers from the past that are left. There are certain questions from the past that are left unanswered, and that an investigation of these oral histories and these ghost stories is going to reveal much more about the monument than what, you know, we just think is not relevant to the historical study.
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So I know it's probably hard to say, kind of like which of the monuments you cover in the book is your favorite, but what are some of the ones that kind of, like, you kind of found most compelling, whether it was the story around them or kind of the experience of kind of walking through these monuments for yourself. I mean, which of these various monuments do you think kind of really still kind of sticks with you after. After writing the book?
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You know, it's so difficult to say this, but usually I am very open with my love for the monument that graces the COVID of the book. So on the COVID of the book, in this purple, you know, hue, there is this tomb. And it's a gem box tomb, and it has various niches on it, and it has the most gorgeous ceiling from the inside, and it has the most exquisite roof from the outside. And it's always kept locked. And this is the tomb of Jamali Kamali. And I begin there in the city of Mehrali, as I said. And why I am absolutely in love with this monument is because when I began, and this predates the writing of the book, when I began my wanderings in the city, and I am a diliwala. Diliwala is somebody who is a dweller of the city. And I owe my love to, you know, history because of the city, as I said, but because of my, you know, family's occupation, my dad, we've been moving all around. So I came to Delhi only about 10 years ago. And when I began my wanderings, Jamali Gamali was one of the first monuments that I absolutely, you know, fell in love with. Because a. This is a locked tomb, which aroused curiosity. Why is it always locked? Second, there was this odd abandonment because this tomb is in the backyard of one of the most visited monuments in the world, the Kutum Minar. And the fact that this monument, which was right behind it, was so rarely visited and almost always left empty, which on many days, you know, I feel quite lucky because I can go and sit, spend a lot of time over here alone. But it made me curious as to what's happening. And then when I began looking at the monument, there were two parallel stories that were going on. There was one story of the jinn, you know, which you heard even the guards talk about, that there are these jinn over here who live and, you know, they will come and slap you. And where I begin my book is basically, there are a range of flower sellers outside who told me that I need to, because I have long hair. So, you know, that you have to tie your hair or you have to remove your perfume. And I still wonder, how do you remove your perfume? But you have to do all of this so that, you know, you do not lure the gym. But there was this parallel story also of whose tomb is this? So we know that this tomb belonged to a man called Jamali. And Jamali was a globetrotter, a Sufi, a poet, a diplomat. He was associated with the two most, you know, prominent powers in the medieval period. He was first associated with the last Sultanate of Delhi, and he was besties with the sultan, so much so that he made him the poet laureate. And he would come to him with, you know, his own poems. The sultan would come to Jamali and ask him to give advice on his poetry. But then he fell out of favor when the last sultan of the Lodhi Sultanate, which is the last Sultanate, came to the throne. But lucky Jamali, there was a change of power because Babur, who would begin the Mughal empire, would come and wage war. And he won the war. And Jamali wrote a poem for Babur and he became a part of the Mughals. And so you see Jamali as a very prominent figure, but we do not know who he's buried next to. And the name of this tomb is Jamali Kamali. So Kamali is a name that's just been given to this person because we do not know who this is. What we do know that this is a tomb of another man, because both of these graves have a pen box atop them, a kalam daan. And that sort of connotes that these are male tombs. So there was this parallel story of who Kamali is, and there were various. And there continue to be various debates and a lot of questions on this, you know, whether he was another poet, whether he was a friend, as historians love to say, whether he was possibly his lover. And both of these strands, you know, the jinn strand and the strand of Kamali's enigmatic personality, in the midst of which me thinking that this is the most fascinating monument, because you're literally looking at a man who stood between the end of the Delhi Sultanate and the beginning of the Mughal empire. That is fascinating. Like, one tomb can show you so much. So I have a huge, huge love for Jamali Kamali. And, yeah, so I do not think it's that difficult to say that I love it. I'm just a bit afraid to say it because I think all of these other monuments too, in the book have over time, become, you know, like my babies. So, yeah.
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And, you know, there's. There's. I mean, let's put this way, the queer subtext and the Jamali Kamali, her extreme are very present. Right? I mean, that's also part of this story.
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Yes, yes, absolutely. I mean, you know, Jamali Kamali is a monument that has Seen over the, over many years of its existence. A lot of heritage walks happen by queer led curators, queer led organizations. And there is meaning making because, you know, historiography has functioned in a certain way. The study of the past has been very heteronormative. And you always have to then, you know, take the other way and you have to work your way around it to figure out whether there are stories that you can resonate with, whether there are stories that exist that you can feel a sense of connection with. And I think, you know, what's odd for me is this villainization of love. I cannot ever settle with it. You know, it's something that I can't digest because I feel like the belief is that the more ancient, the more medieval, the more, you know, back in time we were, the purer we were. But this idea of purity being associated with identity and love and sexuality to me is an indigestible fact. I mean, this is so odd, right? So whenever it's not even about queerness, it's about two men are buried together in a tomb that's always kept locked. These are marble graves. It's a gorgeous tomb. And even if you perhaps don't want to say that they were queer lovers, are we really so afraid to say that these men loved each other and they were buried together? I mean, you know, so, so that's something that I think about often, that why are we so afraid? Are we more afraid of love than we are of, you know, the ghosts and the jinn?
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B
So I, I do want to kind of move through kind of the, I guess going from one of the first monuments you discussed in the book to the very last one. But as you move through this history, as you go through monuments whose stories are tied to the colonial period, to the post colonial period, do you see kind of the stories around these monuments and maybe how the quote, unquote, the ghost stories around these monuments change as the monuments kind of date to date, to kind of more and more recent time periods.
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As I said in the beginning, Delhi, the city of cities, right? And so you see when the successive powers continue to build new cities, new fortresses, they're inching towards the river. So we go from the hills to the river, your population increases, you need more space even. And so in the beginning, the aspirations were very political, they were very defense based. So the hills provided a very good structure to build also a lot of natural material, also a great defense. But as population increased, you also needed natural sources of water. And so we see over the years A movement from the hills towards the Yamuna, the river. And by the time the Mughal Shah Jahan, who is, you know, renowned for commissioning the building of the Taj Mahal in Agra, when he decides to build his city, his version of Delhi, which he calls, well, Shah Jahanabad after his name, that becomes like the main center, you know, the. The bustling life, that. That's the center of the rule of Hindustan during the period of Shah Jahan. And he builds this magnificent city. There is the Red Fort. There are these markets that are being built by his daughters. You know, until today. This is a very famous market in Delhi. It's called Chandni Chowk. And what happens over the years as the Mughals dwindle and the East India Company gets stronger? You notice that the role of the Mughal is reduced from the Emperor of Hindustan, which is Shenshai Hindustan, to the King of Delhi. So you can imagine the change in this title itself says a lot. You go from becoming the king of Hindustan to the king of Delhi, and your rule is restricted now to your fort. That's it. So in Delhi now, in Shah Janabad, we have the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar. He is in his 80s and, well, at the time he takes over the throne, he's in his 60s, but by the time his reign ends, he's in his 80s. And Bahadur Shah Zafar would have rather chosen, and this is a repeated story. William Dalrymple has done an entire biography of him called the Last Mughal. He would have rather chosen poetry. He would have rather chosen Sufism. He did not wish to be the king, but he did. And he was sort of, you know, ill fated with circumstance because clearly now the East India Company was getting stronger. But what happens is, and where this ghost story, you know, radically changes is in 1857. So when there is this moment in Indian history which is known as the first war of Independence or the uprising of 1857, this is when the soldiers, the Sipahis, the sepoys, had had enough and they decided to revolt. And so they emerged in front of Bahadur Shah Zafar, and they said, you need to become the King of Hindustan again, and we need to drive the Company out of this country. And Bahadur Shah Zafar, you know, after much persuasion and coercion, even takes up the role, and he becomes yet again Shenzhah and Rustan. And this uprising begins in 1857. Ultimately, what happens, though, is that the British are able to recapture Delhi. Now, when I say Delhi here, I strictly mean Shah Jahanabad the part of Delhi that Shah Jahan built, because everything outside that city at that point was considered to be the outskirts of the city. Today, all of these outskirts have come together to build the entirety of Delhi with its very, you know, with its ways of looking at New Delhi, Old Delhi, and so on and so forth. But at that time, this walled city of Shah Jahana Baad was the only recognized Delhi. And it was there where the rebellion had sort of begun and stationed itself. And they had driven the British out of one of the gates of Delhi called the Kashmiri Gate. Now, while the British were stationed outside one of the Delhi gates, this area which is called the Northern Ridge, it is from there because this was a hilly part of Delhi. This is where, you know, the Delhi University is today. The north campus of Delhi University is today. This was a hilly area. And they were attacking from there, and they managed to recapture Delhi. Once they recaptured Delhi, the punishment for the last emperor was that he was going to be seen as a criminal in his own fort. And he was exiled to Myanmar. So his grave in Delhi is still empty. He was in his 80s at that point. And there's a very famous poet in Delhi called Ghalib, who at the time looked up at the skies. And in 1858, there was a comet, Dunatis Comet. It was the first comet to be photographed. And, you know, Ghalib looked at it and said, you know, this means destruction. It felt like it was a bad omen. And the state of Delhi after that for a few months was horrid. I mean, Delhi had seen invasions and wounds before, but once the emperor was exiled, there was an entire debate on whether Delhi should even be allowed to survive. And there were a lot of expulsions. So then two parallel stories that run today occur. One was that when people were being exiled from Shahjanabad, when they were being driven out of the walls of the city and they were going to the older Delhis, a lot of jinn also came with them. Because jinn used to reside in homes of a lot of families. You know, there are these little niches that you will find in some households in Old Delhi till today. And those niches are always kept clean. And candles are not kept in those niches because they believe that the Jinn live in them. Now, when families were exiled and expelled from Shah Janabad, the idea was that a lot of these jinn came out and they started to also go into these other monuments of Delhi, which explains why Ferosha Kotla also have Jinnah. But what happens on that part of the city where the British had stationed themselves, the northern ridge, that becomes a very colonial, you know, part of the city. And there they build. After recapturing and winning and knowing now that the Mughals have ended and soon enough Queen Victoria would be the Empress of India, they build this Gothic tower called the Mutiny Memorial, which basically was built to remember all of those who fought on their side, on the British side, during the uprising of 1857. And what happens now? Well, if you go to the Mutiny Memorial today, this is the most unique ghost that I've come across. It's a British ghost and he's a headless phantom and he wears a khaki uniform and he comes in the night at this, in front of the ridge and he asks you for a cigarette. And I've just, you know, there was a guard once who just said to me that, you know, if he is headless, how is he going to smoke? But, yeah, you have a different ghost there. And it's clearly because of the historical backdrop that was so intense.
- [29:07]
B
So I want to kind of end our conversation about these different monuments with the very last one in your book, the Majamahal, which I'm bringing up, because that was a topic of conversation on this show, I think about a couple months ago in a book that. For a book that you ref. The House of Awad, a book that you referenced in this book as well. And I wonder if I'd spend a bit of time just talking about that story, kind of the story behind the Matri Mahal and kind of what it's like today.
- [29:36]
A
Yeah, very exciting. And I was keen on bringing this up because I realized that there is always a new lens through which I'm looking at the Malta Mahal story. Just for a brief backdrop. Malcha mahel is this 14th century hunting lodge that is in the middle of another ridge, part of Delhi called the Central Ridge Forest. But this part of Delhi is in a very premier area of Delhi. You know, it's, it's very near Chanakyapuri where you have these high end restaurants and their boutiques. And so it's like. And it's a very diplomatic area too. What happens here is that in the 1980s, there's this woman who arrives at the New Delhi railway station and she appears with two children, I mean, two grownups who she refers to as Prince Ali and Princess Sakina. She comes with dogs, she comes with help. She comes with a lot of silver and carpets and so on and so forth. And she says that she belongs to the House of Awadh, which was Lucknow. And this was. She was harking back to this Nawab called Vajad Alisha. But as you know, Abhimanyu and Aletta, who came on your podcast, would have made it clear she was actually harking back to the wife of Nawab Bajitarisha Begum Hazrat Mahal, and saying that I belong to that dynasty, and I've just given a backdrop to 1857 in the previous answer. So, basically, before 1857, the uprising began. There were various factors that had completely irritated and irked the Sipahis across the northern regions of India that led to the uprising. And one of them was the annexation of Awat and the exile of Nawab Pajid Ali Shah, the last Nawab of Lucknow. He was exiled and he was a. You know, for all of his eccentricities, he was a loved Nawab, but he was. The place was annexed. And we see after that, you know, the uprising really also resonate with Awad and Lucknow because they were deeply agree with what had happened. So this woman who calls herself Begum Vilayat Mahal in the 1980s, comes to the New Delhi railway station and says, I belong to this family that was exiled and so mistreated by the East India Company. And this mistreatment continues, even for me till today, in independent India. Her claim was that a house that had been given to her by the former Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, had been burned down. And so now Nehru's daughter, Indira Gandhi, who was the prime minister then, she asked that she be given a house in Delhi that befits her status. But she stayed there at the New Delhi Railway station for months, being photographed being recorded, being exoticized also by a lot of international journalists. And she kept demanding that she be given something that befits her status. And finally, when all hopes were given up, she was offered this abandoned hunting lodge in the middle of the Central Ridge Forest in Delhi, in New Delhi. And to everyone's surprise, she took it. So they moved to this doorless, windowless lodge, and they put out a sort of warning sign at the outside. They say, house of Awadh, and anybody who trespasses will be shot. And, you know, she famously held a revolver, a gun with her. So they begin to stay there, this family of three with their dogs and, you know, people who were helping them. And she then, according to legend, crushed diamonds and swallowed them and passed away, which, well, you know, is unbelievable. And also because the daughter who left a diary behind for us, which I talk about in the book, and I. You know, House of AWA talks about it extensively because both of them read the diary. There's a different way in which she passed away. But what ultimately happens is that all three of them stay and die here. And the last person to die, the last surviving member, is the son. And that was quite recent. So after he passes away, the New York Times breaks a report which sort of untangles the web of the story. And I would urge the listeners to read this on their own. But what happens after is that this abandoned lodge becomes a haunted monument, a house of horrors. And you begin by seeing people going over there and stealing their, you know, what they left behind, which included carpets and included some of their precious items. But then you also see youtubers then going there and they begin to make videos inside of staying the night and hoping for a ghost to come back. And then when I visit it, Malcha Mahal, for the first time in one foggy December, I remember feeling what has been very popular on now with this entire trend of bringing 2016 back and our shared nostalgia. There's something called liminalism. And when you're in a liminal space, which is like an abandoned school or an empty mall, you do not know what to do with yourself. You feel very odd. And I felt very odd because I was in this abandoned lodge which was once populated by these people, and I saw an empty fridge, and I saw empty boxes and I saw lanyards, and I felt a sense of, you know, just. I was disheartened, and I felt very sorry. And I began my research then on Malcha Mahal. And then in 2023, the Delhi Tourism department decided to take us on haunted official haunted heritage walks at this monument with the hope of spotting a ghost. To be fair to them, to be fair to them, though, when I did go on these tours, which I talk about in the book, the walk curator was very sensitive and very nuanced and knew the story of the family well and did not romanticize or exoticize it. But the fact that there were so many people in that forest who were ready to brave this forest, whether it be the, you know, the skeptic or the curious, showed to me that there was this great interest in the story. And now this monument is locked. There is no access to it. So I'm one of the few people who managed to go inside on multiple occasions, see the monument, and even officially go there. But now it is. It's. There's no access anymore.
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B
So you mentioned kind of the YouTube stuff, and this is actually a pretty good Segue to another question, which is, I mean, we're like in is 2026, social media is everywhere for sure. There's lots of YouTube videos about this stuff. There's probably like. Well, maybe not TikToks, but, you know, but like social media posts about this stuff. There's. There's tours. There's. Yeah, there's tours of these sites. How does, like, how does today's India kind of engage with these, with these stories? Whether it's, you know, ghost tours or YouTube video essays of. Of dubious veracity or social media videos. But, like, how does today's India kind of talk about these, about these monuments and these ghost stories?
- [37:08]
A
Well, one is, you know, Nicholas, to what we spoke about in the beginning. Ghost tourism as a concept is not the same way. You see ghost tourism in London, for example. You know, these ghost walks that I hear of where you're quite literally taken on an experience that recreates something otherworldly, be it at an abandoned house or a lodge and you dress up a certain way and so on and so forth. We were told to wear caps and shoes and protective gear when we were going to Malcha Mahal because the worst thing was monkeys and bats attacking us. So it wasn't really the fear of the ghost here, which in ghost tourism you see in London, for example. That's what comes to my mind first, is very different. But I think in my experience, experience of both, because I work both digitally through the astrology, through, you know, reels and videos, and I do heritage walks. I've realized that. And this is something that a lot of my historian friends, including the ones who absolutely either detest the supernatural because they won't admit that they're scared of it, and they'll say, you know, I'm just rational. But even those who can admire it, but they don't want to study it, even they agree with this, that this began a conversation. Malchame, for example, is such a prominent monument in our memory because of the otherworldly story. And we have to accept that, that because we have a sense of curiosity, we have a way of imagining a sense of, you know, there is an enchantment with the side, there's a mystique associated with. Moves us towards a direction where we can possibly ask larger questions. So including, you know, a historian like Dr. Swapna Liddell, who is an authority on the history of Delhi and who's also very generously spoken with me while we were writing the book very recently, her and I talked about this, and she said that she does not believe in ghosts. But if it brings people to a monument with curiosity, that's a very important aspect of this, I do not think. Then it's also all positive. Because, yes, there's curiosity in one end, but very quickly it can go into exoticization, romanticization, and even a sense of irreverence which may, you know, result in what happened in Malcha Mahal, which was just going and stealing things. And even with Jamali Kamali, one of the reasons why it's kept locked is not only because there are jinn who will come out and slap you, or, you know, because it's supposed to have another world energy, but also because it's a very precious monument and it's unticketed. So there's always the fear of what can be done. There could be graffiti on the walls, there could be somebody who takes something from there. There's always that fear. So at one end, the way in which we are engaging with it largely is through a lens of curiosity and understanding. Where can these ghost stories take us? But b also why I call my book Ghosted is because a lot of times these ghost stories ghost the historicity of a monument. And that happens when we give in to excessive exoticization, when we create, you know, long form content that is only clickbaity in nature and does not want to go into the historical backdrop. A lot of times I notice that when they do go to these monuments, Jamali Kamali, Malcha Mehal, a lot of people do not, you know, care enough to go into the backdrop of the people they're talking about. And there are a lot of just historical errors running rampant. So I believe there is a way through which we can find a middle ground and realize that these are a part of our oral history. And they can urge us to become historians or even seekers of stories with a curious eye. But at the same time, we need to say to ourselves that let's not give in to excessive exoticization. Let us not think of these as otherworldly stories detached from historical backdrops, and let us see how we can bring them within historical thinking. And ultimately then, what do we do with these monuments once we begin engaging with them? Because my aim is, let's talk about preservation, restoration. How do we bring back a monument to life?
- [41:30]
B
So very, very last question. You know, if you wanted to see some of these monuments for yourself, what do you suggest is the best way that someone might do that?
- [41:41]
A
Well, I would say one is that go with absolutely no sense of judgment for either yourself or the monument, and that's very important because I think there is intimidation that comes into play when anybody's approaching something, especially historical spaces wherein you feel like either there is problem with access or there is a sense of barrier when it comes to just knowledge. And you may believe that just because you do not know enough, you perhaps cannot even engage with it. You know, one thing is that monuments are visual remnants of the past and there is a pleasure in being visually enchanted by them. And that does not require you to know everything to the T, even the bare minimum. You do not need to know if you're going to a place for the first time. You go with a curious eye and a non judgmental eye for yourself, but also you lend that to the monument. And I think when we approach something from that blank, clean slate, which is what I try and do every day, when people talk to me about history and I can sense that there's curiosity, maybe they do not know it entirely, but even when they share a ghost story with me, they come from a space of both vulnerability and curiosity. Right? They are sharing this because they think this is a safe space. So to either dismiss that, to be judgmental and to say this is not how a rationalist thinks, that is a disservice to just how multifaceted humans are and how storied all of us can be. So I would say to anybody who wants to approach any of these monuments, not only the first five haunted monuments that I've chosen, but any monument across the world, these are visual remnants that you need to go with an eye of enchantment and non judgment. And slowly, when you do that and you lend that to the monument, I think just the gates of knowledge will open naturally and you will slowly, much like all of us who are nerdy enough, fall into the rabbit hole of history.
- [43:49]
B
So with that, I think that's a great place to end our conversation with Eric Chopra, author of Delhi's Haunted Monum. Eric, I actually have two final questions for you, which are where can people find your work? Not just this book, but all of your work. And what's next for you? What do you think the next project might be?
- [44:09]
A
Okay, well, first of all, thank you, Nicholas. It was such a pleasure to be on this podcast. And for anybody who wants to find me, I am most active on Instagram. My username is Itiha Logi that is I T I H A S O L O G Y and what's next? Well, there are, there's the usual. There are the heritage experiences, there are some history musicals that I'M doing. There are the walks at, you know, the monuments and the museums. As usual, there is a lot of talking and talking and talking, as is evident from this podcast too. I love to talk, so I will be going to a few literature festivals and and then in the summer I will get back to writing and most likely my next adventure is going to be on Love in Indian Art. So let's see how that turns out.
- [45:02]
B
So you can follow me, Nicholas Gordon on Twitter Ick R I Gordon. That's N I C K R I G O R D O N. You can go to asiareview of books.com and find other reviews, essays, interviews and excerpts. Follow them on Twitter ookreviews Asia. That's reviews plural. And you can find many more authors at newbooks network and newbooksnetwork.com we are on all your favorite podcast apps, Apple Podcasts, Spotify. Rate us, recommend us, share us with your friends, support us interviewing those writing in around and about Asia. Next week, join us for interview with Yi Ling Liu, author of the Wall Searching for Freedom and Connection on the Chinese Internet. But before then, Eric, thank you so much for coming on the show today.
- [45:41]
A
Thank you, Nicholas. Sam.