If you have visited Hill Park, Karachi of many years ago, you may remember the presence of a haunted house inside Meraj amusement park. It was a small igloo shaped structure covered in bougainvillea and on the entrance there was a plaque displaying just two words: bhoot bangla (The Ghost House). When I first heard of this haunted house, my friends and I became very excited and we decided to check it out.
One fateful evening in 1981, we reached Hill Park around dusk time. At the entrance of the haunted house, we saw a 6-feet-tall, 3-feet-wide, and 2-feet-deep human being who was issuing entry tickets. He had six inch long moustaches and with a sinking sun in the background, his silhoutted image appeared like a complete ‘bhoot’ (ghost) in itself.
I was only 10 years old at that time and to me this 6 x 3 x 2 = 36 cubic feet voluminous guy looked like a ghost. My friends and I immediately gave him the nick name of Mr. bhoot. (Mr. Ghost)
After issuing tickets, Mr. bhoot placed us in a straight line and for some unknown reason he told me stand in the front of the line.
My situation was such that I was shivering with anticipation of an impending horror. He then told us to enter the haunted house one by one but only after we start hearing some scary music. All of us solemnly moved our heads in affirmative.
A dark night, fear of unknown and a giant ghost-cum-human were looking scary all right. The eerie set up had already starting to freak us out a bit. After giving us instructions, Mr. bhoot suddenly disappeared behind some curtains made out of torn ‘bori’ (jute bag.)We then heard a distinct click of a cassette player button and the place started rocking in a blast of theme music. The supposedly horror music was not scary at all. It was more like a sea storm making a land fall like:
khooo khooo shooo shiaaoooN shapar chiaaoN and repeat.
As soon as we got the queue of scary music, we entered the horror house. We were walking very cautiously and in a line according to Mr. bhoot instructions. Suddenly from left side something came flying in the air and hit one of my friends right on his face. It was a human arm, torn apart from the shoulder blade and soaked in blood. All of us shrieked in horror, but my friend who got hit was so scared that he grabbed onto this flying object as a reflex action and didn’t let go of it. While we were still checking on to what had just hit us, Mr. bhoot suddenly appeared from the darkness and in ultraviolet lit room, showing his large purple teeth he ordered us:
“choRo bhuee choRo ! haath ko jaane do!”
(Let go off the hand guys!)
That torn-apart human arm was actually made of cotton soaked in red color. It was made to slide across the room by pulling on a string. That string was pulled by none other than our Mr. bhoot himself from some hidden corner. The timing of rope pulling was so perfect that the arm had hit my friend right on his cheek. Mr. bhoot must have perfected this art over time. After my friend let go of the arm, Mr. bhoot disappeared in the darkness with as much swiftness as with which he had appeared.
We cautiously moved further. Wooden planks that made the passage were creaking under our feet. There were some gaps or holes in wooden planks where our feet were getting stucked.
We were too scared to look down while walking incase some other flying object decided to come our way. We saw some fake human skulls, bones and a few fake dead bodies lying around. The dead bodies had colorful zero-watt bulbs glowing under them, so instead of looking horrifying they actually looked hilarious in the colors of green, red, blue and yellow.
One dead body was however, wrapped in a white sheet (kafan) and was moving slowly from lying-down position to sitting-up position, on the beat of the same old stormy music.
Shoo (lie-down), khoo (sit-up), shiaooN (lie-down) chiaooN (sit up again) and so on.
Since there was no Zero-watt bulb glowing under this dead body and the approximate dead area of this body was 36 cubic feet, we guessed it must be the same Mr. bhoot pulling yet another stunt on us. So we acted cool and didn’t give him any reaction. The anti-climax of that moving arm scene earlier had removed all fear from us and we knew if any thing moved, it was probably Mr. bhoot himself. The bhoot guy probably gave up on trying to scare us any further as very soon the ‘cyclone’ music stopped and it was the queue for us to get out.
The management of this haunted house was probably very poor because the same guy who had issued us entrance tickets, operated the music player, pulled the string to hurl the arm across visitors and then wore a white sheet to become a dead body.
The total time we spent inside haunted house was probably 5 minutes but that fun memory has lasted with me fore more than 25 years now and I recall every detail as if it happened just yesterday.
Have you been to ‘The Darkness’ in St. Louis? I was there a month ago and had a great time. It’s considered to be one of the best haunted houses in the US.
Believe it or not … I went there just for the heck of it at age 15.
The only thing I actually reacted at was actually a bridge that when I stepped on felt like it was gona break. I asked the guy later … wasnt part of the act.
Im like ok …. :o …
Dogs scare me more :P
What a nice post! you reminded me of my childhood days. I’ve been there once when I was 5 or 6 yrs old, with my cousins and our moms. I remember I held my mom tightly and kept crying throughout the bhoot bangla journey, while my brothers, sister n cousins kept messing up with the ‘bhoots’ putting fingers in their eyes and making fun of them :) It was an experience!
Hill park’s long ‘slide’ was quite thrilling at that time..
Hill Park amusements always remained under the shadow of a better equipped ‘fun land’ at Clifton therefore the rides of Hill Park are lesser known. I visited Hill Park last time in 2005 and found the ‘Meraj’ amusement park closed (I visited around 7 p.m.). The Hill Park however, now boasts a brand new ‘ride’ park towrds the northern end of the park and everybody goes to the new rides park. In Short I don’t know whether ‘bhoot bangla’ is still operational or not. Can anyone confirm ?
My goodness….wonderful writing. so personal and touching. I remember the Bhoot bangla…and taking my little sister there. I probably scared her more than any of the opeerators. I remember the operator moving a sack (boree) behind some bars but in the process get tangled up and fell to the ground. That was just hilarious.
Your post also reminded me of the years long past us when my uncle would come over, we would rent a horor movie (such as evil dead) and watch it in a dark room….mamoon could always scare the living bejesus out of us by throwing something at us at the climax moments. Now his son is how old we were back then…Maybe its time for me to pass on the tradition.