# A swimmer’s personal essay on ghostly encounters and eerie presences 2026-08-12T15:48:08+00:00 | Sports | Indian Opinion Desk Corroboration: 1 independent outlet In an essay on ghostly presences, a journalist recounts two personal experiences. The first occurred in Petrozavodsk, Russia, where while staying in a centuries-old mansion, he felt a cold presence in the basement. The programme coordinator later confirmed the anomaly and offered alternative accommodation. The second happened in Kolkata, where upon entering a room, he had an overwhelming sense that a child was hiding in a bureau, later confirmed by a butler as a resident ghost. The author uses Mark Fisher's concepts of 'the weird' and 'the eerie' to frame these encounters as a 'failure of absence'. He contrasts these personal experiences with the decline of ghost stories in the age of smartphones and electric light, citing S. Mukherji's 1917 book 'Indian Ghost Stories' to argue that such phenomena were once common. ## Coverage - frontline.thehindu.com Tags: ghost stories, Kolkata, Mark Fisher, paranormal, personal essay, Russia Canonical: https://indianopinion.org/a-swimmers-personal-essay-on-ghostly-encounters-and-eerie-presences/ License: Summary and commentary (c) Indian Opinion, reusable with attribution. Facts belong to the linked sources. Cite: https://indianopinion.org/a-swimmers-personal-essay-on-ghostly-encounters-and-eerie-presences/#story-in-brief Review state: restored archive article, accurate at time of publication, not offered to search indexes.