Ghosts on the highway

A billiard hall that gets late-night visits from a deceased patron. A dead old lover who has returned to haunt in a phantom rickshaw. If you love to get the spooks from a well-written ghost story, a reading session of four tales of horror, all from different locations along the Grand Trunk Road, might add to the chills.

Akshat Nigam, who teaches creative writing and is a professional storyteller, and Shruti Mishra, an actor and movement coach, will present four stories In collaboration with Readings in the Shed, a city-based written-word initiative. These include Rudyard Kipling's The Phantom Rickshaw and My Own True Ghost Story, The Sandstone Past by Sehba Sarwar and The Moonlit Road by Ambrose Bierce. This reading has been organised by Bhagirathi Raman, an independent cultural facilitator, as part of Safarnama, a monthly art, culture and literature series that focuses on the historic road.

Shruti Mishra and Akshat Nigam

"Ghost stories are addictive because we want and don't want to hear them; it's why we'll watch a horror film from the gaps of our fingers, and that itself makes for a great base for storytelling," says Pankaj Gupta, co-owner of Taftoon, Bar and Kitchen. The Grand Trunk Road, which was built between Kabul and Chittagong, offers a wide range of flavours, culture and history due to its expanse and diversity. "Ghost stories are an incredible way of seeing the shadowy side of us as humans, and our worlds.

There's so much we can learn - even if we don't entirely understand it - about our fears through stories. The thing about ghost stories as a genre is that it allows us to speak about things we can't speak about. It allows us the space to be non-logical and non-rational, which is actually a large part of our perceived reality. That's what the stories are about. Nikhil Katara, the curator of Readings in the Shed, and I thought of connecting these ghost stories under the larger motif of roads, as Safarnama is about a journey along a road, and what one finds along the way," says Raman.

On September 28, 5.30 pm
At Taftoon, Bar and Kitchen, Naman Centre, BKC, Bandra East.
Call 65656100
Log on to insider.in
Entry Rs 1,000 (inclusive of unlimited sangria or tea, an appetiser from the prefixed menu)

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