I lived in a haunted house where the ghost sang 'Happy Birthday'

The walls spoke to us in words we could never understand

I was five years old when our family moved into an abandoned house in Visakhapatnam. My dad was in the Navy, and we received housing entitlement—this was to be temporary accommodation before a more permanent arrangement. The house stood at the end of a quiet lane, a one-storey house with three bedrooms and a spacious compound. A massive banyan tree loomed on one side, its thick, gnarly branches curling over the roof of the last bedroom.

My dad was at work when my mother and I went to check out the house for the first time. As we pushed open the rusted gate, it let out a long, creaking groan. The moment we stepped inside, a rat darted between our feet. We screamed and stumbled back and it disappeared into the undergrowth. Gathering courage, we continued on. A tiny swing hung in the compound, swaying slightly. It made me happy and I forgot all about the rodent.

Dried leaves crunched under our feet as we walked through the compound and entered the house. I vividly remember being excited by the large, airy interior. I started running around, but my mother ordered me to stay close.

Soon after, we moved in and started adapting to our new surroundings. The days were perfectly fine but at night, a weird chill would creep in, the kind that settled in your bones and refused to leave. And sometimes, when everything was completely still, I’d swear I heard whispers—so faint yet so close, like someone was standing just behind me, trying to tell me something I could never quite catch. It was eerie, but we told ourselves it was just an old house that’s been woken up after six years and maybe there was some logical explanation behind those sounds.

In the evenings, I would go and play with other kids in the area. But after sunset, I never dared to walk home alone. The street lights didn’t extend up to my house and the banyan tree created shadows that made my mind imagine the scariest of monsters. My mother ensured a nanny always walked me home. Even the nanny, though, never lingered at the doorstep for one extra moment.

My friends used to always tease me about living in a haunted house. Everyone in the area always called it that but I had no real idea why. I asked my mom and she dismissed it.

As months passed, I never felt unsafe inside the house but I couldn’t shake off the feeling that there was a presence. Like someone—something—was watching us.

One evening, I fell asleep on the couch in the living room. I woke to soft fingers running through my hair, my mother’s voice murmuring, “Beta, wake up. It’s time for dinner.” I groaned, still half-asleep, “Let me sleep a little longer.” “Beta,” she repeated, gentle but insistent. “Come have dinner.”

I forced my eyes open. She stood over me, dressed in her familiar black top, her face soft and loving. I shut my eyes again for just a moment. When I got up and walked into the kitchen, I stopped dead in my tracks.

My mother was there… dressed in completely different clothes.

My breath caught in my throat. “How did you change so fast?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.

She frowned. “What are you talking about?”

A chill spread through my spine. I told her everything. Her face paled. Then she forced a laugh and brushed it off. But I saw her eyes dart around the house, I saw her checking the doors and windows. She even stepped outside, peering into the darkness. There was nothing. Years later, she admitted how terrified she had been. How she too had felt watched in that house.

Then came my brother’s birthday. We were in the living room, on a call with him, when a faint melody filled the air. ‘Happy Birthday’ was playing from somewhere within the house.

We searched everywhere, our skin prickling. In the last room, we found it—a used musical birthday candle, lying forgotten in a drawer. It had played on its own, its ghostly tune echoing in the silence.

A candle, long discarded, its wick burnt out, buried under a pile of old papers and dust-coated trinkets, suddenly chose to sing? Apparently, even ghosts like to keep things festive.

Sometimes, we’d hear footsteps in the hall when no one was there. The scrape of a chair moving in an empty room. My mother always shrugged it off. Until the fire, almost eight months later.

One day, she was at work, I was at school and our domestic help had stepped out for groceries. That was when our neighbor called in a panic.

“Your house is on fire.”

Flames had taken over the house, charring the walls, and damaging the furniture. In the weeks before, there had been weird warning signs—an occasional whiff of smoke, and minuscule blackened patches on the walls that my mother dismissed as old stains. My mother recalled that the air had felt heavier, and charged, as if something had been waiting. The fire brigade arrived, but when they investigated, they found no source. No gas leak. No faulty wiring. Nothing. Just our home, deciding it had had enough of us and going out in the most dramatic fashion.

My mother still wonders—had that presence been protecting us, or warning us? It had reminded me to eat and wished my brother a happy birthday, but it had also burned the house down. Yet, it had waited until we were outside.

The banyan tree, with its long shadows and overview of the rooms, had always unsettled me. But the house itself had never felt malicious.

We moved out immediately. Lived in a hotel first, then a new apartment. Years later, when I returned, the neighbours told me everything was fine now. The new residents never complained.

Because the people had prayed. Not to the house.

To the tree.

As told to Akanksha Narang