The Unpainted Room

My grandmother’s ancestral home in the arid expanse of Kutch was a sprawling sandstone haveli, its ochre walls crumbling in places, its arched doorways whispering of a century of secrets. My mother grew up there, and after her parents and grandparents passed, her younger sister, my aunt Meera, took up residence. The haveli was grand, but it carried a weight, a suffocating stillness that I felt even as a child visiting from the city.

The terrace, in particular, was a place of unease. It was vast, open to the sky, with a low parapet wall that offered a panoramic view of the dusty plain. At its center stood a small, single-room structure, its whitewashed walls now grey with age. As kids, my cousins and I had turned it into our playroom, a refuge from the adults who would gather in the inner courtyard. The room had a single window that faced the west, and during sunset, the last rays of light would paint the bare walls in hues of blood and gold. We never knew why, but we always felt a strange reluctance to enter after dark, as if the room itself was waiting for something.

Years later, when I returned for a brief stay, Aunt Meera had decided to renovate the haveli. She wanted to restore it to its former glory, and workers swarmed the lower floors, sanding, painting, and polishing. But the terrace room remained untouched. I asked her about it one afternoon as we sipped chai in the courtyard. She looked at me with a shadow in her eyes and said, ‘Every time I ask them to work on that room, something happens. They fall, they get sick, or they just refuse to go up there. One man, a seasoned painter, fell from his ladder while trying to reach the ceiling. He broke his arm and swore the ladder had been pulled from under him. He never returned.’

I felt a chill despite the heat. I remembered our games in that room, the way the door would sometimes creak open on its own, the way a peculiar draft would sweep through even when all windows were shut. ‘What do you think it is?’ I asked. Aunt Meera shrugged, but there was a deep-seated fear in her voice. ‘I don’t know. I’ve lived here all my life. I’ve never heard anything, but sometimes I feel a presence when I pass by. It’s like a weight on my chest, a suffocating pressure. I’ve never spoken about it to anyone, but I think the room is not ours anymore.’

I decided to investigate. That evening, as the sun dipped below the horizon, I climbed the narrow stone stairs to the terrace. The air grew heavier with each step. The door to the playroom was ajar, and a faint, sickly-sweet odor emanated from within. I pushed it open and stepped inside. The room was exactly as I remembered: the old wooden cot in the corner, the faded posters of film stars, the marks on the wall where we had measured our heights. But there was something new. On the far wall, near the ceiling, a dark stain had appeared, shaped vaguely like a human form. It was almost black against the grey plaster.

I felt a sudden pressure behind my eyes, and my heart began to race. I tried to leave, but my legs felt like lead. I heard a faint scratching, like nails on stone, coming from inside the walls. Then, a voice, dry as dust, whispered in my ear: ‘You are not welcome.’ I forced myself to turn and stumbled out. I slammed the door behind me and leaned against it, gasping. The sun had set, and the terrace was plunged into an abrupt twilight. I looked back at the door, and for a moment, I saw the outline of a woman standing in the window, her face obscured, her hand pressed against the glass. Then she was gone.

I ran down the stairs and told Aunt Meera what I had seen. She went pale. ‘There was a woman who lived here before we did,’ she said. ‘She was a servant, or so the village elders say. She was accused of witchcraft and the family locked her in that room to starve. She died there. No one has spoken of her for decades, but I’ve always felt her presence. That stain on the wall, it appeared the day we started renovation. I think she’s angry.’

I stayed that night, unable to sleep. I kept hearing the scratching, the faint whispering, coming from above. At dawn, I climbed the stairs again, determined to face it. I opened the door, and the room was empty. The stain was gone. But the wall was wet, as if it had just been painted with fresh, dark red paint. I touched it, and my fingers came away sticky. I realized with horror that it was not paint. It was blood.

I never returned to that haveli, and Aunt Meera eventually sold it. The new owners never stayed long. They said the terrace room was impossible to repaint; every time they tried, the paint blistered and peeled, revealing the dark stain beneath, like a wound that refused to heal. And sometimes, at night, they would hear a faint voice from the terrace, singing a lullaby in a language no one understood.