In the midst of my days as a media officer for Oxfam, I had the privilege of traveling frequently to villages in South India that were affected by the Tsunami. On one particular trip in 2005, a journey to Karaikal would become an experience that would linger in my memory forever, and not for the reasons I would have hoped.

My accommodation was at the Hotel Mookambikai, situated around just 22 kilometers before Karaikal. At the time, this hotel was considered one of the better options in the area, a favoured spot for those attending the Sadhabishegam (60th birthday) festivities and those who wished to visit the nearby Thirukadaiyur temple.

The day I checked in, it felt inauspicious. The hotel appeared strangely empty, and I had an entire floor to myself. The eerie silence was only intensified by the vast, vacant land behind the hotel. It was a bit unsettling, but I brushed it off as the result of my overactive imagination.

As evening turned to night, I retired to my room. Around 1 am, I was startled awake by the screeching of the bathroom door. I distinctly remembered locking it before going to bed, but here it was, creaking open on its own. I sheepishly closed it again and tried to get back to sleep. The problem is that once I woke up in the middle of the night, falling back asleep becaomes an arduous task.

It didn’t take long for my fear to escalate. I saw the bathroom door open and close by itself, and I was petrified. A colleague had previously told me about strange occurrences in this hotel, suggesting that it might be haunted. He even claimed that the vacant land behind the hotel could be a mass burial site for tsunami victims, and he felt that their restless spirits were playing their haunting games at night. He mentioned about witnessing doors opening and closing on their own.

Panicked and desperate, I dialled the hotel’s reception to request a room change, but my calls went unanswered. The darkness in my room seemed to press in, and the silence felt heavy, almost suffocating. Although I am a fan of horror and thriller films, this was certainly not the time for me to appreciate them.

To combat the fear that gnawed at my nerves, I switched on all the lights and sat awake, watching the minutes tick by until dawn. The night seemed endless, my imagination running wild with each creak and whisper in the room.

At around 5 am, I made the decision to wake up my driver, who had been resting in the cab. I told him we were leaving the place as soon as possible, heading for our project site in Vedaranayam. He was puzzled by my sudden change of plans, as he knew me to be a stickler for time and schedules.

With the first light of dawn, we hastily checked out, leaving the Hotel Mookambikai behind. As I cast a final, fearful glance at the seemingly haunted place, I couldn’t help but feel a chilling sense of relief, like a character in one of those horror films I loved so much, finally escaping the clutches of the unknown.

When I returned to Chennai, I couldn’t wait to share my spine-tingling experience with my colleague, the same one who had warned me about strange occurrences. As I recounted my tale, shivers still running down my spine, I told him that I now agreed with his version of the eerie events.

To my surprise, he burst into laughter. “It was just a joke,” he said, chuckling. He explained that there was a logical explanation for what happened that night. The coastal winds were known to be strong in that area, and they had a knack for playing tricks with the doors. In my case, the bathroom door had probably popped open due to a draft, especially if the latch wasn’t tightly secured. It wasn’t spirits or ghosts, just the workings of nature and old, creaky doors.

I was taken aback by his revelation, a mixture of embarrassment and relief washing over me. It was almost comical how my imagination had run away with me, weaving a ghostly tale out of a mere draft. It seemed that my favourite horror movies had made me more susceptible to believing in the supernatural, even when a logical explanation was right in front of me.

As I reflected on this, I couldn’t help but chuckle along with my colleague. It turned out that the Hotel Mookambikai wasn’t haunted after all, and the only haunting thing that night had been my own vivid imagination.