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'.....