Darling, you make the ghosts come alive!

My husband and I enjoy the evening time car drives after dinner. Earlier in Mumbai it used to be a stroll for tea post dinner, but since we had moved to Jodhpur two years back we converted this into a short long drive and we continued this tradition even after our little one was born.

It was one of those fine evenings, when we were returning from such a trip, when the security guard opened the door to our colony for our car, we rolled the window glass down, he looked at our faces and told to my husband who was in the driving seat, “Sir, room no. 1205?” It was more of a rhetoric question. He immediately opened the gates for us to enter. Now the thing is that this otherwise is a routine in most gated colonies these days, but the surprise was that our room number is 835. And the gate keeper seemed pretty confident that the room no. is 1205.

I astonishingly asked “Akash, why did he say 1205?”

“I think he just got confused Simran”

“But, he seemed so confident that you stay there.”

“Don’t make a fuss out of it yaar, so many people live here and go and come, he is bound to get confused.”

Saying this he parked the car in our parking area and we moved towards the lift. I still had the frown on my face, but I was not sure what else to say.

We went home, changed for the night and as we were lying down I said,

“Please tell me if there is something I must know Akash, I have seen you sitting in your car in the parking slot for minutes before you come upstairs. You are usually coming home late these days. If there is something, you tell me now.”

“Oh come on, you are not going to leave it there. You really want to know why was the gate keeper talking like that. I will tell you, but you have to trust me Ok?”

“Sure Akash, now cmon, tell me.”

“You remember I had a late meeting around two weeks back, I came home around 11 pm? That night when I was coming from the office to our place I took the shorter route to reach home early, but you know that that route is usually dark and skimpy.

Well, I was about to turn left for our place from there, just then I saw a young lady standing there all alone. It seemed like she was waiting for a lift.

Since the area looked unsafe, I stopped my car and pulled down my window a little and asked her, “You waiting for someone Mam, may I help you,”

“I am actually new to area and lost. I have to go to ‘Shrinivas Society’ but there is no transport available it seems. No Uber or Ola showing service here either.”

“What luck Mam, I live in that society, let me give you a lift.”

Well, I picked her up and when we reached the gates as usual like today, I put down the window for the gate keeper to see and before anyone could say anything, this lady shouted room 1205. The gates got open after that, I parked the car and she left with a thanks. I have never seen her again after that. Probably the same guard was on duty today..,and so…Phew!”

“Darling Akash, may I ask, had she worn a white saree, open jet black hair and a dark shade big round bindi?”

“Now that you mention, exactly that’s how she was dressed, but how do you know?”

“Well dear, there is a rumour in the society that 1205 is haunted! And the lady dresses up like this and moves around the area asking for lift. Infact I was going to ask you to defer the thought of purchasing a house here due to this. And now that you have also experienced this, I think we have to be careful.”

Akash was looking in my eyes with sheer fear! It was like the 'he had seen a ghost!' and in his case, alsof done a car drive with him!

I did a countdown from ten to one in my mind and then gave him a smile, threw a pillow on his staring face, “Caught you dear, I was just joking. Ragini is a friend. Infact the very next morning she had come home to thank you, but you had left for office again.”

“Oh Darling, you just made the ghosts come alive.”

And he threw another pillow over my face, we laughed ourselves all along the pillow fight and slept at ease!