People who know me may have heard about the spooky incidents that happened during our stay in Malaysia. I have often told family and friends about the incidents. Me and my father were discussing the incidents yesterday and I thought I should write about them.
Background
I stayed in Malaysia for little over 5 years. I first went to Malaysia in November 2011. I had traveled alone and the plan was that my wife and daughter (2.5 months old at that time) would join me later. After reaching Malaysia and joining the office, I started looking for a good house. I was clear about what I was looking for. I wanted a 2.5 or 3 bedroom house. I wanted a room for my daughter and a room for visiting family members. I was looking for a nice condominium with good facilities for recreation. And unlike a lot of Indians that I met in Malaysia, I wanted to be away from Indian crowd. It was purely because I wanted us to leverage opportunity of mixing up with people from other nationalities.
The first step in the house hunt was to get the contact details of agents. I asked around and got 10-15 numbers. I called each one of them but most people said that they either do not have a house available or the house is out of my budget. Finally, I met three agents and each showed me some houses. I quickly removed one agent from my list (if I am not mistaken, his name was Zaki) as he only showed me houses in a condominium that was full of Indians. He did not have contacts in other condominiums. The second guy, an unusually tall Chinese man (taller than me), showed me only two houses (I actually saw only one of them) in a condominium called Mont Kiara Bayu.
I asked about the meaning of 'Bayu' and I was told that it means 'New', which made sense as it was the newest condominium in that locality. However, someone later told me that Bayu originates from the Hindi word 'Vayu', which means 'Wind'. The condominium looked great and had pretty decent facilities. It was only about 10 minute walk away from the office and I quickly calculated the money that I would save. The first house that I saw was on 7th floor and was pretty nice. It was however slightly over my budget and was much smaller than the houses that I had looked at. Yet, I did not completely rule it out as it was fully furnished and had new and pretty nice interiors, fittings as well as appliances.
I asked the agent to show me the other house and I was quite prepared to immediately finalize one between the two. The other house was on the 19th floor (if I am not mistaken). As soon as we stepped out of the lift, I noticed that something is different. The floor was not as clean as the other floors and I asked the agent about it. What he told me entirely changed my plans! He told me that few years back a dead body was found stacked in the refrigerator in the flat and some people believe that the house, the floor or may be even the entire condominium is haunted. That is why the cleaners did not spend as much time on that floor (understandably so). Two things happened immediately. One - I decided that there is no way I am taking a house in Bayu and may be even the next building (just to be safe). Two - It made me curious. I asked him what kind of incidents happened that triggered such feelings. The agent was reluctant and he did not share too many details. As soon as I reached the company guest house, I did some reading about Bayu and found that some people had written about lifts stopping and opening on that floor for no reason. Some people had also written about the feeling of being watched or followed. Bayu had witnessed another mishap. An old Japanese couple had died after being electrocuted in the bathroom. So, Bayu was completely ruled out. Next day, I told some of my Malaysian colleagues about all this. Malaysians are really fond of horror stories. If you go to a multiplex in Malaysia, you would find at least 2-3 horror movies getting screened. Naturally, the news spread like wildfire.
The next day, I met the third agent - Nancy, an elderly woman, who had a lot of advises for me - regarding house, life in Malaysia, weight loss etc. She took me to a couple of condominiums that were away from the office and were quite expensive. I think that was a typical agent trick that she played on me. Later, she took me to a condominium called 'Mont Kiara Pelangi'. 'Pelangi' means 'Rainbow' in Malay language. This condominium was less about 5 minutes walk away from the office. The facilities were okay but definitely fewer than other condominiums. There, we met another agent. His name was Leslie, a soft spoken Chinese guy. Though he was polite and soft spoken but somehow he also gave an impression that he has another side to him. Leslie was the actual agent of the house they were going to show and Nancy was facilitating the meeting (and getting a cut).
They showed me the house. It had decent interiors but nothing extraordinary. However, two things really went in the favor of the house. It had a bathtub. I could visualize my daughter having a great time in the tub. It also had a dryer, which I feel is a must for a household with an infant or toddler. I checked out the swimming pool , which was absolutely inviting. The gym was small. Pelangi had two carpeted tennis courts and one of them could be turned into a makeshift basketball or Futsal court/ground. The condominium was peaceful and it ticked all the boxes. The house became our address during our little over 5 years stay in Kuala Lumpur.
Spooky Stuff
The strange incidents in the house did not start immediately. In fact, if my memory is not failing me, everything was quite okay and normal during the first 2 years (or so. Am little hazy about the timelines). Let me begin with the first incident.
The first incident actually did not happen in the house. It happened in a phase in which I was seriously trying to lose weight. My wife and daughter were in India for a short trip and I was alone at home. I used to go to the gym in the morning and for a swim on most evenings. On that day, I had gone for an evening swimming session. It was dark and there was no one around the pool. The atmosphere was indeed scary but I was determined to complete my swimming session. The pool had lights but the lights on one end (actually an entire half) of the pool were not working.
While swimming, I started feeling a little scared. That was unusual and normal at the same time. Unusual because it was not the first time I was swimming alone at that hour. It was also not the first time when the lights in one half of the pool were not operational. So, it was unusual as I was familiar with these conditions. However, it was also normal because I usually do get scared easily. I let my imagination run and spook the hell out of me. On this day, I was so scared that I decided only to swim in one half of the pool - of course the half where lights were functioning.
This helped me a little but then another strange feeling started to bother me. Every time I went under water, I could hear a lot of noise and even voices - as if a group is walking by or as if a pool party is happening. And every time I stopped to look around, I saw no one. I was also getting the feeling that I am being watched. Finally, I decided that I should go back as it was making me really uncomfortable.
I picked up my stuff and headed for the changing rooms. The changing area was about 30 steps away from the pool. It had couple of wash basins with changing rooms on either side. The left section was for men. In this section, one had to take an immediate right after entering and it led to a passage. There were 3 booths on the right side of this passage and there were steam and sauna rooms at the end of the passage. The lights in the changing rooms used to remain on all the time however, on this occasion, the lights in the men's section was off. Though I was scared, it did not bother me. The switch was inside the changing room. One had to take couple of steps in the room to reach the switch and it was pitch dark at that time. Again, this did not bother me and I decided to step inside. As soon as I put one foot inside the changing room, I felt I have stepped on something furry. It was a weird feeling and I immediately reached inside to switch on the lights. What I saw inside would remain etched in my memories forever. The entire passage was full of hair. Not like the movie 'The Grudge' but still a lot of hair. It could not have belonged to just one person. There was no explanation of so much hair in the passage. That scared the living daylights out of me and I ran for my life. I was still in my wet swimming top and trunks but I ran through the long passage that led to the lifts and I stopped only when I got inside my house on the 9th floor. Once the nerves settled down, I tried to think of every possible scenario that could explain what I had seen in the changing room but I reached no where.
I do not remember when the second incident happened but I do not think it happened on the same day. It was probably on the next day or may be even couple of days later. But it took place pretty quickly.
I have already admitted that I easily get scared. I would go ahead and admit that when I am alone, I do not switch off bedroom lights. Also, I always lock the bedroom door (that happens irrespective of whether I am alone or not) and keep checking the door regularly during the night. My bedroom was not particularly large. It had a queen size bed, a dressing table, a desk and few wardrobes. The door had a knob with a push-button lock. It made a loud clicking sound while locking as well as unlocking.
In the night of the second incident, I switched off the lights in the entire house before going to the bedroom. After entering the room, I immediately shut the bedroom door behind me and locked it. As I was alone at home, I kept the lights on and went to bed. When alone, I hardly get deep sleep and I keep waking up. Each time I woke up, I checked the bedroom door and found it locked.
And then it happened.
I am not sure what time it was. No sound or strange feeling had disturbed me but I woke up. I opened by eyes and looked outside the window...hoping it would be dawn. But it was still pretty dark outside. I casually looked towards the door and was taken aback. It was wide open and I could see the dark room outside. The first feeling was not of fear. I felt strange. I immediately got up and shut the door. I pressed the button on the knob and it locked with a loud click. I came back to the bed. I was thinking how it happened. I started thinking of 'logical' reasons why the door would have opened. It was only because I absolutely did not want to think of other reasons. I watched something on my phone for a while and when I started to feel tired, I decided to try and sleep again.
Barely few minutes would have passed when I heard that familiar clicking sound. It was the sound of door getting unlocked. I looked at the door and I saw that the door was slightly open. I kept looking at it in horror and then it slowly started to open further. I jumped out of the bed but was scared to get close to the door. Soon the door was completely open. There was no breeze. Only silence in the house, darkness in the room outside and horror in my eyes. I mustered courage and ran towards the door. I shut it with a bang and locked it. I checked the lock couple of times and tried pulling the door to see if the lock had malfunctioned. It was firmly locked. I then ran towards the windows at the opposite end of the room and opened them completely. Though there was absolute silence and darkness outside but that silence felt louder than the silence inside the house. I could see lights in the guard house of the opposite condominium. It was 9 floors below, good 300 metres away and I did not see anyone there. Yet, it offered some kind of assurance. I do not know for how long I stood there praying for dawn and hoping for no more activity inside the house.
By the morning, I had somehow convinced myself that the whole incident happened because I 'probably' did not lock the door on both occasions and 'probably' a breeze caused the door to open wide. But deep inside I knew that I had no choice but to go with these theories. After all, I had to spend few more nights alone at home till my family returned from India.
I cannot recall what happened the next night or during all nights till my family returned from India. I think nothing happened during those nights.
When my wife (and daughter) returned, I told her about the incident but both of us told each other that it was probably nothing.
Several other incidents happened in the house and I would share them. But I do not recall the chronological order of those incidents. Not that you can validate the information from somewhere but I wanted to make that clear. I would now describe the other incidents in the house but they may not be in the right order.
Next Incident: Weird Sound
The office was at a distance of 5 minutes walk and I used to come back home at around 7 PM on most days. After coming home I used to play with my daughter and then we used to have dinner in front of the TV in the living room. Afterwards, I used to either work for some more time or used to go to bed. That was the routine on most days. One day, while watching TV in the evening with my family, I heard a strange sound in the kitchen. It was not an alarming sound and I ignored it. But then the sound came again. It is difficult to explain the sound but the closest I can get is that it sounded like a pencil dropping on a granite surface and then rolling. As I said, it was not an alarming sound but it made me curious. It kept happening for some time and then it stopped after about an hour.
Next day it happened again. I looked at my wife and she was unmoved. I did not ask her anything but now my attention was no longer on the TV. I kept hearing the sound. Since it came at almost regular intervals, I started waiting for the sound. On that day as well, I did not tell my wife about it and the sound stopped after about an hour. This continued for several days.
Then one day, as soon as I heard the sound, my wife asked me if I have ever noticed the sound. Assured that I am not the only crazy one, I told her that I have been noticing it for a few days and I have been trying to figure out the source. My only theory was that it was probably a lizard. Lizards make a weird sound and am quite familiar with that sound. But I was thinking (or hoping) that Malaysian lizards make a different sound!!
We went to the kitchen and while we were there, we never heard anything. As soon as we got back to the couch, we heard the sound again. By that time, I had studied the pattern. The sound used to start little after 8 PM and used to stop by around 9:15. During this period, it used to come at fairly regular intervals...may be 6-7 times during that period. I must say that we never felt weird or scared. It was probably nothing. But it did make us curious and we used to look at each other every time the sound started. I must add that we never heard that sound at any other time during the day or during weekends.
Next Incident: Toe-be-or-not-toe-be
As mentioned earlier, our bedroom had a queen-size bed. I am 6 feet 3 inches and the bed was small for me. Typically, when I sleep, I do not like my hand or feet to be dangling outside the bed (as it scares me) but I had no choice. While sleeping my feet used to be outside the bed.
One night, I got up suddenly as I felt that someone had scratched on the big toe of my right foot. I was sleeping with my face down and I completely discounted the incident thinking that I had probably rubbed it against the body of the bed.
Several nights later, it happened again. Again it felt that someone had scratched on the big toe of my right foot. But this time, I had been lying on my back and my toe could not have rubbed against the body of the bed. I immediately folded my legs. The thought of waking my wife up did cross my mind but that would have been more dangerous than facing a ghost. I hugged my wife and went back to bed. This happened few more times in later weeks. Each time I convinced myself with a weird theory.
One day, in the office, I was having lunch with my Malaysian colleagues. Cannot recall why but we started talking about spooky incidents. My experience in Bayu was discussed and I was asked to repeat the whole incident. Then a friend talked about an incident that had happened with someone he knew. Some things had started to disappear from the person's house and he had no clue who was stealing the stuff. He tried lots of things including installation of cameras but nothing really came out. Someone suggested to him that he should consult an 'occultist'. Honestly, I did not even know the meaning of the word but as the story continued, I could make out that he was talking about someone who deals with the supernatural.
When this occultist came to the house, he commented that there is negative energy. Another confession.....till this point, it sounded like a made-up story as who has not seen all this in movies!! But then the colleague told us about the question that the occultist asked the owner of the house. He asked if the person has ever felt someone pulling or scratching his big toe during the night...between 3-4 AM!!! That shocked me but I did not react or ask anything. As per the story, the occultist told the owner that someone who has the spirit of a child in his/her control is getting the spirit to steal stuff from the house. Since the spirit is of a child, it plays with toys lying around the house and such spirits are particularly fascinated by big toes. Honestly, every bit of this story sounded like bull crap but the mention of big toe alarmed me. I asked about why did the occultist ask specifically about 3-4 AM. I was told that in Malaysian culture, they believe that the supernatural powers are at their strongest between 3 and 4 AM. Later, someone told me that in some parts of India as well, there are similar beliefs.
Nothing happened in next few days. I kept waiting. Not because I am brave. Because I am stupid....and curious. And then one night, it happened again. I got up because this time, I felt someone had grabbed the big toe and had shaken it violently. I immediately folded my legs and looked at the wall clock. It was 3:10 AM!!
More Incidents: Between 3 and 4 AM
After the toe scratching and pulling incidents, a lot of things started happening in the house. We would hear sounds coming from the other rooms. My daughter had a bubble gun, which played music and threw bubbles in the air. On couple of occasions, this toy started playing music from the other room.
Once my wife got up in the night and felt thirsty. She checked the bottle and found that the bottle was empty. Both the things are unusual. My wife rarely gets up in the night and she is quite particular about filling her bottle before going to bed. She decided to go to the kitchen to fill water. She opened the bedroom door but decided not to switch on the light immediately outside the bedroom. The switch was right there but for some reason she decided not to switch it on. Then she noticed a glowing blue light in the dining room. It was coming from my laptop, which I had left on the dining table. I am 100% certain that I had put the laptop in sleep mode before going to bed but at the same time, I understand that sometimes laptops restart because of certain reasons. So, finding an on laptop was not unusual. She looked at the laptop and decided to step towards it and shut it down. All this in a dark room!!! Such people have the smallest roles in horror movies!!! But as soon as she took a step towards the laptop, the screen went dark and the laptop switched off. My wife ran back to the bed and slept without drinking water!!
All these incidents and many more similar incidents happened during 3 and 4 AM. It started playing in my head so much that I started waking up automatically between 2:50 and 3:00 AM. I would curse my luck but remain awake till 4 AM.
More Incidents: When My Daughter Started Noticing Things
We started feeling worried only when my daughter (must be 2 or 2.5 years old; as I said, my memory is a little hazy about the exact timelines) started noticing things and she started behaving strangely.
Once I was working in the dining room with my laptop on the dining table. My back was against a wall and I had my daughter (I think she was about 2.5 years old at that time) in my arms. She was looking at my laptop and was doing stuff that all 2.5 year old kids do. She was trying to press keys, pulling my specs or hair and was speaking in the cutest language that we adults unfortunately do not understand. This was going on and soon I started almost entirely focusing on the work.
Then I realized that my daughter had stopped playing and was looking at me. She had this blank look on her face. When I looked at her and asked her what happened, it comforted her a little. And then she bent down and started looking under the dining table. Since that was an uncomfortable position for me to hold her, I asked her what happened and pulled her towards me. She again started looking at me with a blank but stunned look. I do not know what she meant but if I have to take a guess the look meant, "I cannot say anything about it or point to anything but can you not see what I can see". She again bent down and tried to look under the table. I pulled her and started to look under the table ...hoping to see nothing. I saw nothing and I asked her what she saw. She did not answer and kept quite for some time (may be 15 minutes). Then she got busy with her usual stuff...thankfully.
At that age, my daughter used to often raise both her hands and say "aaju", which translated to "lift me in your arms". It was pretty cute and she used to say that only to me and my wife (and to my parents, in-laws and my sister whenever she met them). She never used to say that to a stranger or even someone she had met multiple times. It was okay and that is how we wanted it to be. On one weekend, I was working in a similar setting as the previous incident. I was working on the dining table with my back towards the wall. From that position, I could see everything in the dining room, living room and even the kitchen. My wife was sitting on the couch and was watching TV.
Then we saw our daughter standing in a corner, with her face towards the wall. She was looking at something that was way above. I am tall but she was looking at something which was way above my height. We called her and she looked back at us with the same blank look on her face. She went back to looking at that 'something' and then she lifted her hands and said "aaju".
That scared us like anything and we immediately went to her and picked her up in the arms and took her away from that corner. We asked her again and again about what she was looking at but she did not utter a word.
Then one night, after we had finished dinner and had come to our room, another incident happened. We had switched off all the lights but a small light in front of the bathroom was on. That used me our night light since I cannot sleep in a completely dark room. So, there was light in one corner of the room and the rest of the room was dark. We had just come to the bedroom and were talking and playing with our daughter. She was also in a playful mood and was saying and doing all sorts of things. Then she became quiet. We thought she has started to feel sleepy. We did not ask her anything and got busy with our phones. Then she suddenly sprang up and asked, "what is that aunty doing on the ceiling"?!!? (Of course, not as clearly but like a small kid would say something like this). But she was very clear. And she was not a kid who would say such random things. Now can you imagine our situation. We felt worried as my daughter was seeing things but we felt equally scared. Once again, we told each other some 'theories' and laughed it off.
Apart from these specific incidents, we started noticing changes in my daughter's behavior. She started speaking to herself. She stopped doing few things and she started doing some new things. It happens in that age but we still felt that something is very different. That was when we started speaking to my parents and in-laws about what we were experiencing at home.
Some other incidents
Once, my parents came to visit us. It was a regular trip and the incidents at our house had not triggered the trip. During the trip, we told them everything that we were experiencing. They were already aware of most of things as we used to talk to them quite regularly. But that was the first time, they were listening about the incidents while sitting in the house. My father looked concerned but only slightly. I think he did not want to make us even more worried. My mother was quite normal. She listened everything but her expressions suggested that she does not believe that there is any kind of supernatural reason behind all this. That was a little assuring and irritating at the same time.
One night, I was talking to my father in the guest room. We both were lying on the bed and we were talking about all kinds of stuff. Not about the house. That night, I do not know at what time I dozed off. When I woke up around 1 AM, I noticed that the lights were on in the guest room. My father was sleeping. I went to check where the others were. My wife and daughter were sleeping in our room. My mother was sleeping in kiddie room. This room had a single bed. The room had a wardrobe full of my daughter's cloths. Her toys were also in the same room. We used to use the room for storing stuff, ironing cloths and sometimes as my study room on the weekends. This was the first time someone was sleeping in that room. I decided not to wake my mother up and I also did not want to leave my father alone in the guest room. So, I went back to the guest room and decided to sleep there.
In the middle of the night, someone shook me and called my name. I looked up and saw my mother standing besides me. She had a 'confused' look on her face. She said that a toy had started operating on it own and was making all kinds of sound. I immediately looked at the clock and it was about 3:20 AM. I was not surprised one bit.
We went to the room and I looked at the toy (the bubble gun mentioned earlier). It was still playing music. Since the bubble mix bottle was not attached, it was not creating and throwing bubbles. While the toy operating on it owns between 3-4 AM was strange enough, there were two more things that were strange about the incident. First, the toy had not started on its own in several months. The battery had drained long time back and we had decided not to replace it because of the weird incidents around it. Second, while discussing about the incidents at the house, we had told my parents about the bubble gun. She had laughed it off saying that it was probably because of loose connection.
While most incidents (except the strange sound in the kitchen) happened during 3 and 4 AM, few incidents did happen during the day. I had a laptop connected to the TV in the living room and we used to use it only for downloading and playing movies. The laptop did not have MS-Office and did not have any anti-virus. On several occasions, we noticed the laptop switching on and off on its own. For this also, I had a theory. Since I used to download movies and music regularly, I told my wife (and myself) that probably the laptop is infected with some kind of spyware and is being controlled remotely by someone!! This theory was working well.....till one day, the TV switched on for no apparent reason. This happened several times during the next few weeks. On some occasions, it switched off. On some, it switched on. On some occasions, it switched on and then turned off. We still sold 'chinese hacker' theory to ourselves.
We had told some friends about the incidents and everyone had the same question, "why are we still staying in the house"?
Now, when I look back, I do not know why I decided not to leave the house. May be because it would have been costly to leave the house in the middle of the contract. May be because we were convincing each other with "logical or scientific" reasons. Or may be because we did not actually see a ghost. If there was a supernatural entity in the house, it did make its presence felt but it never harmed us.
I genuinely believe in such entities. You can call them ghosts, spirits, supernatural entities or negative energy. My belief is that if there is a god (i.e., a positive energy), there has to be a balancing negative energy. So I do believe in ghosts. And when I get scared, I actually tell them that I believe in you and I know you are there so you do not need to reveal yourself to me or make your presence felt. Instead they should do that with a 'non-believer'!!!
How it all ended
When we started talking to our parents, my father-in-law asked around. Then one day he asked me if there is a place in the house where we pray. My wife is not religious. I do pray but I do not need a designated place for that. I can pray looking at a picture in the laptop or even without it. So, my answer was NO. He said that we must have such a place in the house. Honestly, this irritated me a little as I did not know how to create such a place in our house in Malaysia. He sensed that and said that he would come with all the stuff. Soon, my in-laws visited us in Malaysia.
They came late in the night and upon reaching home, we started talking to each other. Soon, we got close to the 'action hour'. I started looking at the clock and my father-in-law sensed that. He started asking about the incidents at home and we started discussing the incidents.
Right then, the TV switched on. He looked at the TV and acknowledged that something is wrong. But he assured that everything would be back to normal the very next day.
The next morning, my father-in-law picked a spot in the house to set up the place of worship. I was not particularly happy about the location as it was in the living room. In a corner but still, in the living room. His logic was that when you worship, you should be facing east and that was the only place where that was possible. We went ahead.
He set everything up and asked us to join him for the prayers. I noticed that he had kept a bowl there and the bowl had water in it. We completed brief and simple prayers. It was silent prayer. I do not know about what others did but I prayed for things to become normal and for my daughter not to be affected by anything that was present or was happening in the house.
After the prayers, my father-in-law asked my wife to sprinkle the water in the bowl in each corner of the house and in every room. It felt that we are cleansing the house. I accompanied my wife while she was doing this and suggested places where she should sprinkle water. I ensured that water gets sprinkled at all the places where something spooky had happened. Under the dining table, the corner where my daughter saw someone really tall, the kiddie room, bathrooms, utility area, balcony, both bedrooms, wardrobes..everywhere. We did not leave any place in the house. Then I left for office.
In the evening, when I returned home, my wife opened the door. I got inside and suddenly felt absolutely different. The house looked extremely bright...as if dark clouds had been removed from the house. Do not know whether it was purely psychological but the house suddenly had an extremely positive vibe. I am not exaggerating but I honestly felt the house telling me that everything would be alright from here on!!
And the house did not lie. Nothing....ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.....happened afterwards. The TV or laptop never turned on or off on their own. The strange sound from kitchen went away. Toys stopped operating on their own. My daughter never behaved in any strange manner. Absolutely nothing unusual happened in the house thereafter.
One thing did not change though. I still feel scared between 3-4 AM in the night.
