What??

"The two kids were running around and round the grave which had become our party site for the night. The soft midnight gleam did not exactly help soothe our puny guts. We left all our processions, the bags, the bottles, the bicycles and our guts in the graveyard and ran. We ran as if the kids were running behind us. After running for a mile and a half, we collapsed on a roadside bench. Struggling for breath and reeking of alcohol, we just sat on that bench with a silence that was hammered into us by what we had seen and..”, I interrupted Bihari before he could finish his story,” Tell me what was your age when this happened?”

”12”,came the reply from Bihari.

”What’s your point?”, Bangali fired away at me.

I downed my rum, stared at the empty faces of Bangali,Bihari,Gaai and my glass.”The thing is, most people who actually see ghosts or undergo supernatural experiences are actually small kids or people who are under a lot of stress or emotional trauma. It’s your brain that’s messing with you. Ghosts are a figment of your brain brothers..”

“So you mean to say, there is a higher chance of seeing a ghost when u are a kid?” asked Gaai.

“Didn’t you get my point? There are no GHOSTS macha.. You make them up in your mind and they end up in your backyard. It’s all in here” I answered poking Gaai’s forehead.

“But dude, how can you just go around and tell people that the hand that grabs hold of their wrists when they slide it under their pillow is just a figment of their imagination?”asked Gaai pointing at his wrist, “You can’t just go around and deny first hand experiences and tell them “You guys are a bunch of liars.” People have been through shit man!”

An eerie silence fell around the small living room which had the capability to appear crowded by as less as four people. 4 friends, all in their mid 20s, far away from their homes, sharing a meal with Rum ,Grief and now apparently ghosts, in the middle of a chilly December night. Who said life changes after college?, I wondered. Same old, same old.

The tick of the lighter flame broke the eerie silence that had descended upon the room. I fired a ring of smoke and looked at Gaai who was staring at his glass. I refilled it, added some soda and handed it to Gaai.”There is copious amounts of crap that everybody has to go through in their lives”,Gaai took a sip staring at me, “And dude, believe me, all this Gyaan about Ghosts was given by my shrink”

A question mark descended upon the three friends. They were all staring at me, watching as I made futile attempts to blow bigger smoke rings.

“Your Shrink?”

“A long long ago, when I, The Baba, was struggling to grow a mustache, a Malayali Christian family moved into our neighboring flat. They were a family of five. A Grumpy Granny, Mom, Dad and a set of cute daughters. They were a wonderful family except for the granny, who always stared at me. Always. She would not say a word, but just stare. Despite the ice cold Granny, I loved hanging out with the Dad and the sisters and listening to the Dad’s old army day stories. I had an immediate connection with the younger sister who was just a year elder to me.”

I took a sip from my now refilled glass, cringed as the drink burned my innards, “Dude soda spoils the taste, next time onwards we will use only water “

“When did we shift from Horror to Romance?”asked Bihari.

“Control your hormones, I am getting there” I answered , trying to break the icy stare from Gaai and Bihari.

“Her name was Nikki. She was an absolute fun girl to hang around with. I have never come across like her girl till date. So lively and crazy, she was like a breath of fresh in my 8th grader life. She loved playing cricket but always ended up being the Umpire when the society guys had a match of gully cricket. She taught me to climb a tree. She taught me how it can be fun to drop water balloons at people from terraces and run like hell. With large Doe eyes, dimple on both cheeks and a boy cut, She was the Girl you are supposed to fall for at first sight. I, being a kid with below par reasoning skills, developed a humungous crush on her. But I too suffered with the Puny Guts syndrome like our beloved Bihari.”.Everyone smirked at Bihari, who was now gulping his drink.

“Then began the sleepless nights, the song connections, the dustbin full of love letters and the stares. I found myself constantly staring at her dimples. It was as if they were the answer to all my questions and doubts about life. She would sometimes catch me staring, hit me across the head and ask, “What?”. And then she went on to give me a lecture on how staring at her will make her complexion go dark. And all the while listening to her lecture, I would be staring at her dimples, again. And one fine day, I decided that I need to grow a pair and go tell her how I feel.”

“I seriously doubt that you grew a pair.”, interrupted Gaai.

Bihari burst out laughing and Bangali got up with a smirk on his face to switch off the stove beneath the screaming cooker.

Glasses were emptied and refilled.

“Continue”, ordered Bangali.

“Growing a pair tuned out to be impossible task when it came to her. Every time I got out of the house, I thought, “Today I am going to get my answers”. I did not think or care about what might happen to our friendship after this. But every time I saw her, my legs turned into rubber and I was all wobbly and weird. Every time she noticed it and she would give me a smack across my head and warned me about how weird guys grow up to be screw ups. I completely agreed with her. We went to different schools, but we would ride together in our bicycles on our way to school. Her school was a couple of minutes away from mine, so I would just stand at my school gates, say my good byes to her and watch her go. It was now my turn to smack myself on the head. This went on for a while. One day all of our Society gully cricket guys were waiting for our Umpire to arrive. And when she galloped across the grounds towards us, I realized there were multiple sets of wobbly legs in our gang. “

“Give me your glass. Let me refill it.”,Gaai grabbed my glass away.

“I did not sleep the whole night. I planned and planned and planned and came up with a simple plan.”

Gaai refilled and handed me my glass back.

”Thanks dude.”, I replied to Gaai taking the glass.

“What was the plan?”,asked Gaai.

“I would tell her how I feel about her when we stop near my School.”

“So did it work?”

“I got ready for school. Went to fetch my cycle a half an hour early and waited for her near the gate of the Society. She met me 5 minutes earlier than the usual time. We started riding towards our school. It was feeling as if time was getting slower and slower at each stroke of a pedal. Words began scrambling throughout my head. She was asking the usual questions she would ask me every day, I was incoherently mumbling the answers. Then we neared our school. I was still struggling to open my zip locked mouth. We stopped near my school gate. She cheerily screamed, “Bye bye” and went off in her route. I stood there, watching her go. My insides were twitching into a knot and the knot was getting tighter by second. I couldn’t hold it off any longer. I screamed at the top of my lungs ,”NIKKI!!”. She stopped and looked back to make sure I was alright. She made a gesture with her hand head to ask what had happened. As soon as I opened my mouth, my eyes grew wide with horror as I saw her getting hit by a speeding car.”

Absolute silence descended upon the four of us. The air trying to get out of the pressure cooker and the water dipping out of the leaky faucet in the bathroom were the only sound which made sure that the time had not stood still. All three of them were staring at me. The cigarette fell off the Bihari’s mouth and made a mark on the make shift carpet. I picked it up and gave it a long drag.

“Did she make it?” mumbled Gaai.

I was blowing the smoke towards the White Celing fan which had now turned brown with all the dust.

“No she did not. She died on her way to hospital.”

“I am sorry man”, whisphered Bangali as he crossed a comforting hand across my shoulder.

“She was gone just like that. Whenever I came across her family in the Society, they grew teary eyed. Everyone except the Granny. Her stares used to shout at me, “I know it, Its because of you she is no longer with us.”The family eventually moved out. But The guilt was weighing in on me.As it increased, I became an insomniac and my health deteriorated. I could see glimpses of Nikki everywhere I go. But I was never able to get a full view of her. Whenever I was alone I could feel a set of Doe eyes on me. It was not scary. It was longing. I was longing for her to come out of the darkness and embrace me. As I lay in my bed I would stare for hours at the Dark wall across for to come out and hold my hand. But that never happened. I grew paranoid. I became suicidal. And one fine day, my mom caught me with my Dad’s shaving blade pressed to my wrists. Then my family took me to my psychologist uncle. He saved my life and took me out of this trance.”

The faucet stopped dripping. We sat in silence for an eternity without a word. Bihari took our glasses away, refilled it. Gave them back to us, “Cheers to you Macha, You are a survivor.”.

We clinked our glasses and gulped down the black concoction. I could feel the old man running down my throat, burning all the way through and settling in my stomach. A calm prevailed upon me.

The Bangali had cooked a mean Chicken Curry. They vanished from our plates faster than the Ghosts in our lives. The Bihari and the Gaai went off to sleep singing “Ye raat bheegi bheegi” by Manna Dey. Bangali lit a cigarette and handed it over to me.

“Dude, are you ok?”, he asked with a hint of concern in his eyes.

“That depends on your definition Ok ”,I mumbled through the smoke.

He gave me full mouthed smile and patted me on the shoulder, “Chal So Ja, Its getting late.” and he wobbled away to his room.

I finished the cigarette, lit another one and settled on my bed in the living room and switched off the lights. The cigarette burned itself away lighting the dark living room with its faint glow.

I turned towards the Couch. The dim gleam of cigarette shone on Those big round Doe eyes and the hazy dimple cheeks. She caught me staring and whispered, ”What?”.