Tower of Silence Scare:Ghost? Not so

First, it was the architects and workers who said they experienced strange goings-on in the high-end flats overlooking the Tower of Silence. Now, flat-owners themselves are joining the chorus. Result: Prices of the flats are dropping, but even then, nobody wants to buy them

S Kushala kushala.satyanarayana@timesgroup.com 

    It was the rationalist in them that made them invest in a newly-constructed high-end apartment complex on Bellary Road, overlooking the Tower of Silence or the Dokhma, the final resting place of Parsis. But many flat-owners are already regretting their decision: Nobody’s willing to do their interiors. Worse, nobody’s willing to buy the flats either.
    Painters and carpenters say they experienced strange goings-on and as word spread, it became difficult for the flat-owners to get interiors completed.
    Interior designer Seema Singh (name changed), hired to do the wood work and painting of a flat facing the Tower of Silence, says, “It was freaking crazy. The painters and carpenters would often tell me about strange noises from the adjacent bedroom. But I just ignored it. One day, I was overseeing the painting and all of us were working in one room when the cupboard and the door of the other room just went ajar. I could feel my bag and dupatta being pulled and when I turned, the workers were at a distance from me.”
    Getting painters to complete the job was a nightmare. “The workers were so scared that they would just leave without informing us. As word spread, we could not get people to complete the interiors even when we offered to pay more,” says Singh.
    Krishna, who painted one of the flats, was also scared initially. “But I stayed on to complete the work. It was very scary and many painters left the work midway. We would stay in groups and never moved alone,” he said.
FLAT-OWNER’S EXPERIENCE In fact, one of the flat-owners who trashed the stories as nonsense, himself experienced a strange incident.
    One day, he was in the flat discussing the problem with his architect, when he just walked away to open the main door. “When he opened the door, there was nobody. He walked back and asked me whether I heard the knock on the door. Then I told him this is what has been happening here,” the architect said.
    To avoid further damage, a flatowner sought divine intervention through a series of homas. “If you write all this, I will not get a tenant for my property,” the owner says. “Since there was a lot of negative energy, we held a pooja with some homas as suggested by an astrologer. We hope things will be fine in the future.”
LIVE, OR LEAVE? The dilemma that flat-owners now face is whether to live there or rent it out. A few of them even want to dispose of it, but the resale price is not competitive enough.
    A property owner has put up his 2BHK, 1,272 sqft for sale for Rs 70 lakh. Another owner wants to sell his 2BHK, 1,350 sqft flat at Rs 78 lakh. The owners had purchased these flats for almost the same prices.
    According to realtors in the area, the price of the flats facing the Tower of Silence is a minimum five per cent less than the others.
    The Bangalore Parsee Zoroastrian Anjuman (BPZA), which is incharge of the 13-acre Tower of Silence area, had complained to the municipal authorities about the loss of privacy when the housing complex was being constructed close to it.
    According Dinshaw Cawasji, president of BPZA, “When the apartment complex was being planned, we wrote to the municipal authorities that some of the flats overlooking the Tower of Silence would disturb our privacy. But there was no action.’’
    He said he hadn’t heard of any strange happenings in the flats. “In Mumbai, our Dokhma is situated very close to buildings and we have not had any complaints,” Cawasji said.

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Story changed on 28th June 2012

‘There is nothing spooky about our apartment complex’

Bangalore Mirror Bureau bmfeedback@indiatimes.com 

    Thearticle SpookedOutpublishedintheJune 12, 2012 edition of BANGALORE MIRROR, has evoked a strong response from a large cross-section of residents of the multi-storeyed apartment complex located near the Tower of Silence on Bellary Road. 
A letter of protest, signed by more than 200 residents of the housing complex, reached the office of the BANGALORE MIRROR earlier this week. It states that the apartment complex housing 874 flats is one of the “fastest occupied” societies in the locality. “More than 650 families have been enjoying the comforts of this serene locale for the past 30 months... Not a single complaint about any feeling of disturbancewithinthecommunity haseverbeen lodged with the managing committee or with our facility management,” the letter adds. 
    With so many residents voicing their protest against the article, BANGALORE MIRROR feels it is only right to project the strong counterview to the view propagated by the June 12 article. We are duty-bound to tell our readers about the protest letter that has been signed by more than 200 residents. Otherwise, we would have been guilty of publishing a lop-sided story. 
    However, we must add that our reporter, while writing the story, had made a sincere effort to try and get all sides of the story. In fact, the people who gave the story to our reporter tooareresidentsoftheapartmentcomplex.But asthey hadinsistedonanonymity,andwegave them our word, we are unable to name them. 
    We sincerely regret having hurt the sentiments of so many people.

We published this story on June 12

No worker or carpenter is willing to work in the flats overlooking the Tower of Silence