"I see them…"

Do you believe in ghosts?
I do. Because I am sure I have seen a couple since I was a kid. Or at least, I think so.
And as they don’t have fangs or bloody nails (unlike the prettier ones that haunt your conventional B-grade movie), I am sure there must have been some more that I did not notice in the hustle-bustle of humanity.
Now, before the medics strap me up and throw me into a padded cell, I would like to concede that maybe – just maybe – I could have been wrong. But, still, I shudder to think of those times because – in all fairness – I could have been right, also.

My first encounter with the supernatural occurred when I was a kid, and asleep in bed with my parents by my side. There was these noises coming from the living room, which were not letting me sleep. The drip, drip, drip, drip of water trickling into the hall wash basin.
I got up. There was moonlight streaming in from the window overhead, and so I could see everything around. My dad was sleeping, snoring slightly.
Quietly, I stepped on to the cold floor. And as I tip-toed my way to the living room, the drip drip sound seemed to get louder and louder. Louder and louder.
Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw there.
Somebody was sitting on the sofa, reading a newspaper. In the dark.
I could not believe it, so I moved closer – expecting the apparition to transform itself into a bundle of clothes or a piece of paper flapping in the wind. But no, I was only getting closer to a person, some weird person who could read newspapers in the dark.
Fear wouldn’t let me breathe. And even as I felt some kind of uncomfortable, warm sensation running down my heart into my stomach, the ghost lowered the paper to reveal a face engulfed in darkness.
I retreated back to the bedroom, too scared to wake anyone up. And there I lay with my face buried in a pillow, gasping, trembling – until sleep came and transported me to a sunny tomorrow morning.

The next day, under the glare of the hot Sunday sun, the sofa sat innocently bare. And nobody believed my story, of course…

The second incident occurred when I was in class nine, and sitting on my doorstep preparing for a geography examination. I always preferred to study sitting outside my house because, this way, I could exchange hellos and goodbyes with passersby and have fun getting distracted.
My parents took quite some time catching up with my ploy, but then – I was quite a coot back then.
Anyway, there’s this guy I would see at four pm, almost every other day – Anurag Tiwari. And he would be skipping and hopping down the road to fetch milk from the nearby store, generally humming a tune to himself. He was doing the same on that day, too.
I glanced at him through the corner of my eye, just barely lifting a hand to show that I have acknowledged his presence. Anurag smiled, then continued on his way down the road until he became just another speck on the horizon.
I was still engrossed in my lesson when my cousin, Ann, came along. “So, who all did you get to meet today?” she winked knowingly.
“Oh, nobody,” I answered absently, “Just Anurag. Maybe it’s too hot for the others to be out…”
Silence, chilling silence, met my words. And when I looked up, Ann was looking at me through the widest eyes – her jaw nearly touching the ground. And even as my own throat ran dry, I realised what had happened.
Anurag Tiwari had drowned to death in a nearby reservoir just a week ago. The town police were still investigating into the matter.
Which means I could have been mistaken. Or not.
Mom, as expected, did not believe me. Instead, she accused me of falling asleep during my study hour.

My third brush with the fantastic was the scariest. It happened in my hostel room, during the fag end of my final year in the Madras Christian College.
It was a hot Sunday afternoon and I was sprawled on my bed. The idea was to just lie there without moving a finger. The idea was to achieve complete relaxation.
The door was open, and it was letting in a hot, humid breeze.
I never even realised when the man came in. He was medium-built, a hint of a mustache on his face. I cannot remember what he was wearing, but I’m betting it was some kind of a sweatshirt. The weird thing was, I did not even know who he was – but the man was looking into my table drawer.
I tried to get up and ask what he wanted, but I couldn’t. It was as if my body did not want to respond to my brain. And even as I remained in that helpless position, weird , loud noises started filling my head – threatening to wipe out the very whisper of sanity in it.
The noises rose and rose until they reached the highest crescendo, my skull feeling like it needed to burst.
And then, suddenly, everything stopped.
I opened my eyes to see Kelly, my friend and neighbour from Room 156, strolling into the room with a bathroom mug. “Hey, why you sweating, da?!” he asked jovially.
I asked him if he had seen anybody leaving or entering my room, and he replied: “No… I was there drying clothes on the bridge for about ten minutes now, and I did not see anybody entering or leaving your room… Why?”
For ten minutes, I tried recounting my experience to Kelly – but it seemed quite a hard thing to do. So I left it at that.
Maybe the man was a man. Maybe he was the ghost that occupies Heber’s haunted room (Room 134? Can’t remember) . Or maybe he was just a bad dream.
Who knows?