Malcha Mahal: Hauntings at the Hunting Lodge

Considered to be one of the most haunted places in the national capital, Delhi's ruined Malcha Mahal sits just behind the Rashtrapati Bhawan, surrounded by a thick growth of cacti, keekar and other sharp-edged plants. However, is this Tughlaq-era hunting lodge really haunted by the spirits of a Begum and her two children? Or is there more to Malcha Mahal's story than what meets the eye?

Malcha Mahal. Illustrated by Dishani Goswami: Visual Storyteller at ThisDay

The story goes that on one of his shikar trips, Firoz Shah Tughlaq, the third emperor of the Tughlaq dynasty, lost his way and was taken care of by a gypsy girl. It was in gratitude to her that Tughlaq is said to have built Malcha Mahal in the midst of a jungle. Since then, this forgotten shikargah remained abandoned until the year 1985, when it was allotted to a royal family by Indira Gandhi.

In the 1970s, Begum Wilayat Mahal, the self-proclaimed great-granddaughter of Nawab Wajid Ali Shah of Lucknow, appeared out of nowhere and captured the VIP waiting room at the New Delhi Railway Station. She demanded that the government should give her back the property that belonged to her ancestors. After nine years of living in that waiting room, begum sahiba was granted Malcha Mahal as a place for residence, to where she shifted with their two kids, Princess Sakina and Prince Cyrus. And since then, Malcha Mahal has become a place of curiosity.

The royal family lived like hermits. They didn't come out, and never let anyone meet them. The curiosity simmered down and people gradually forgot about them. It was only decades later, when people spotted the now old and frail Prince Cyrus going out on a bicycle, that curiosity took the better of them again. But this time, it was for the welfare of this old man who called himself the last prince of Awadh. Days later, Prince Cyrus was found dead inside Malcha Mahal. Cause of death: dengue fever.

And since then, Malcha Mahal is said to be haunted by the ghosts of these three royal family members. Vloggers and adrenaline junkies now visit this place hoping to encounter these vengeful spirits, only to return empty-handed.

Turns out that Begum Wilayat Mahal was an impostor. She was an ordinary woman named Wilayat Butt married to a registrar in Lucknow who moved to Pakistan in 1947. But after her husband died under mysterious circumstances, Wilayat Mahal donned the character of Wajid Ali Shah’s great-granddaughter and smuggled herself along with her two children to New Delhi Railway Station. Their personas and conviction made everyone believe, even Indira Gandhi, that they were indeed royals.

And so they lived in Malcha Mahal until they died there one after the other. Begum Wilayat allegedly took her own life by drinking a mix of crushed diamonds. Her daughter Sakina disappeared without a trace. Later, Cyrus confessed that she had died and he himself had buried her. How did she die, where was she buried? We don’t know. And in 2017, Cyrus died of dengue. He was found dead on the cold rocky floor of his ‘palace’. They were no royals and they had no money.

The only source of legitimate income they had was from Wilayat’s elder son Shahid, who had run away at a young age and settled in England. Shahid would send small amounts of money to them often. Besides that, Cyrus had learned the art of taking foreign journalists for a ride, stringing them along using his enchanting story. He would then take money from them for every interview, and then drop them when his needs were met. This is how they lived, and now we know how they died.

But Malcha Mahal still stands abandoned as it was before. Perhaps I would gather enough courage to visit that place someday.