भानगढ़ की असली कहानी

SO much has been written and told about Bhangarh fort in recent times as the most haunted place of India (some claim to be in Asia) that if you just blindfold somebody and take him or her to a place and whisper in ear that- you are in ‘BHANGARH’ and that person will just get spooked and run out of horror. Bhangarh was not just a palace but a fort city. Whatever is left now is just the ruins of what would have been a sprawling city at one point of time. What is now left of the city part is just few temples, old havelis and the main market Johari Bazar, whose name will remind you of its namesake in pink city Jaipur. This city would have been magnificent at its peak with big havelis, palaces, temples, houses, markets. Even the shops in the Johari Bazar were all identical and double storied. The pathway to the palace now passes through this Johari Bazar. At some point of time the fort city was abandoned and hence got ruined, may be because of some local power struggle leading to a war with nearby rulers. There are some stories about a war between Bhangarh and nearby Ajabgarh. Amidst the ruins emerges a story which everybody would like to tell with a lots of juice. Ruins like this are always hotbeds for folklores and some paranormal stories. The sad part is that there isn’t much of documented history of Raja Madho Singh (if it is, then not known too much). When there is no proper documentation, then there is every possibility of additions and subtractions in the orals history that passes from generations to generations. History of ruining of Bhangarh has gone through that. Stories of haunt refer to Ratnavati but whereas some people say that she was Madho Singh’s daughter while other say she was Madho SIngh’s wife. In any case, there are two different stories of ruining of Bhangarh and only one can be true and in that race the juicer story of Princess Ratnavati holds the fort. That says that fort ruined due to curse of a black magician (tantrik) who was in love with Ratnavati.