Here's a nice, chilling little story to mark the first day of the Ghost Month...

Published in 2021, this is the debut novel of Indian author Nidhi Upadhyay, who currently lives in Singapore. My version was narrated by Aishwarya Singh.

Natasha, Riya, Anjali, and Katherine, four friends boarding at the women's hostel of Kurukshetra Institute of Technology in northern India, use a Ouija board to play a drunken prank on Sania, a fellow-student. Tragically, Sania is found dead the next day, having committed suicide. The four women all have secrets connected to that night, and the ensuing webs of guilt and concealment end up pushing these formerly inseparable buddies apart.

Until, that is, someone who is utterly determined to resurrect the whole mystery decides to pursue them. Twenty years have gone by, but whoever it is won't take no for an answer. Is it a ghost, or is it a hacker?


Haw Par Villa, 2010. This is reputed to be one of Singapore's most haunted places...



It's certainly a complex story, some would argue overly so... The multiple points of view are harder to deal with when you're listening, and I must admit I had to play the final chapter twice to get clarity on who had orchestrated what...

But overall it worked very well. It's genuinely creepy, for a start, with plenty of eerie moments and atmospheric scenes. And Upadhyay keeps you constantly guessing, as suspicion falls now on one character, now on another. It remains twisty and suspenseful to the very end.


Bukit Brown Cemetery, 2017. Another venue that figures on the Singaporean haunted list





Really clever is the way the author pivots between suggesting the paranormal and evoking more prosaic forms of terror like blackmail and cybercrime. As you puzzle to make up your mind whether it's a cyberstalker or a ghost that the women are dealing with, you ultimately end up more scared by the former possibility than the latter one...

I liked the strong female characters. These are women with talents, great jobs, and promising career paths. Yet they're not idealized. They have to contend with marital problems, inferiority complexes, childhood burdens, and/or constant battles to juggle work and family. Initially spread out across the globe (in London, New York, Singapore, and Mumbai), they eventually all converge on Singapore for the denouement of the story.





Also commendable is Upadhyay's refusal to shy away from heavy themes like sexual harassment, youth suicide, confusion over sexual orientation, and marital rape. If this fictional vehicle ensures more of an airing for these issues within the cultural context in which the novel plays out, then that can only be a good thing.