Ghosts, GOCs & Gymkhanas: What You’ll Find Inside Cantonment Ghosts & Other Stories

Drawing on the textures of military life but told firmly as fiction, The Cantonment Ghosts & Other Stories by Ashok Ahlawat takes you to such military spaces with supernatural whispers. Following his The Crossover Girl and Other Stories and Black Horse Down and Other Stories, this collection moves fluidly between cantonment life and unsettling spaces in between, with a healthy mix of poignancy and humour.

What you’ve read so far is only a glimpse. In this blog, we take you inside the book to explore what you can expect from it before you read.

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“Musafir, this is a haunted road. Don’t you know about the 1857 mutiny ghosts?”

Some stories from the book feature paranormal experiences. But they aren’t your regular paranormal stories. They are not the jump-scare, horror-novel kind that dominate every page. They feature eerie presences linked to old cantonments, abandoned buildings, and spaces shaped by decades of military occupation and history. These moments lean into atmosphere—unease, silence, things felt rather than clearly seen.

In other words, the ghosts are as psychological, historical, and institutional as they are supernatural.

“We went from one cantonment to another, carting our crates and boxes every two years.”

The book takes you through the lived experiences in the cantonments. Sometimes, cantonments become the backdrop to ordinary military life. Gymkhanas, messes, informal gatherings, regimental humour and rituals appear frequently, grounding the book in everyday reality.

These cantonments also become a symbol of belonging and displacement. Characters are always in transit—between postings, roles, and identities. Cantonments offer temporary roots, but permanence is an illusion. This transience creates a peculiar emotional state: deep attachment to places one must eventually leave, and an ability to adapt that borders on emotional self-erasure. The stories capture this tension with quiet precision.

The book is far more than just ghostly. It contains 38 short yet layered pieces, ranging from combat and intelligence operations—such as Banquet of Consequences (Battle of Chamb)—to the humorous, as seen in The Fall of Dana Fells, and deeply personal childhood and military family memories like Papa, Will You Take Me Along?

Together, these varied storylines resist easy categorisation. It is as much about memory, movement, and people as it is about ghosts, operations, and command—making the collection expansive, layered, and immersive.

By the final pages, The Cantonment Ghosts & Other Stories leaves you with a deeper understanding of the emotional cost of service and a sense that cantonments are not just military spaces but living ecosystems of memory, discipline, and quiet sacrifice. The ghosts in the stories linger—not to frighten you, but to remind you that every posting, every order, and every silence leaves something behind.

If this blog leaves you intrigued, make sure you check out the book and grab your copy today.

Buy here: The Cantonment Ghosts and Other Stories