Visit to a Haunting Village- Kuldhara

It was our third day of vacation. We left from desert camp at Sam and moved towards Jaisalmer. On our way, we found lot many Jeep parasailing activities. We stopped at one location near Kanoi Village. The guy-in-charge agreed for INR 450 for the one parasailing for the child. It was quite a windy day. My daughter refused to go for Parasailing as she already had experience (good/bad don’t know) at Bali. So, only Vanshika tried for the same. Her mommy sat in the jeep for video recording. Little kiddo was very much excited as she was tied to parachute in the hot air. The whole activity took 10 minutes. She told her friend (Tani) that she enjoyed parasailing and wanted to do it again.

We moved towards Jaisalmer. Before coming I have researched places to visit near Jaisalmer and one of the locations was Kuldhara- An Abandoned village (It had 3.5 overall rating on Tripadvisor, so it was on our bucket list). We earlier asked driver Ramveer to took us there when we were coming from Jodhpur to Sam, but somehow he was reluctant and he told the place is off way which I believed him.
Now while returning, I again enquired with him if we can still go there. My daughter asked what was that all about. I poured my Gyan (knowledge I gained after researching from Google) to her that this village was abandoned by villagers a long time ago somewhere in 1800 Century due to some curse happened in the village. Due to this, all the villagers vacated this place at one night. Nobody lives there now, so my daughter then enquired what was that curse about. I told her that such details I am not aware, but we can find out once we reach there. My driver immediately told me that ” madam whatever written in Google is not true (even no one publishes the exact story about Kuldhara village)”. He warned that this place is open for visitors till 6 PM and no one is allowed to enter the premise late in the evening. This increased the curiosity among kids.

Ramveer then narrated the story that long time ago (400-500 years) there was a Munshi (he explained to my daughter that Munshi is kind of accountant in old times) to the King who lived in this village. He fell in love with a local girl and wanted to marry her. However, his Caste was lower than of hers. Hence, he was afraid that her parents and other community people won’t allow him to marry her. So he decided to directly contact the King and told him about his love. King asked him to bring the girl and her parents to the Palace. The girl was really beautiful, so when the king called her, he himself set eye on her. He thought himself of marrying her. That day he did not take any decisions for the accountant marrying her and sent them back. Next day he declared to the entire village that he wanted to marry her and if this was not done, he will impose heavy taxes on the villagers. On hearing this, the villagers became angry at the accountant as because of him the girl is known to the King now. Hence, villagers pelted stones at his house and asked him and his family to leave the village. The girl got upset as she also loved the accountant. Knowing that the villagers won’t allow them to stay further in the village, that night the accountant left the house with his family to some other place. Next day King ordered that he wants the girl at his palace, if not done he will impose a heavy taxes on everyone. To protect the girl honor and self-respect, all the villagers decided to leave the village and migrated to some other place and left behind the curse that any person who attempts to settle down the village would die. Hence after this, no one dared to live those villages and hence the village is now known as Ghost village. Next day King came to took away the girl, but found no one. He also died after some time.

After hearing this story, both the kids went quite. I told that this story is not true and nothing of this sort happened just to pacify them. After an hour from the desert camp, we then reached the village. There was entry gate with a guard. We paid approx. 10 Rs per person to enter the village with tour taxi. We enquired for the local guide but nobody was available, the ticket collector directed us to go inside.

After entering the gate, Ramveer warned us to ensure two things inside the village that we listened carefully. One that you should not pee in any open space anywhere inside the village, better one should avoid going to the toilet and second our hairs should be properly tied. I asked the logic for the same, he told that one should not make dirty this place as a curse of the villagers can come to us. Anyhow, we noted his warnings and went inside the village.

The first look of the village was very haunting as you can see only ruins of the houses all over made of sandstone. The village was deserted and clean. We saw few tourists inside, clicking and posing at different angles of the village. The entire location looked little spooky anyhow I was behaving brave, though from inside I was scared too. My friend was posing for the photographs. We clicked few shots with kids.

Suddenly we saw a herd of sheep coming from one of the lonely streets. They were coming towards us at fast speed. My friend was busy in posing for the photos. We asked one of the tourists to click a group photo quickly as sheep were approaching us. We quickly ran away to the main area and come out near our car.

There was cold drink seller just outside the village. All of us were thirsty, therefore we had lemon soda and then we asked Ramveer to took us back to Jaisalmer road. There was nothing much to see there, but because of curiosity, we tried to explore this place. Ramveer asked us how was the village? I pretended that it was “very good”, though I was little scared from inside.

Don’t know if that was cooked up story by Ramveer or really the curse happend in the village. Anyhow, this experience will remain there for my entire life.

Few days ago, after reading my blog, I was informed by one of my ex colleague that the groundwater in the area got down, and there was no water available in these villages, hence all the villagers and from near by areas vacated this land in search of place with water abundance.