THE GHOST HUNTER.

"I see dead people".
This was the line in the movie 'Sixth Sense' by Harry Joel Osment which stuck with me for a long time.I came across many people in life who made the same claims, although unsubstantiated but with such conviction that I tried to search their faceless entities.

The earliest memories date back to childhood at the cremation site just outside our old building which shared a common boundary wall.We were warned by our elders not to set our tiny feet on the haunted precincts where a couple of bodies were cremated on a daily basis. We were misadventurous kids and never hesitated to fetch our cricket balls from the cremation grounds. A scattered bone here and there never frightened me. The blowing wind would smear the ashes in our curly hair. I was yet to see a ghost.
A tamarind tree outside our bedroom window also served as a hotbed for ghost sightings by our maids. I used to study at the window awaiting any flurry of paranormal activity. The tamarind tree used to be like a still painting in the night much to my displeasure.The nesting birds also slept calmly. A faint rustling sound also evaded my senses. The spirits ensured that my study was undisturbed.
A young lady who had died of burns haunted our steps as claimed by the gossiping maids. She also made it a point to elude my sight.

I grew and became a doctor. Death became an accepted bitter fact of life. We could not change destiny. The patients who were destined to die could not be saved despite heroic sustained efforts and vice versa. Death was the eventual truth in life. Life began after death.

My search for the netherworld spirits came up a big nought. The dissection rooms as well as the mortuaries were all normal places where we would sit and gossip like in a play park.Their presence eluded me. The ICU ward boys who slept in the intermediate ICU beds complained that some entity used to slap them in the night but not when they used to sleep on the floor.I slept like a contended baby with unusual sweet dreams on those beds.

A spate of untimely unfortunate young deaths in our building also triggered a mass hysteria of ghost sightings by maids and night duty watchmen. The elevators and the swings in the garden would trigger spontaneously after midnight.The empty elevators would automatically skip floors and the creaking swings would scare the daylights out of people.I am a frequent night crawler and still somehow they evaded my sight.

I have reached an inevitable conclusion in my life.
Ghosts do not exist for me atleast. My fruitless search for their existence has ended. Any further claims are often greeted by me with yawns and a stare.

I see so many sad souls in my practice, some suffer physically and some emotionally.

An estranged lover or a grieving parent for whatever reason, their lives are lifelessly static.

A reforming drug addict or a child abuse victim who is grown up now, their lives have no direction.

A battered wife or a hassled husband, wake up to see the sun set into their lives daily.

I see the dying souls in such 'alive' people.

Their bodies just act as hollow shells.They lead a lack lustre mechanical life devoid of simple pleasures.

I try my level best to help them out.
I go out of my way to revive their dying spirit.

I attempt to exorcise their inner demons.

'I see dead people'.....

THE BIG BANG THEORY.

I was a very curious child. My inquisitiveness never bothered anyone as I was a shy child.

I used to observe and make my own inferences.My world was made up of my own concocted theories. I stood by them and they formed an important pillar of my rich imagination filled childhood.

The earliest mystery I solved was of our black and white TV set.The celluloid stars either dancing around trees or fighting with the bald villains were not of our size. They were small midgets who could fit in the TV screen. They were born differently from us. The cinema screen disproved all my theories when the same midgets became larger than life sized giants. The world was truly an amazing place.

The fighting doves with their ruffling feathers and the mysteriously stuck dogs yelling in agony drove me up to the wall. How could the messengers of peace fight with each other? Why would the best friends of human race get stuck to each other? Our efforts in separating such fight mongers succeeded with sticks and stones.

With the birth of my younger brother, I was drawn into intense debates with my friends about his origin. We later summarized that God made babies and put them in the protuberant bellies of our mothers. It was a simple logical explanation which solved our problem temporarily.

A class teacher in my fourth grade took a particular disliking towards me. I could not understand her at all. She liked my fellow class mate who was my arch rival. She spared no efforts in belittling me. When I topped that year, she dejectedly handed me my mark sheet. My arch rival came second but we were cool with each other. The reason for her biased favors towards him later dawned on me as I grew up. The wars and the riots based on religion perturbed me a lot. I had seen a movie in which three brothers belonged to different religions.They loved each other despite their religion. The world was getting more and more intriguingly complex with every passing day.

A strange phenomenon occurred when I ascended to the fifth grade. I used to get episodes of flushing, palpitations and breathlessness when a particular girl walked in front of me. It was a pleasurable sense of discomfort.It was a thrilling experience but I did not know anything about it at all. As years passed, I got used to such episodes, albeit with different girls in the walk of my life. After marriage, the sub conscience shut out such now pleasurable phenomena.

I used to hop often to the grocer or the vegetable market to fetch stuff for my mom. I used to wonder with wide eyes about the basis of such businesses. They procured stuff from other people and passed it on to us.
What was their purpose? The difference between cost price and sell price eluded my naive child like mind. The money banks used to be thought of as giant piggy banks just storing our money. They too had a purposeless existence.

Time has changed now.

I am an ageing 40 year old doctor with a family to look after. My hair is grey and they have seen many shades of summer and winter. I have mellowed down my inquisitiveness. I hardly get time to think over things. Each and every activity is in a form of a pre-programmed act. There is no more enthusiasm about knowing more in life. I have reached a stagnant plateau phase in life. I no longer ask questions or wonder with wide eyed gaze about the ever changing world.

Yesterday, my daughter came up to me and asked me a simple question.

'Why were we born?'.

This question rattled my senses and I shook my head in a state of disbelief.

Her question was beyond my realms of imagination.

Evolution had caught on and obliterated the child like innocent questions of the past. The kids now asked philosophical and meta physical questions.

I could not answer her question at all.

I have spent 40 years chasing the answer.

May be in death, I will answer the most important question plaguing mankind and realize the purpose of my life....

GURU DAKSHINA.

The ageing bespectacled lady walked into my room the other day as any normal patient would do and sat on the chair.

Her face bore a mask of pale gloom and her sallow eyes implied a lot of pain. Her sari was crisply ironed and the gold rimmed specs gave a semblance of dignity in her plight.

She called me "Appu! How are you?". I got startled and sprang up from my seat.

During the early 80s, any plump child was nick named Appu after the mascot of the Asian games which were held in our country with pride in those clean non corrupt days.

This lady was none other than my old primary teacher. I saw her after a gap of 3 decades and immediately nostalgic tears welled up in my eyes. I offered her coffee and we began chatting about my school and the good old days.

The purpose of her visit was gradually revealed by her in the next few minutes.

She had fallen upon hard times and was currently estranged from her husband since the last few years. She had retired from school and sustained herself giving home tuitions to primary students.She used to stay at her brother's place and contribute whatever she could to run their household.

She along with her brother had run into some bad debts to the tune of few lakhs of rupees.

I noticed that she was in grief but somehow there were no effects of poverty seen, she clarified that the tuitions used to give her a sustainable income for her livelihood.

She showed me a small diary which had non decipherable names of her debtors in scribbled writing. Her writing was so impeccably legible a few decades back..

She asked me for a sum of 20K rupees which she would return after 6 months. How she would gather this amount to return was a big question mark staring at me.

I assured her that I would revert in a day's time.

By evening I came to know that she had approached many of my class mates with the same request.

I was baffled and began to wonder about her state.

It was not a big amount for any of our class mates or me either but we had no idea about the fate of our money. She was earning for herself and the reason for her need of money was a bit of a mystery to me and just about everyone else.

There were no signs of illness or any disease in her, she appeared otherwise healthy.

I work hard and each and every penny counts.

I do a lot of charity for my poor patients. My native town relatives depend on me for their expenses. Our maids and drivers frequently borrow partially recoverable and returnable money from us. I have sponsored school fees of the children of our maids, driver, sweeper and a few watchmen along with ward boys. Many a times,I have let poor patients walk away scot free from my hospital.

I badly wanted to help my teacher but at the same time was not genuinely convinced about her need.She was not at all clear as to why her husband had left her and how she ran into such huge bad debts. I did not probe her further.

A round table meeting was held with my wife and mother. The ladies were in the favour of me giving the money on a non returnable basis. They told me to give the money and just forget about it.

The teacher called me the next day and I just could not muster courage to answer her call. When she called again, I bought time from her. I told her to give me a few days to decide. I can never say no to any one. Its my weakness. I will vacillate but never say no. Maybe a fear of over committing myself rules my heart and at the same time I do not want to outrightly deject someone.

Maybe, years of seeing people exploiting other gullible people like me for their own selfish motive has immunised me from empathy. I refuse to melt down like before.

The GURU-DAKSHINA will have to wait till then....

MAGIC TRICK.

It was a rainy Sunday evening that day.

The trees swayed rhythmically and the leaves rustled with an air of excitement. The atmosphere was a surreal one.

My dad had a small bottle of whisky for company along with peanuts and chips. We would just watch him sipping slowly while munching on the starters. A small glass of chilled Thums Up used to give us a high those days. After the last drop of the bottle was poured, an oft performed magic trick awaited us.We used to just sit besides our dad to see him perform the trick.

A lighted match stick was inserted through the narrow mouth of the now empty bottle and the flaming stick would just whoosh down to the base with a bigger flame.My dad now would just seal the bottle with his palm and voila! the bottle would stick to his palm. He would then lift the bottle with his palm amidst our claps and cheers. It was a simple science phenomenon of vacuum but we were small then to comprehend such stuff.

After the bottle got over, my strict dad's demeanor would change magically.He would become cheerful and soon music would start on our player. We would sing,clap and dance. It was indeed a wonderful sight to see my dad dance.He would then have his dinner and doze off with a smile on his face. Sunday evenings were bliss for us as the mood in the house used to be real light and easy. The stresses used to vanish. Weekdays were busy with our school and the demanding stressful jobs of our parents.

The earliest impression of alcohol was imbibed by me as a magical one. The magic trick kept on playing in my mind as I grew up.The spirit was regarded as a spiritual potion by me.


Till the age of 20, I never came in contact with alcohol. Boozing was a taboo then and we were scared of our parents. We began with beer and much to our surprise could no palate the sour taste of it. Whisky, Rum and Vodka were no better either, bitter in taste and gut burners.I was surprised to see how could people lap up this stuff.

After many attempts, I learned to appreciate the taste of whisky and could tolerate the bitterness.

The bitter drink used to sweeten my soul.

I used to float and my worries would temporarily vanish into thin air.

It was indeed a magical potion.

I recollected my dad's little magic trick and realised that it was just a precursor of the main act to follow.

The real magic was that it made you forget your worries and sadness.

It uplifted us.

I just smiled and wiped the tears from my eyes.......

DRY FEET--WET EYES.

It was a hot summer evening like every evening in our humid perspiring town.

The kids had all gathered together with their ever concerned parents at the sparkling cool swimming pool.The fluorescent trunks and sun tan lotion applied bodies glistened in the tropical sun. The reflection of the sun rays created a sweet sparkler like effect in the pool.

The wet kids swam across the length of the pool like dolphins to the sounds of their intermittently clapping parents who simultaneously managed to click their snaps with their ubiquitous cell phones.Some chubby kids lazed around the shallow corner like lazy hippos.

A colourful ball was splashed around the water amidst the cheerful laughter of the kids.

A small kid stayed at the fence of the pool with an anxious look in his eyes and a slight anticipatory tremble in his skinny knees. His clothes were non fluoroscent and faded with repeated usage.His sallow eyes expressed an intense desire to immerse himself in the pool.

The swimming coach stared at him sternly and shooed him away from the pool. He got a nod of approval from the concerned parents. The coach proudly ambled around the pool with a swagger. This action was probably uncalled for and certainly a bitter one in my eyes.

The small kid at the fence was the son of a maid who used to work in our building. She always mentioned that her son had an avidity for water and would love spending hours in the small aluminium tub in their shanty. The maid tried to console her crying son that one day he would swim too, probably in a larger pool.

The kid left our building compound with dry feet and wet eyes.

The rains followed soon swarming their shanty with dirt and filth.

God answered his prayers in a cruel way......

LOVE- A LOSING GAME....

Some memories just do linger.
A ring on her slender finger.

Some people break your heart.
They love,meet only to depart.

The hugs and tender kisses.
The promises and near misses.
The sighs and fatal hisses.

The divine hand, plays spoilsport.
A princess locked in a caged fort.

He looked for her, far and near.
She was the only one, so dear..

They found him in a plightful state.
A tragic death,destined by fate.

There is only pain,
Love is such a losing game......

SOAP AND WATER-

All you need in life is soap and water.

I am a keen observer of people and they continue to amaze me all the time.

The chappal bears the crescentic dust shadow in the front just facing the toes, This shadow is seen in people who may have dressed impeccably but are too careless about their feet. The sparkling nailpolish on the toes fades in the company of the lunar dust shadow.

The shoes resemble as if they belong to a nuke infested war zone.Layers of dust and grime adorn them and they had the misfortune of being polished only at the time of manufacture. The socks with holes smell hellish. Sometimes, I have had to leave the room in a state of nausea,me furiously sniffing my eucalyptus oiled hanky.

The toe nails are clawed like demons and apes and they grow without the fear of ever being snipped. A black brown line can be seen sub surface.

People have a weird fixation about scratching their crotches and axillae all the time. It is their favourite pastime. They follow up with a firm handshake and smelly hugs.

I have seen people using their belly button as a storage receptacle. Balls of cotton and hair frequently hide there.At times, I have seen grains also.

People also advertise what they have consumed for meals. Garlic, Onion and Tea flavored breaths are a rage in our town. Nocturnally, meat and cheap whisky rule the roost. The brush and the tooth paste are used seldomly, if at all.Communication with such people should be done with our backs facing them and their putrid assault.

The shirts and the trousers are used again and all over again till the salt layers accumulate like those of a salt pan. They smell like a mix of napalm and tear gas.The less said about the inner garments is better. They would alone merit a single blog.

The face bears so much oil so as to put the gulf nations in a worry. A once white hanky is rubbed repeatedly to polish the face. The eyes and nose are badly in need of a cleaning too. Boogers are blown and wiped on the poor betel leaf spat red walls.

Hairwash is a weekly affair for some and on the other days the smell of sweat,oil and anti dandruff conditioners loom large on us if we have the chance to get that close.

Supersonic farts and burps are fashionably blared by some people regardless of the emotional and olfactory damage caused to the innocent bystanders. Indiscretion is a definition for their valour.

I recently treated a bed bound millionaire lady who was left to die all alone in her home. The sons came to cursorily ask about her well being. She had a bad maggot infestation in her festering bed sores. She was a helpless lady and all I could do is to point my fingers of accusation were at her sons and their wives.

I saw their shoes and chappals and shaking my dizzy head walked out of their room.

I have a healthy disregard for such people in life. I never hesitate to show my displeasure and point out their hygienic shortcomings.

I feel like gifting them soap and water.