“I really don’t believe in ghosts”, I said, as I looked out the window. Shaking his head, my friend Manish ruefully said, “You know that you just walk with your eyes closed, don’t you? Have you ever seen air, or seen a word striking the heart, so much so the heart bleeds itself to death? Does that mean these things don’t exist? There is something out there that is way outside our thinking but all the same, it is there. Some thing, somewhere is there. You can always feel its presence, feel the shake in the air around you but you may never see it. Anyway I don’t like the sound of the word ‘ghost’. That sounds like something that is bad. I hope you have heard of ‘Atma’? You must have. There is this Atma inside all of us, which in fact is connected to the Supreme Being. Our bodies are nothing, but a covering a hide that it has to wear. After we die, the Atma inside is free from this earthly guise, and free to go back, back to whence it came. Sometimes, the death occurs far before the Gods ordained it to. So, there is some work that is incomplete that the Atma has to do before it can be freed. Oh God! Stop rolling your eyes at me! Its impossible to talk to people like you!” Manish heaved a great sigh and went to sleep.
We were in the first class compartment of a train that was to take us, two students of Political Science at the Delhi University, to Utare where Manish’s grandfather had his home. During the night, our conversation had steered from the annals of politics to the talk of ghosts. Manish maintained that they existed for sure but I, ever the cynic, thought this was something that was made up just to scare small children. Our argument had reached such heights that our co-passengers, bewildered at the two young men obviously from good homes shouting at the top of their voices, left the compartment quite hurriedly. By morning, barring us two and an old wizened man the compartment had completely emptied out. Taking in the savoury feeling of having a compartment to ourselves in this huge rush season, that too in the morning, we both took as much space as humanely possible and fell down to sleep. I woke up to find the old man staring at me as if he was contemplating something. Stifling a yawn, I glanced down to see that we still had a good seven hours journey left. Beaming at him, I took a swig out of my water bottle and out of courtesy, offered it to him. With a wave of his hand, he dismissed my gesture but with a smile added, “Thanks but I have my own bottle.” Trying to make small talk, I informed him of our intention to go to Utare and meet Manish’s grandfather, gesturing up at the seemingly lifeless body that just grunted and rolled over to the other side. The old man told me that he also incidentally was going to Utare.
“I could not help overhearing the argument between you two during the night about ghosts”, he said. “Guess it was hard to miss, since we were shouting at the top of our voices”, I said with a grin as I crossed my legs, hoping my gesture would convey to him that my interest in the conversation was over. But that thought evidently did not occur to him. “You know, I also did not believe in all this stuff, until one of my friends had such an experience. He was going to Utare at that time, by this train in fact.” By now my curiosity was sufficiently piqued and I moved closer to listen.
“ My friend, lets call him Anuj, shall we?”, he asked. As I nodded he continued “ Well Anuj was the typical cynic not much like yourself. He was well educated, from a well settled family in Mumbai, and a rather jovial person. I must say he was well-travelled, seasoned in that area he was. With a balanced head between his shoulders, he had the same old flame that I can see in your guys now. Nothing could ever stop him, natural or supernatural. Well, I can talk about him for a long time but, yes the story. Like I said he was well-travelled. But the thing that always remained in his itinerary was Utare. You know why Utare is so famous, don’t you? Well gauging from that look in your face I can confidently say no. I guess in your history classes you have wouldn’t have heard of Raja Loodha? Well, he was a ruler of a small princely state which was barely 100 sq km in size, with his capital at Utare. Well, what he had less, that is land, was made up with the amount of skilled labour he had at his disposal. The princely state of Utarekand was known throughout India for its finest craftsmen and skilled artisans and everyone who wanted to get something done would get on his horse and rush to Utarekand. For a long time, the Raja saw the dealings that went on his state, but he was sad. He wanted something that he was to be remembered for, something that would make people say ‘Aha yes Raja Loodha! I have heard of him. After thinking it over very carefully, the Raja decided to make a monument that would eclipse the greatest monuments ever built on the soil of India? After all, his artisans were famous all over India for their work and he had enough gold in his coffers to convert such an idea into reality. So he called every one of his artisans and told them of his plan. Every bit of it, why he wanted it, how he wanted it, etc. As he motioned them to go and chalk out a plan for all this, one of the artisans present there, I don’t remember his name, stood up, and did something that the rattled the nerves of the people around him. He dared to question the king. He said that although they were the best artisans money could get but still none of those present there had the capability or the vision to make such a thing. With all the artisans looking at disbelief at the utter disregard for His Royal Highness, he slowly explained what he thought could be done. He wanted the Raja to make a monument that contained all the monuments in India , a place where one could stand and see the Sun Temple with his one eye and the Taj Mahal with the other. You know what the good king did? Instead of clamping the artisan in chains for his outspokenness, the Raja went up to him and said ‘That’s the best idea I’ve heard in a long time’.” Perceiving my well meant message that I had in vain been trying to convey to him all this time, he hastily added, “Okay now, this was the monument that Anuj wanted to see. So, he packed his bags and took off. Everything went smooth until he got to this train.”
“So, you mean to say that he met a ghost in this train only?” I inquired much to the chagrin of the old man, annoyed that I couldn’t let him continue with his little history lesson. “You want to hear it or not?” I nodded as he continued, “ Well, he had the option of taking other trains, but when he heard about the ghost sightings in the train, ever the cynic, he decided that he would seek to end this gossip for everyone’s sake. So, he spent days and nights, poring over the different accounts of people who say they have seen a ghost in this train. He found that although many of them were just baseless lies, told by people desperate to shine in their own fifteen minutes of fame, some of them matched out. Amongst those too there were discrepancies, some saying the saw an old man or some saying an young man, but the thing that jumped out to him was that the were all centred around to one particular coach, serial no 23BE487 and that the person in question was always seen with the same scar down his neck, a scar that was shaped like the letter S, that appeared out of nowhere. Some also claimed to have spoken to the spirit, but then the chances were pretty slim that a spirit would want to talk to them. They said when they talked with the spirit, the spirit would be like any other passenger in the train, laughing, joking, basically having a good time, but as soon as the train neared a particular spot, which interestingly matched out in almost all legitimate accounts, near the Utare station, the passenger in question would get pretty agitated and started behaving like he was very uncomfortable. Well armed with all this information, Anuj decided to travel on this train. Although a little sceptical, some part of him said this could be true, since when you look at all those accounts that people have given over the years, then you can never look over the uncanny similarities that threatened to jump out of the pages and force you to believe in them. Anyway, he boarded the train with a little apprehension of what he was to see and feel. Finding his berth he sat down, wait what are you doing?” he asked as I started scratching my neck like crazy. “Nothing just felt very itchy all of a sudden.” “Let me see, I was a well-established doctor once, you know, back in ’83 when all was good.” He said as he bent down and took a look at my neck. He shrank back as if he had seen a ghost, going straight out of the compartment, taking his things along with him at a pace that would have put an Olympian Gold Medallist to shame. Unnerved by his action, I started scratching the queer shaped scar that had appeared out of nowhere on my neck.
