A 70-Year-Old Woman Was Hiding Behind My Hostel Door

An Ordinary Afternoon Turned Strange

Back in 2015, I was in my second semester of college in Pune. My college hours were from 12:30 PM to 5:30 PM, but since we were allowed to be late sometimes, I decided to leave after the lunch break around 2:30 PM.

I lived in a PG (paying guest accommodation) situated on a busy main road, always bustling with people. The building structure was simple—stairs in the middle led to two separate corridors on each floor, each having four rooms on the left and four on the right, with separate corridor gates for each side.

A dimly lit PG (paying guest accommodation) corridor in Pune, India, on the second floor. The corridor has closed doors on both sides

The Unexpected Scary Encounter

That day, as I was roaming in the corridor before leaving, I suddenly felt something off near the door. A strange, unexplainable heaviness filled the air.

Curious, I walked towards the door—and then I saw her.

A terrified young man in a dimly lit PG corridor, staring at an old woman hiding behind a door. The woman appears eerie, with hollow eyes

A frail old woman, around 70 years old, was hiding behind the door, staring at me. Her gaze was unsettling, almost unnatural.

I freaked out.

Instead of running to my own room, I rushed to my friend’s room and blurted out, “There’s something outside!”

A Woman Who Shouldn’t Be There

My friend and I cautiously stepped out to check. By this time, the old woman had moved—she was now standing upright, walking towards us.

A mysterious old woman with a swollen leg and tattered clothing standing at the entrance of a dimly lit PG at night. She looks eerie and ghostly

She was speaking non-stop in Marathi, but I couldn’t understand a word (being from Delhi). Her appearance was disturbing—she wore a torn blouse and petticoat, and while one of her legs was normal, the other was severely swollen—a clear case of Elephantiasis.

Just then, our third friend arrived, returning from a cigarette run. He froze the moment he saw her. Without thinking, he thrust ₹20-30 into her hands and hurriedly told her to go away.

And then, she simply left.

The Unanswered Horror Mystery

Shaken, we tried to make sense of what had just happened. A 70-year-old woman with a swollen leg had somehow reached the second floor of our PG. But how?

We started asking around—the people on the ground floor, the shopkeepers outside.

Not a single person had seen her enter the PG. No one saw her climb the stairs. And no one saw her leave.

We were the only three people who had seen her.

Even today, I still wonder—was she just a beggar? Or something else entirely?

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Narrated by: D Pahwa
Year: 2015
Location: Pune, India