“I am neither a soothsayer nor am I steeped in the occult; I do not predict people’s future or delve into their past; I am neither mystic nor skeptic.”
From the very first page, There’s a Ghost in My Room by Sanjoy Roy, his debut book, captures the reader’s imagination. The very title sets the perfect mood for Halloween, conjuring intrigue and suspense before one even begins to read.
His introductory words immediately evoke in memory words of Edgar Allan Poe, where he wrote:
“Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.” (The Raven)
Sanjoy K. Roy’s book is a memoir of a unique kind: one where ordinary life constantly clashes with the supernatural. In his hands, ghosts, spirits, and unseen dimensions seem to coexist with everyday existence, blurring the line between reality and the unknown. Roy’s narrative explores memory, home, and identity, showing how places and personal histories can carry lingering presences. He also delves into the delicate boundary between the conscious and the subconscious, where reason and mystery overlap.
The author recounts his first brush with the supernatural at the age of five in his ancestral home, Guptoo Baari, in Calcutta, situated near the famous Thakurbari or Tagore Palace in Jorasanko. The haunting is vividly described against the backdrop of his arrival as a boy in the nostalgic old streets of Calcutta, a setting that will remind any Bengali reader of Bibhutibhushan’s Apu. Yet, that idyllic boyhood scene soon turns chilling at night when he tries to sleep:
“…I suddenly saw a dismembered hand holding a curved scimitar, with its blade flashing in the light, cut across the mosquito net.”
Years later, in his family’s sprawling bungalow in Delhi’s Lutyens’ zone, Roy encounters further supernatural disturbances—benign yet mischievous spirits, along with more troubled souls that “have to be placated.” He writes:
“Many a night I was jolted awake with the sense of an ominous presence looming above me, right next to my bed.”
The memoir also takes readers on a remarkable journey across India and the world; to Jerusalem, Edinburgh, Valladolid, and beyond—where Roy experiences more encounters with the unseen. One unforgettable episode unfolds in an ancient Spanish hotel in Valladolid, where he sees in a trance, a group of lantern-bearing mystics crossing a stone bridge, perhaps spectral echoes of the Inquisition or the Alumbrados who once practiced there.
In Khajuraho, he faces another spine-chilling episode involving Tantrics from a thousand years ago. Each story deepens his conviction that a parallel dimension of spirits and souls exists beside our own.
Roy is a versatile traveller. His journeys to New York, Bali, Boulder, and the Maldives not only transport readers across continents but also through the strange, invisible layers that separate belief from scepticism. His experiences blend the visual, the intuitive, and the ambient: some involve sight, like a hand with a dagger or prints on a mirror, while others manifest as sensations or messages, such as a sudden awareness of someone’s illness.
For Roy, these are not isolated events but part of the fabric of everyday life. Ordinary spaces such as homes, bathrooms, and hotel rooms become the backdrop to extraordinary encounters. Often the events occur almost in a Kafkaesque world or Poe’s macabre landscapes.
His another experience, ‘There Will Be Blood’ (Safdarjung Enclave, New Delhi) is one of those stories which indeed makes one scared resembling every scene of a Gothic horror.
Throughout, his life, his wife Puneeta and the family’s spiritual guide, the Gurudev, anchor him, helping him and his family navigate and survive the many uncanny and inexplicable episodes that have haunted them.
Roy writes with humility and wonder:
“…I leave you to draw your own conclusions, with the hope that when you look around you will realize that we don’t quite have an understanding of the many dimensions we inhabit and that in living our lives we should embrace the miracles that happen around us every day and be grateful for what we have.”
There’s a Ghost in My Room is not merely a collection of ghost stories. it’s a recurrent whisper and presence of the supernaturals. With curiosity, openness, and humor, Roy invites readers to embrace mystery as a natural part of existence. At the same time, the book is a meditation on life.
Sanjoy Roy’s unputdownable memoir reminds us of that timeless line from Shakespeare:
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
— Hamlet (Act 1, Scene 5)
This Halloween, let the romance of the unknown prevail!
—Subhadip Majumdar
