Reincarnation - Myth or Reality

Reincarnation is an ancient belief not only in India but also in ancient Greece and in early Christianity. The research of Dr. Ian Stevenson is one of the most respected and well known collection of scientific data to prove that reincarnation is real. Dr. Stevenson used to collect data of children who spontaneously remember a past life. He recorded their statements and verified the facts of the departed individual which rules out all possible "normal" explanations for the child’s memories. Professor N.K. Chadha of Delhi University worked together with Dr. Ian Stevenson in India during 1990's.

The most interesting of all the cases examined by Professor Chadha is that of Titu Singh. It is one of the most fascinating cases of double birthmarks, and made its appearance in a London-based magazine, Reincarnation International. BBC was the first to broadcast this story in a news program Forty Minutesin 1990. Titu was born in a village of Bad, nine miles from Agra in December 1983. He began speaking at the age of one and half, sooner than his five siblings. From the age of two and half years, he started claiming that his name was Suresh Verma and he was the owner of an electronics shop in Agra which specialized in radio and TV. He asserted that Uma Verma was his wife and they had two children. From early on he demanded “Tell my grandfather to look after my children and my wife. I am having my meals here and am worried about them.” When his mother asked who he was, he replied that he was from Agra.

He recalled about his death in great detail in which he was shot in his head a late evening when he returned home in his Fiat from work. As usual, he blew the horn so that his wife Uma would open the gate but all of a sudden two men appeared running dangerously towards him. They open fired at him, in which one of the bullets hit him in his head which resulted in his death. He was cremated and his ashes immersed in a river. Titu was often aggressive towards his parents and did not believe in them. He used to say that his mother would not wear such old sarees and often got frustrated and threw plates and utensils around. He stubbornly maintained that his real parents lived in Agra. He said that their house was dirty and he did not want to stay. He also said that his house was very big. He normally refused to travel on foot or a bus, and said that he used to travel in his car. Initially his parents did not take him seriously (as most of the normal parents would do) but his activities often perplexed them. He often behaved as if he was not a part of the family.

As he grew older, Titu used cry almost everyday saying that he was homesick and wanted to go home back to Agra. Gradually he became more and more insistent and one day he packed his clothes and threatened to leave home. Slowly he began providing more information about his previous live. He said that he had a shop in Sadar Bazaar in Agra and named one of his brother (Raja Babu) and sister (Susheela). He was upset that his father used to go to Agra to teach Chemistry at a college but he never took him to visit his home. He once told his elder brother and a friend that he was a smugglerand owned a shop of transistor and radios named Suresh Radios. During a stay in Agra, his elder brother with his friend decided to verify his claims. He was shocked to find a TV, radio shop named Suresh Radios in the Sadar Bazaar run by a widow named Uma Verma. They spoke to her and learned that her husband Suresh Verma, who used to be a noted smuggler and the owner of the shop was murdered on August 28, 1983 in exactly the same manner as described by Titu. He was speechless. He then described how his younger brother claimed to be Suresh Verma, her deceased husband. He told her everything that Titu used to tell in his home.

Uma was very curious to meet the boy who claimed to be her deceased husband. She informed about the incident to rest of the family. They decided to pay an unannounced visit to Titu's home to verify the claim. Uma along with Suresh's parents and his three brothers left for the village in April 1987. Titu immediately recognized his parents, his wife and his brothers and was so happy that he ran up to them and hugged them all. He then drummed on a stool with his hands as an expression of joy in the same was as Suresh used to do in his childhood. Titu then asked Uma to sit close to him and asked about the children. Then he surprised the widow by narrating the details of a trip to Dolpur to a fair with their two children where Suresh had bought some sweets for her. Before they left, Titu observed that they had come in a different car as his car was white. Although he had not seen a car before, he played the audio system in the car and successfully drove it for a short distance with the help of his previous life brother Raja Babu who handled the brake and clutch pedal. He became furious when he realized that they were not taking him to Agra. He threw his shoes at his mother saying that he was not hers and she was not his mother. When his father tried to take him away from his former family, he resisted very strongly tearing his shirt. He hugged to Chanda Singh, Suresh Verma's father, who then persuaded him that he will visit him again. It was then decided to take Titu to Agra with his parent's permission to confirm the memories of his past life.

When they reached Agra, arrangements were made for Suresh's children to play among neighborhood children. Titu recognized Suresh's children and singled them out from the rest. Then in an attempt to show the radio shop, Suresh's brothers tried to mislead him on purpose but the four year old could not be fooled. He shouted “Stop! This is where my shop is!” when they were approaching the shop in the fast moving vehicle. He also identified modifications in the shop made after Suresh's death. After identification of several things, finally Suresh's family was convinced that he was a reincarnation of Suresh reborn as Titu.

Titu's family has a mixed feeling about his relationship with his former family. His mother do not mind him talking about his former family. But his father worries that he might go to live with his former family once he grows older. Suresh's parents are certain that Titu is their Suresh reincarnated. He greets them with affection. Once he came across a former nanny who thought him to be one of Uma's sons. Titu got annoyed at her saying “Don't you know who I am?”.

Titu accurately described how Suresh was shot by two men in his head in late evening while he was sitting in his Fiat. He had just arrived home from work and was waiting for his wife to open the gate. This fact was confirmed by Uma. Autopsy report of Suresh confirmed that he was shot in his head and died of the bullet wound in his right temple. The autopsy showed the exact size and location of the wound and also the exit wound on other side of his head. Titu has a round dent on his head from birth which coincides exactly with the entry location of the bullet. He also has a second birthmark on his head (a star shaped scar) which coincides with the exit location of the bullet.

Titu later remembered the name of his murderers. A businessman named Sedick Johaadien was the one who fired the bullets at him. When Agra police questioned the man, he confessed to the murder. Titu narrated the details of the crime to an Agra court and the court was convinced that he really is the reincarnation of the deceased Suresh Verma.

This is one of the best documented cases of apparent reincarnation because of the involvement of the police. Titu Singh's emotional outcome to apparently finding himself in a child's body with memories of his past adult life provides a powerful testimony to the intense feeling experienced by many young children in such conditions. Antonia Mills, an associate of Dr. Ian Stevenson has done a detailed case study on this case in her papers – A Replication Study: Three Cases of Children in Northern India Who Are Said to Remember a Previous Life.

Abandoned Army Cantonment, Meerut, UP

Meerut Cantonment is one of the earliest and the second largest Cantonment of India. It is a historical site which was established by the East India Company in 1803 after the Battle of Laswari. The historic Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 triggered from the Meerut Cantonment by an unit of Indian army known as Kali Paltan (Black Army). There was a temple known as Kali Paltan Mandir in close proximity to the sepoy barrack, which served as the meeting place for the freedom fighters and the officers of Kali Paltan. The temple was well surrounded by trees and had a well which was used by the soldiers to satisfy their thirst.

In 1968, the old Kali Paltan Mandir was reconstructed while a hexagonal hall was constructed in 1987 for religious ceremonies and bhajans. A 4.5 kg gold plated kalasha was installed at the spire of the temple in May 2001. It is now known as the Augarnath temple. The Meerut Cantonment has a unique historical significance. It is a witness to historic events such as the Dilli Chalo Andolan, and the Revolt of 1857. Apart from Kali Paltan Mandir, there are few other structures such as the Shaheed Smarak, Meerut Museum, etc in the Cantonment which bears the memories of the bygone era.

Apart from other issues, the proximate cause which initiated the mutiny was the introduction of greased cartridges (with fats of cows and pigs) of the latest Pattern 1853 Enfield Rifles by the British government in August 1856. The outer covering of the cartridges were to be which had animal fat had to be opened by mouth before the rifles could be loaded. This was unanimously refused by both the Hindu and Muslim sepoys. The Hindu sepoys saw this as an attempt to break their caste as a preliminary to making them all Christians, while the Muslim troops were also disgusted and no less insulted than the Hindus: the revolts were about to happen.
 

On March 29, 1857, Mangal Pandey, a sepoy of the Bengal Army at Barrackpore parade ground refused to bite off the end of his Enfield cartridge and opened fired on his sergeant Major James Hewson and Lt. Henry Baugh who came out to investigate the unrest later. However, some of the sepoys did not support him, and he failed to incite an active rebellion. Pandey tried to commit suicide to avoid unhonourable death at the hands of British, but only succeeded to wound himself and was later court-martialled on April 6, 1857. He was hanged on April 8, 1857.

Meerut army Cantonment had one of the largest concentrations of British troops in India consisting of 2,357 Indian sepoys and 2,038 British soldiers with 12 British-manned guns. On April 24, 1857 Lieutenant Colonel George Carmichael-Smyth, the commanding officer of the 3rd Bengal Light Cavalry, ordered 90 of his men to parade and perform firing drills. 85 men were court marshaled on May 9, 1857 as they refused to use the obnoxious cartridges. Eleven younger soldiers were imprisoned for 5 years, while the others were sentenced to 10 years rigorous imprisonment. Once imprisoned, the 11th and 20th cavalry assembled and broke rank and turned on their commanding officers. Kotwal Dhan Singh Gurjar opened the gate of the jail and all the sepoys along with 800 other prisoners escaped. After liberating the 3rd regiment, chaos ensued in Meerut, and the rebels engaged the remaining British Troops.

The garrison in Meerut was the first to record the event of bloody uprising on the evening of Sunday, May 10, 1857. The mutineers murdered every British they found and burnt half the houses in the station. The church was full of screams and frightened cries of ladies and children. 50 British including soldiers, women and children were killed in Meerut by the mutineers. The church, which was established by Chaplin Reverend Henry Fisher on behalf of The East India Company in 1819 still maintains a burial register with the names of all those who died here that demoniac day. On the following morning the Britishers launched a military operation only to discover that the rebels had left Meerut and marched off to Delhi under the leadership of the Moghul Emperor Bahadur Shah. Three other regiments stationed in Delhi were ready for mutiny. On the conjunction of the two army units, the horrors of Meerut were repeated in the majestic city, and every European who could be found was massacred with disgusting atrocity. The agony of sudden unwarned violence added its bitterness to the overwhelming horror.

Bravery and self-reliance might serve to turn the tide of thought for a time but not forever. On May 17, 1857, a week from the outbreak, the avenging force began to move forward. They defeated the rebels and drove them back into the city. In Cawnpore (Kanpur), 200 European men, women, and children were murdered in the mutiny. Vengeance was swift and harsh: suspected mutineers were tied to cannons and executed. The British crushed the rebellion killing more than 100,000 Indians in the uprising and its aftermath. Some British troops adopted a policy of “no prisoners”. The painful screams of women on seeing their husbands and sons butchered was unforgettable. The revolt was crushed in six months and British power was restored by the next year.

The British lost a maximum of 11,000 men (3/4th of them were killed by disease or heat-stroke). More than 100,000 Indians (sepoys and civilians) perished including more than 150 from Meerut but there are no reliable figures. Both guilty and innocent were at peril and the scars of the rebellion could be seen widely - ruined cities, burned villages, dead fields, burial register of the church, etc. India was further burdened by a debt of £30,000,000. The shadows of the past still haunt the city. You may occasionally hear patter of hooves of the horses and cries of people trapped in the mutiny. Most of the people when going through St. John's Church avoid the ancient graveyard, which consists of magnificent sculptured tombs shining in moonlight. The locals believe ghosts of the sepoys still wander abandoned cantonment. Visitors have often reported sightings of decapitated apparitions and spooky shadows. They claim sense supernatural presence and have heard mysterious sounds of dripping water. An IPS who spent a night in the abandoned cantonment says that the supernatural power can make things run around in circles and create animal-like sounds.

You need to visit the abandoned Army Cantonment in the night to experience the eerie feeling.

The Savoy Hotel, Mussoorie, Uttarakhand

The Savoy Hotel is a historic, one of the oldest luxurious hotels in Mussoorie, Uttarakhand. It is one of the largest hill station hotel in India. The hotel is built in English Gothic architecture style that flourished in England during 12^th to 15^thcentury AD. The hotel is built mostly in wood and spans over 11 acres (45,000 square meter).

Mussoorie became one of the most popular hill stations after the railways reached Dehradoon in 1900. It was a famous summer resort for the Britishers and was popularly known as “the pleasure capital of the British Raj”. Around 1895, Cecil D. Lincoln, a barrister in Lucknow and an Irishman came in possession of the estate of Rev. Maddock’s Mussoorie School. He demolished the school, and built the Savoy Hotel during the next five years. There were no roads, and bullock carts were the only means to carry uphill lots of Edwardian furniture, grand pianos, billiard-tables, barrels of beverage, crates of champagne and other materials including the oak pieces that were later joined to make dining hall floor.

The Savoy was opened in the summers of 1902 in competition to The Cecil at Simla and The Carlton at Lucknow. The Savoy received a memorable guest in March 1906 when the Princess of Wales (who later became Queen Mary) visited Mussoorie and stayed in the hotel. She also attended a garden party in the Beer Garden on the Savoy grounds.

In a tragic incident, Mussoorie was hit by an earthquake soon after the Princess departed. There was a great loss of property and lots of buildings cracked open while quite a few could not withstand the catastrophe and fell down. The Savoy was sealed temporarily due to damage from the natural calamity and was again reopened in 1907 after repairs. In 1909, Mussoorie was electrified, which made the hotel even more luxurious.

The Savoy was often visited by many dignitaries such as Maharajas, Chieftains, Princes, Kings of Nepal, Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia, the Crown Prince of Laos, and the Nobel Prize winner Pearl S. Buck. Jawahar Lal Nehru was a frequent visitor to The Savoy. In 1920, he stayed in the hotel with his sick mother, wife and Indira who was then a kid. The Savoy orchestra which was renowned for its music was played each night at the ballroom. The couples dances on the music and mostly enjoyed foxtrot (the latest dancing form in those days) in the ballroom.

In the summers of 1911, Miss Frances Garnett-Orme a 49 year old lady and her associate Miss Eva Mountstephen arrived the hotel from Lucknow. Both these women were spiritualist (psychic) who specialized in seances and crystal-gazing. Miss Garnett-Orme was engaged to a British officer of the United Provinces police. However, her fiance died just before the marriage, and it seems that she developed psychic abilities and after the tragic incident.

Miss Mountstephen shortly returned to Lucknow, and then to Jhansi while Miss Garnett-Orme was still residing in the hotel. However, she was mysteriously found dead in her bed couple of days later while the door was locked from inside. After the postmortem, it was established that she was poisoned with prussic acid (hydrogen cyanide), a colorless cyanide-based poisonous liquid. The police registered a murder case and started investigation. A few months later, her doctor was also found dead of strychnine (strychnine is highly toxic, colorless and used as pesticide) poisoning.

The police arrested Miss Mountstephen on the charges of tampering with Miss Garnett-Orme’s bottle of sodium bicarbonate by adding prussic acid to it. People believed that she had used her mystic powers from a distance to make Miss Garnett-Orme add poison to her medicine. However, this theory could not be proved in the court and Miss Mountstephen was proved innocent. The Chief Justice of Allahabad made a remark while delivering the judgment that the true circumstances of Miss Garnett-Orme’s death would most probably remain unknown. This was a legendary case which inspired a detective novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie and a chapter in The Rupa Book of True Tales of Mystery and Adventure – In A Crystal Ball – A Mussoorie Mysteryby Ruskin Bond.

Rudyard Kipling had initially written to Arthur Conan Doyle urging him to write a story about “murder by suggestion” centered around this mysterious death. However Conan Doyle neither visited the hotel not did he do any investigation. Instead he mentioned this to Agatha Christie and the thriller The Mysterious Affair at Styles was the result in 1920.

It is believed that the halls and the corridors of the historic Savoy Hotel are haunted by the ghost of Miss Garnett-Orme, who was found dead under mysterious circumstances about one hundred and three years ago. Reputed guests at the hotel have heard flushes going off and doors opening mysteriously. They have often sighted something which looked like an apparition (floating silhouette) of a lady. Mysterious sounds of a woman whispering and singing softly has also been recorded. The case was quite a sensation because Miss Garnett-Orme was a practitioner of occult and was involved in crystal gazing and table-rapping seances.

Golconda Fort, Hyderabad

The Golconda Fort, located on the outskirts of Hyderabad is one of the most splendid fortress in India. It was initially constructed as a mud fort around the holy spot by the Kakatiya rulers who came to know about a shepherd boy who found an idol on the rocky hills of Mangalavaram in 1143. Couple of centuries later (1364), the Bahamini dynasty acquired the possession of the fort. However, in 1518, Quli Qutub Shad broke away from the Bahmani Sultanate and formed the Qutub Shahi Dynasty and declared Golconda his capital. Since then, for a period of around 60 years, the first three Qutub Shahi kings reconstructed the fort into a huge granite fortress and expanded it to around 5 km in circumference.

During the 16^th century, a huge outer wall was constructed around the fort which extended the circumference of the fort to 11 km. In 1590, the Qutub Shahi rulers shifted their capital to Hyderabad. In 1686, the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb attacked the Golconda Fort with an intention to seize Hyderabad. The fortress was invulnerable, and held out against Aurangzeb for nine months, before falling to the Mughals through treachery. In 1687, a traitor betrayed the Qutub Shahi Dynasty and Aurangzeb's army managed to breach the defenses of the fort. Aurangzeb looted and destroyed the fort and left it in a heap of ruins.

The Golconda Fort is an exquisite blend of Hindu and Islamic styles. The fortress which consists of four distinct forts is build on a 400 ft elevated granite hill, surrounded by a wall, which is interspersed by 87 semi-circular bastions. Some of the bastions are still mounted with canons while a few of them are as high as 60 feet high. The fort has eight gateways, and four lift-bridges, and a countless number of royal buildings & lobbies, temples, mosques, magazines, stables, etc. inside.

Located on the eastern side, the Balahisar Gate is the main entrance to the fort and is guarded by statues of mythical beasts and lions. It has a pointed arch that is adorned with scroll work and peacock carvings. Fateh Darwaza, which is adorned with giant spikes, got its name after Aurangzeb's jubilant army entered the fortress through this entrance. Located on the South Eastern side, the Fateh Darwaza is well known for its acoustic effects. Even a small sound such as the sound of clap at a certain point of hand echos and can be heard clearly almost 1000 meters away at the Balahisar Baradari.

The diamond mines at Golconda yielded many famous and magnificent diamonds. The fortress city within the massive walls was world famous for diamond trade. Among the most exquisite, outsized and precious diamonds believed to be excavated from Golconda are Darya-e Nur (sea of light), the largest and finest diamond of the crown jewels of Iran was 185 carats (37.0 g), The Koh-i-noor, Nur-Ul-Ain, The Hope, The Regent, Wittelsbach, Idol’s Eye and Beu Sancy.

 

 

 

 
Among the most prominent structures in the fort are public and administrative structures laid out in a sequence of enclosures, Silah Khana, Mortuary Baths, Nagina Bagh (now in ruins), Ambar Khana(granary), Bari Baoli(step well), a Hindu templecarved out of a huge boulder, and a mosquebuilt by Taramati. The structures also included Akkanna-Madanna Offices, Ramdas Jail, Darbar hall, Baradari, Hammams, Mahals, royal courtsthat served the capital of the Qutub Shahi dynasty.An ascent of 380 steps from the Bala Hissar Gate finally culminates at the Balahisar Baradari. Far away in the hills, are two separate pavilions built on a hillock - the Taramati Gana Mandirand the Premamati Nritya Mandirwhere the legendary sisters Taramati and Premamati resided. They performed on a circular platform on the top of double storied Kala Mandirwhile the King enjoyed the performance from his durbar on top of the Fort.

The romances of the Qutub Shahi rulers is well known. Mohammad Quli Qutub Shah was in love with Bhagmati while Abdullah Qutub Shah fell in love with Taramati. While the fifth Sultan honored Bhagmati by naming the city founded by him as Bhagyanagar (Hyderabad was initially called Bhagyanagar), the seventh Sultan and grandson of Mohammad Quli Qutub Shah created an open musical auditorium with twelve doorways (baradari) which came to be known as Taramati Baradari

Taramati Baradari

Taramati Baradari is located at Ibrahimbagh on Gandipet Road just outside the Golconda Fort. It consists of a musical auditorium with 12 entrances. The baradari was build on top of a hillock mainly to avoid disturbance to the sound of the performances from the adjoining area. Taramati and her sister Premamati resided in Taramati Gana Mandir and the Premamati Nritya Mandir respectively. A few hundred meters away from Taramati Baradari, Premamati has a mosque to her name.

Both Taramati and Premamati were magnificent dancers and courtesans of the seventh Sultan of Golconda - Abdullah Qutub Shah. Taramati, who was admired for her beauty by one and all was a melodious singer and the most favorite courtesan of the Sultan.

According to a school of thought, the structure at the hillock operated as a sarai for travelers during the reign of the second Sultan of Golconda, Ibrahim Quli Qutub Shah. Abdullah Qutub Shah the seventh Sultan of Golconda, used to listen to Taramati's songs when she sung for the travelers at the sarai, from the fort almost a kilometer away. Her melodious voice reached to the Sultan by the soft breeze. The Sultan was so mesmerized by her melodious voice that he fell in love with her. He transformed the sarai into a baradari with such marvelous acoustic that her songs could be distinctly heard from the top of the Golconda Fort.

According to another school of thought, Taramati and Premamati were accomplished dancers. They used to display their dancing skills on tight ropes tied between their pavilion all the way to the Golconda Fort’s pavilion.

The Taramati Baradari was made of mortar and limestone and has terraced garden. It had natural air-conditioning properties provided by a gap in the twofold walls which suctions the air and releases it with accumulated pressure in the chambers. Due to its acoustics, APTDC has converted it to a cultural complex which is dedicated to various music and dance forms as well as events, concerts, performances and exhibitions.

Taramati passed away in 1672. As a tribute she was buried at the royal cemetery along with the Sultans and their Queens at the Qutub Shahi tombs. Premamathi was also buried in the same cemetery after her death. Qutub Shahi tombs are located a further kilometer north-west of the Fort.

Is Golconda Fort really Haunted?

The fortress is a major tourist attraction and one of the favorite spots for a movie set. Moving around the dark corners, passages, empty wide spaces and large windows of the Golconda Fort is a fascinating experience. Many people have had frightening experiences when they tried to venture deep into the ruins. Most of them believe that the fortress is haunted. An apparition of Taramati often dancing in the royal courtroom is one of the most famous sightings at the fort.

Does Taramati's spirit still wander in the baradari where she danced and sang her heart out and the melody was carried by the gentle breeze to touch the heart of the Sultan?

As per the rumors, the souls of Qutub Shah rulers still roam in the Golconda Fort. Many people have claimed hearing strange sounds from the ancient ruins at night. Some of the tourists have even experienced body-less shadows wandering in the fort. These unknown and unowned shadows come up suddenly shocking up the person who experiences it. There had been instances when some old photographs and pictures were turned upside down by some mischievous ghosts. Utensils have often been seen hurling up against the walls in the Kabootarkhana .

The people who tend to stay back at the fort after a deadline of 6:00 PM are most likely to witness these paranormal phenomenon. Film crews who usually do not leave the fortress after the dusk and pass the deadline have often heard distressful sounds of people crying out in pain and are a witness to the most terrific, unexplained and strange activities. The experience and visualize much more than they would like.

There are people who believe that this is a planned activity, a type of publicity stunt to attract tourists to the fort. You need to experience the feeling in the fortress which was once a massive and full of grandeur.