Himachal Pradesh is a mountainous state in northern India. It has no railways and the connection between distant towns is only by highways or mountain paths. My father tells me that when he visited his village, which was on the border with Himachal Pradesh, he would often venture out for a walk in the wild mountains.
He told me that one day he and a friend of his decided to take a long walk in the mountains. After walking about a mile, my father and his friend saw a black cat sitting in their path. As they approached, the cat continued to purr and refused to budge. So my father’s friend who was carrying a lathe (wooden bar) had hit the cat. But before the stick could descend on the cat, the cat disappeared. My father and his friend laughed and thought it was an illusion. They continued more and this episode was repeated. A faint alarm now occupies his mind.
As they went along, they saw a boy standing on the road and he was crying. My father thought his mother must be close by. So he picked up the boy and shouted for his mother. But my father says that the boy began to laugh and little by little his weight began to increase. My father, alarmed, released the boy and ran back to the village, reciting the Guru Nanak prayer aloud in Japanese.
He told me in no uncertain terms that what he had approached was a chaleda. This was a term I heard for the first time. Although the story was narrated by my father, I initially took it with a grain of salt. But some studies in this field and a visit to Himachal confirmed to me that a chaleda is very much a spirit that exists and has the power to appear before a human being in different forms. It could take the form of a beautiful woman or an animal. He is an evil spirit and plays with the victim taking different forms and can later maim or even kill him.
Chaleda according to popular belief is a spirit of a man who has died a premature or violent death. Such spirits are doomed to roam the earth until the day of their salvation, when they can enter the gates of the spirit world.
There is a lot of debate about whether there is such a thing as spirits or an afterlife. But the phenomenon I have narrated is difficult to explain. Yes, chaleda is not heard anywhere else in the world or in any other part of India. This spirit seems to be peculiar to Himachal Pradesh. Therefore, there is a possibility that the people there have built a legend from a few different episodes. But this is a simplistic argument. For my part, I have no rational explanation of what or who a chaleda is.
Times are changing and scientific thought has permeated the whole world. But there are still many mysteries to be explained. Strange occurrences and events like the appearance of a Chaleda need further study.