I DO NOT BELIEVE IN GHOSTS

At the very beginning of this post , I would like to tell my friends in KHIRIKI that I am a very courageous person. I am not scared to venture out alone late in the night, and I do not believe in ghosts and spirits. But as someone very rightly remarked, “Never say never..”, I would like to mention the two incidents (though it may not sound very scary now) when I almost started to believe in supernatural forces.

It was one fine evening in 2007 and I was expecting my elder son; my husband, who had a very hectic schedule in AIIMS, called me up to inform that he will be unable to come home that night as an emergency had come up and he will be in the operation theater. I thought rather than cooking up a full meal for me alone, I would order a pizza from outside and will sleep early. I placed my order over the phone and started to watch a ghost movie on TV (Hindi film ghost with red eyes and yellow hair, and the movie starred Marc Zuber, a staple of Hindi ghost movies in the 80s). It was around 9 p.m. at night, and I heard someone ringing the calling bell. I got up from my bed (where I was lying down and watching TV),and went to the drawing room and opened the door. There was no one! I thought either I must have heard something else, or the naughty 3 year old Tushar from the ground floor was upto some mischief. As soon as I closed the door and turned back, I thought I saw some movement behind the long purple curtains in the drawing room. I felt my heart beating a bit faster than usual. The Hindi film ghost who was entertaining me a moment ago seemed ferocious now. I felt as if a bald man was watching me from behind the curtains and grinning at me. I almost froze at that particular spot, and my legs felt wobbly. Added to that, the baby was kicking on my tummy. I was scared. real scared! I could not gather the courage to walk up to the bed room and pick up the mobile to call my husband. The windows were open and the curtains were dancing in an eerie way. And I swear by the Almighty that the bald white man was staring and grinning. I do not remember for how long I stood there rooted to the ground, and almost cried out of fright. I was unable to even speak out. Suddenly the calling bell rang, and very very slowly I took my eyes off the purple curtains and managed to open the door. I almost fainted out of relief to see my husband standing outside. He was worried because he had been calling me up in my mobile (which was in the bed room) and I was not picking it up; thankfully the patient who was to be operated was not fit for surgery, and my husband rushed back home like a hurricane fearing the worst. He told me that he had been calling me up for the last 45 minutes or so!! My mobile had 57 missed calls, and the pizza I ordered never came. That day onward, I stopped watching ghost movies alone (whether Hindi or English)..

Another episode took place today morning. Yours truly has the habit of walking at 4 a.m. every morning for an hour, whether its burning hot, or biting cold or its raining. The one hour walk keeps me active throughout the day, and today as I came out of my apartment, the weather was clear. At four in the morning in January, it’s still night in Delhi, and the breeze was very very chilly, but the air was clear. I was listening to some soulful melodies in my mobile through the earphone, and suddenly out of nowhere a blanket of fog loomed large over my head. The fog came so suddenly that I was taken unawares. And like some premonition, the radio station stared to play “Naina barse rimjhim rimjhim”. And I suddenly turned back ; I felt as if a lady wearing a white sari with long black hair let loose was following me, and soon as she saw me turning back, she hid amidst the fog. Images of a petite Sadhna (the Bollywood actress of the bygone years) in a white sari walking in a light drizzle and crooning “Naina barse rimjhim rimjhim” flashed in my mind. I was so scared that I could not even switch off the radio of my mobile, neither could I pull away the ear plugs away. I was standing like someone struck by lightening, and thankfully the song ended and the RJ started to talk about the sudden fog that had descended. I half ran half walked back to my home, and sheepishly slipped back to the comfort of my blanket. I could not sleep though, and the tachycardia kept me reminding of “Naina barse rimjhim rimjhim”…But I plan to walk again tomorrow. Why should I let my fertile imagination spoil my daily routine???
Braveheart, huh !!!

But dear friends, I DO NOT BELIEVE IN GHOSTS……