The Mysterious Book Of Grandfather | Real Horror Story In Hindi | Prince Singh

Summary

Jatin’s grandfather gives him a worn, nameless book written in Sanskrit and asks him to read it morning and evening. As a child, Jatin dutifully sounds out the words without understanding them. Years later, he begins to suspect that the book has given his spoken words an eerie power: things he says—often in anger or as a joke—seem to come true.

The first incidents leave him shaken. After he taunts a classmate about her grandmother dying, the grandmother soon passes away. Later, annoyed by noisy children, he snaps, “Who among you is dying?” Minutes afterward, one child falls from a roof and is badly hurt. The child survives, but Jatin is left with a deep sense of guilt.

Other words appear to come true in similarly unsettling ways. After a neighbor who had promised his family well water cuts them off, Jatin angrily wishes the man will be unable to get water when he is dying. The neighbor later contracts rabies and develops a fear of water. After an old milk customer insults Jatin over a bill, Jatin wishes the man will become desperate over money; later, the man’s family suffers deaths and financial hardship. Even a careless Diwali-season remark about a decorated room catching fire seems to come true when a fire breaks out nearby, though it is brought under control before anyone is seriously harmed.

The story’s darkest irony comes when Jatin jokes about a naked ascetic in a magazine, asking why he could not at least wear underwear. After a severe accident, Jatin lies naked and helpless while medical staff prepare him for surgery. He remembers his cruel joke and wonders whether he has somehow brought the same humiliation upon himself.

Jatin never gets to ask his grandfather what was in the book: his grandfather dies before Jatin can visit. Jatin becomes withdrawn and weighs every word, even apologizing in his nightly prayers for things he has said. Around this time, he experiences mysterious nighttime scents—first roses, then henna—with no visible source. The narration leaves their meaning unresolved.

An astrologer tells Jatin to imagine Goddess Saraswati sitting on his tongue and to speak carefully, especially when angry. Jatin takes the advice to heart. Eventually, someone asks him to bless a wish, and—after hesitating—he tells her that God will fulfill it. Months later, she sends laddus to say that it came true. For the first time, Jatin feels that his words can bring happiness as well as harm.

The narrator closes with the lesson that words can wound and cannot be taken back. The narrator also jokes that Jatin now stays quiet when people talk nonsense, “like a coward”—though the other person does not know he is actually afraid of what his words might do. The book’s title and the source of the strange fragrances remain mysteries.

Personalities Appearing

• Jatin
• Jatin’s maternal grandfather
• Jatin’s mother
• The schoolgirl and her grandmother
• The child who falls from the roof
• The neighbor who refuses the family water
• The old milk customer and his family
• The astrologer
• Jatin’s mother’s friend
• The narrator