My Ghostly Affairs-Conclusion (without ghost)

(-continued after the last post-)

           After a (not so) thrilling night of ghost hunting we returned to our respective rooms. I slept very well. Got up at 9 the next morning, it was Sunday by the way. The mess served paper roast (very thin but very large dosa), which was my favorite. I ate a lot and slept again. Sure we had exam the next day, but I was one of those arrogant guys who won’t start studying until the exam is less than 12 hours away, which I was going to regret soon.

            I woke up again at about 11 in the morning, not for studying but because I got bored of sleeping. I went to the restroom for freshening up. I don’t know what happened next. I was standing there in front of mirror and suddenly everything went black.

            I woke up to the sound of my friends talking. When I opened my eyes I was lying on my bed and everyone was looking at me. It’s an awkward feeling when you wake up and find everyone sitting around you looking at you, like I’m some celebrity.

            In a movie like manner I looked around and said, “Where am I?”

            A friend sitting nearby said, “Nothing dude, no need to worry. You just banged your head on the floor of bathroom and went unconscious.” Well that’s reassuring.

            I tried to get up but couldn’t. It was like my head was plastered on my neck. Any movement to the neck sent a million volt electricity into the whole body. I just lied there thinking about what happened in the restroom, but it was like my memory was erased. I just remember standing there. It’s nothing paranormal though, I hope. This oblivion is just a side effect of being knocked out.

            Apparently, what must have happened is, due to sudden waking up and walking (to the bathroom) there was a head rush which made me feel a little dizzy. It happens to everyone some time or other, immediately after getting up after a long time and if you stay put it passes away. I must’ve lost balance for a second and fell back straight like a statue. Bad luck for me, I hit some very sensitive part on the back of my head, like some restart button on me, and I was logged out of reality. Later I found out that while I was lying there my eyes were open. A Hindi guy came to the restroom, saw me lying there motionless, thought me for dead, and ran away even without finishing his business what he came for. Then one of my friends happened to come there and saw me lying. He ran to my room and told everyone and so I was brought to the safe embrace of my bed.

            The guy who saw me first didn’t tell anyone as he didn’t wish to be part of a police case. Maybe he was hoping to hear the news of a dead boy and act surprised. His roommates noticed him nervous the whole day and asked what’s up with him. He muttered, “One man dead in bathroom” by which time I had recovered. One of his roommates was my classmate who assured him that nobody had died indeed. Later “One man dead in bathroom” became a famous phrase among my friends, to mock me.

            Back to my story. Someone applied Iodex on my neck but the pain was killing me. I told them I couldn’t turn my neck. To make matters worse, guys had seen a Tamil movie called ‘Sivi’ the previous night on TV (also ‘Shutter’ in English). It shows a guy suffering with neck pain only to find out in the end (spoiler alert!) that a ghost is sitting on him all the time. It took no time for the guys to connect the movie with my neck pain and the ghost hunting we went to the previous night. I don’t think it made any difference when I said that we saw no ghost there. I was named “Pei pudi” which loosely translates to “Ghost Catch”. It’s not clear who caught whom from the name. Even today some of my college friends call me that (which is annoying btw).

             The greatest tragedy wasn’t that I was hurt or that I threw up a couple of times or that people called me haunted or the annoying nickname, but we had university exam the very next day. It was evening by the time I could sit straight. Whole head still hurt like hell. I had to turn like a robot to look at anything or anyone. It was frustrating and the fact that I couldn’t concentrate on studying on top of this pain was pissing me off. I wished I could just remove my head for some time to get away from the pain and study a little. But the eyes are with the head so… never mind, it’s a bad joke anyway. Point is I was sure I’m going to fail this time.

            I had not touched the book yet, because I always studied the last night before exam. All the other times, I had been very lucky and got away with my express study routine, without flunking. They called me lucky guy for a reason. Whatever question I read last before entering the exam hall, came in the paper. Or perhaps it’s the other way around, because the question paper was printed long before I read that answer. It worked for me every damn time. I really don’t know how. Now, it was like someone ‘up there’ finally found me cheating the system and wanted to teach me a lesson for not reading my lessons. To make it even worse, it started raining. ‘He’ was pointing finger at me, laughing and saying “Beta thu tho ab gaya” or ”Mavane setha di nee” or “You are screwed my son” and in many other languages. It was a pain in the neck, literally.

            It was a theoretical paper but with some mathematical problems. Great isn’t it, no hope at all. I learned how to solve a few problems that the question paper might contain. Couldn’t study any other theory parts, I was already overloaded, not with info but with pain. This wasn’t some theory where I could write my own thesis in exam paper. It was science; you had to understand it, which wasn’t going to happen with this excruciating pain. Finally I thought,

“I’m going to flunk anyway. There’s no point fighting the battle after knowing you’re lost. Why not take some good rest before I take the fall.”

           Only problem, I couldn’t sleep either. I tried different positions but my neck wasn’t agreeing in any of them. The pain got worse after the turning and twisting. In the end, a friend who had breathing trouble and chronic cold taught me how he sleeps when he has trouble sleeping. He folded the pillow in an inverted ‘U’ shape and I put my head in it. It was comfortable since I won’t be able to move my neck now involuntarily during sleep. All was good, except one thing. The damn rain won’t go. It started thundering just to mock me even more. I covered my ears and after a long battle, finally dozed off.

            Next morning, I’m sitting in the hall. I receive the question paper. “What’s this non-sense?” I say. I don’t know anything on the question paper. It’s all gibberish. Nothing I learned the previous night. I look at my friends around. They’re all lost in the paper. “Traitors” I curse. I look again at the paper. Where are the problems, I’m only good with problems. I’ve never heard of such things on the question paper. I try to look at the paper of the girl sitting in front. Just then the invigilator comes from the back, “What are you doing? Get up.”

            I woke up with a start. I realized it’s morning, and with that the pain in the neck came back. Just a bad dream, I told myself. Not gonna be a dream much longer, my mind replied. There was lot of sound outside. People don’t make noise when they’re preparing for exam. That’s the time when even the burliest of bullies makes peace with the nerd. At least in the morning, a couple of hours before exam, you can even see people in the restroom brushing teeth with a book in one hand. They eat with a book, spill coffee on the book. So why this disturbance?

            I came out of the rooms. Guys were moving excitedly to and fro. Soon my roommate came from the outside.

            “What’s up with the noise? Did someone die for real?” I asked (like I cared). Nothing could be good in my condition. I was sure of it.

            “No dude, your lucky stars shined again” he said grinning.

            “I’m in pain and that’s not sign of luck.” I said.

            “Nope, but the exam has been postponed due to heavy rain last night.”

            No frigging way, I thought. Nature isn’t so cruel after all. Even better, the exam was scheduled for 2 weeks after this day. So I had enough time to go home, get some treatment, have the much needed rest, and of course study for the exam. The subject was “Signals and Systems”. If you studied in any one of Anna university affiliated colleges in the 2007-11 batch, you would remember that an exam was postponed in our 2^nd year (3^rd semester). But then again I studied on the last day. Some habits never go. Unfortunately many people failed in that exam even after getting so much time, but hey, I passed.

            I’m not the only one cheating with the education system, because as soon as the university had announced holiday, the rain stopped. It was like He turned off the faucet.

New Theory: We could use this power, you know. Whenever a region is having heavy downpour and there’s a threat of flood, ask the educational institutions in that area to announce holiday. The rain will stop. Works every time!

My Ghostly Affairs-3

Incident three:

            I was in 2^nd year of college. We were staying in the hostel and university exams were going on. There are two periods in life when even the most boring stuff like the sky, the wall, the chair looks beautiful. One- if you are in love and two- if you have exams. So we started developing interests in every useless thing around us and one of them was ghost hunting. If you have stayed in hostel during college, you must have gone through that phase where everyone claim that there’s a ghost of someone who died in the hostel. Amazingly the ghost is said to be a girl (even if it’s a men’s hostel) because, well… female ghosts are scarier.

            We went through that phase in the 1^st year. People started spreading rumors that there’s a ghost lady in the hostel whom some people could hear at night. Now you may ask how a lady came into boys’ hostel (and died) but we are talking about the logic of ghosts, so chuck logic. One of our classmates even swore that he saw the reflection of a horribly scary woman, with teeth like sabertooth, on the mirror in the bathroom. Once I went to fill my water bottle from the water cooler (at 1am) and I heard the ‘chal chal’ of anklets behind me. I didn’t turn around and the sound faded away. When I told this to my friends they said it’s my good luck that I didn’t turn, because the ghost slaps anyone who turns. Guys were so afraid of leaving room at night that they went to bathroom in groups, like girls (no offense ladies). One such occasion a friend of mine begged me to come to the bathroom with him, but he got freaked out anyway because his shadow ‘showed up’ on the wall unannounced. Another friend said during a night walk his shadow was walking faster than him. People were scared crazy and were keeping curry leaves in their rooms because it’s been ‘proven’ that this particular leaf repels ghosts. It was hopeless and there was nothing that the warden could do to stop them.

            The fear gradually faded away… until the aforementioned 2^nd year university exams. Nobody used to come out of their room, not because of fear of ghosts but that of exams. But then stories spread that some people could smell jasmine flower from their rooms. Since jasmine is something that only girls wear on them and this was boys’ hostel, it was clear to the guys that it was a ghost. Later it was found that it was one of the guys spraying jasmine powder over the ventilation shaft that caused the aroma.

            One of the good practices followed by our hostel was that they’ll provide hot tea and coffee at 10pm everyday for the duration of the exams. The coffee would keep us awake long enough that we’ll go into a half asleep stupor and do stupid things. It was during one of those nights, Saturday to be precise, high with caffeine, we decided to hunt ghosts.

            We asked the boy who brings tea if he had heard of ghost in the hostel. He said, “I’m not sure about the hostel but there’s ghost in the mess on 1^st floor (the mess where we eat not the kind of mess we do on exams). We’ve heard it crying ‘ooooooohhhh ooooooohh’ ”. I’ve got to admit there was fear in his eyes.

            “Really?! You’ve heard ghosts for real? And management believes you?” I asked.

            “Yes, yes! Those are the ghosts of people who died during construction of the college. Everyone working here knows about them”, he said. So that explains how a lady got into men’s hostel.

            “In fact we keep food for them on the roof of mess whenever we serve non-veg food or else the ghosts will get angry. In the morning the food is gone. They are the reason we serve food only on the ground floor mess at nights not on the 1^st floor”, he continued, “Because that’s where THEY are!” This guy should make horror movies.

            “That’s it”, I said to my friends after the boy left, “Let’s bust this myth once and for all. Either we’ll be myth busters or ghost busters. ”

            “Okay! Let’s check it out”, said my friends bravely.

            The mess was close to our hostel. There was just a small badminton court separating the buildings. We reached the bottom of the stairs. “Let’s go” I said to my friends.

            “You go first, we’ll follow” said one of them.

            “C’mon where’s your bravery now”, I glared at them and climbed the steps slowly. I have to admit I was scared even though I don’t believe in ghosts, but as they say “the only way to destroy a fear is by facing it”.

            After reaching the top stair I looked down. To my relief the guys were behind me a couple of stairs below. I was ducking so no one could see us from inside the mess window if someone happens to be resting inside. I pushed my face closer to the closed gate of the mess to see if I could catch a glimpse of something.

            ‘tok’ ‘tok’ ‘tok’ ‘tok’.

            I heard footsteps, and they were close.

            Quite surprisingly my first thought wasn’t about a ghost. I thought someone saw us climbing the stairs and was coming to seize us. I didn’t wish to be detained at the time of exams. So, I took a step back in shock of hearing the sound and whispered “someone’s coming”.

            I took the second step back and looked back to make sure I’m not stepping on someone. But nobody was there. As soon as they had seen me take a step back they ran for their dear lives. Now I was stuck alone. The sound kept coming.

            ‘tok tok tok’

            Thankfully one of the friends came back and climbed the stairs when he saw that I hadn’t come down yet. Having him on the side I took a deep breath and looked inside the gate again.

            The gate was at the entrance of the mess and inside it were the many wash basins or rather a giant basin with several taps. One of them was leaking.

            ‘tok’ ‘tok’ ‘tok’.

            “hell, this is it?”, he looked at me.

            “Dude it really sounded like footsteps,” I replied and we went back down.

            My ‘brave’ friends hadn’t gone to their rooms after all. They were downstairs, probably hoping to hear my scream when the ghost caught me.

            “What was it?” one asked.

            “Nothing, just a leaking tap, like in the movies. Such a waste of time.” I said.

            “Ha ha ha! You got scared of a tap? I thought you’re the brave one.” one of them ridiculed.

            “Why did you guys run? At least I had something to be scared of.” I pointed.

            Nobody said anything. We went back to our rooms. I realized that if I had run like the others I would’ve thought it was something else. It would’ve puzzled me for life. The guys would’ve twisted the story to prove that they saw a ghost and it would’ve circulated the college like the other stories. I am grateful for that friend who stood by me and my ounce of bravery that didn’t let me run. If only I had this courage during my previous encounters. I could’ve figured out their mystery too.

            For this one, I closed the case busting the myth of 'ghosts in the mess' like Fred from Scooby Doo saying “There are no such things as ghosts”. But the story doesn’t end here.

            Next morning (Sunday) I was found on the floor of the bathroom, unconscious.

My Ghostly Affairs-2

“True Story”-Barney Stinson (after reading this)

Incident two:

            10^th standard now. Finally got out of the habit of wetting the bed. One such night I felt the urge to discharge the stock and went to bathroom. Don’t worry, nothing was in the bathroom. After finishing the business I returned to my work location i.e the hall where I slept. Let me help you get the picture of the hall. It’s a huge hall with a table at either end. One table lies near the bathroom area where I went. Along the other table we used to spread two bed sheets for my sister and I to sleep. Getting the picture?

            Now when I entered the hall I saw a figure standing right on my bed sheet turned towards that table. My first reaction was shock and a mini heart attack. I took a few steps back in terror. I wasn’t wearing my glasses ( I’m not blind without them though) so in the light of the night lamp I could see a white baniyan(vest) and a lungi but no face since he was turned towards the other table. It should be my dad or my grandpa, I thought. From the shape I decided it’s my dad.

            Sighing a relief I wondered what he was doing here in the middle of the night. As my sleepiness faded I realized he must have come for water that we used to keep on that table. Now thirst is something like a yawn. We see someone drinking and we suddenly realize we need water too. Instinctively, I checked on my right to the nearest table to see if it has jug of water. Nothing was there.  So I turned towards my dad, opening my mouth to ask for water. Nothing was there too. No water, no dad. My mouth was still open but nothing came out. And just so I’m clear, in case you have any doubt, I turned and looked too quick for my dad to run and hide in his room. And my dad doesn’t have a super power of invisibility also, so that’s not an explanation either (hmmm).

            I didn’t know what to do. It was pointless to keep standing there. So I went and lied down on the very spot where I had just seen someone/something standing. I can make myself believe that the first incident was just a cat (a huge white clothed cat) but this I’m not sure to this day. But thank god it happened AFTER I went to the bathroom.

My Ghostly Affairs-1

“Things aren’t always what they seem”

Paranormal activities are actually pretty Normal these days. We hear of them everyday. Ghosts recorded on tape, pictures, recorded voices. Poor ghosts can’t turn a corner for privacy, without getting caught on a security camera. Poor souls, literally. They scream in fear when they see us, which in turn makes us scream in fear and the chain goes on.

“Have you seen a human? God, their scream takes the death out of me”-said one ghost to another

Nothing completes a night camp without some spooky stories. We even have a few experiences of our own. What we don’t understand, we call paranormal. Until science explains these manifestations, let’s have some fun and get scared witless.

I’m going to reminisce some of my paranormal encounters. They are long so I have to narrate them one by one. If you have some, please comment.

Incident one:

            I was in 8^th standard. My cousin and I were playing hide and seek with the girl downstairs. It was my turn to ‘seek’ so I started counting to 100 while they went and hid. My cousin had a poor choice of hiding spot, as obvious as finding Obama (where is he? In the freaking white house). So I found him pretty easily and we both started looking for the girl (who was like Osama in hiding). I know he shouldn’t help me but he had nothing else to do and was happy to help me “finish it of the game!”

            Our last point of search was her home. Her mom was walking outside so we figured she’ll be alone in her home. We looked inside through the window. It was late evening and there was no electricity (power cut was common in tamilnadu even at those times). In the darkness, we saw the girl crawling quickly left to right in the far end of the bedroom (small portion of the bedroom was visible from here). From the direction she went I could guess that she was hiding beneath the bed. We locked the house from the outside and giggled like girls. I thought we’ll give her a scare in the dark.

            As we were looking through the window, waiting for her to feel uncomfortable and come out only to find the door locked and freak out, someone tapped on my shoulder. It was her, standing behind me asking “Are you guys still playing that game? Mom asked me to go buy some stuffs so I went to the shop”. Now it was our turn to freak out. We looked at the lock on the door, then her, then the lock, then again her. But without any emotion on our face, like gentlemen we bid farewell and went upstairs to our home, looked at each other blankly and thought “what is this witchcraft?”

            Needless to say we had to wash our pants later.

IRCTC for Dummies

We have all used trains, at least once. I have travelled dozens of dozen time. It’s a magical experience, isn’t it?  You can experience the whole country through that window, the farms, the rivers, lakes, beautiful trees, and the occasional stone thrown by naughty kids and the dirty water from the window behind. It’s amazing.

It’s Diwali time and I know most of us don’t have the luxury to use airlines. Unless you fake a meeting and use company money for airline, you have to take a train and book ticket for yourself.

Being one of the largest railway networks in the world, it is very hard to maintain thousands of trains. So our railway government has instead invested millions on this beautiful creation, a tool, a portal, to make it all seem hilariously simple. Behold, the IRCTC!

Here’s what its Chief Architect has to say- “Our IRCTC is designed in such a way that after going through all the trouble to book the ticket, even the hellish of train journey will look pleasant.”

So I made this step-to-step instruction on how to book a ticket for those new to this enigma, and to make the journey ever easier.

Warning: Use this only if you don’t want to experience the portal in its fullest glory.

Dummies’ guide to book train ticket through IRCTC portal:

1. Wake up on time.

2. Login after three failed attempts because you forgot the password due to disuse. Then realize that it’s not due to wrong password but the screen is actually saying “Service currently not available”.

3. Throw up your hands in despair, and say “When was it ever available”. Login correctly.

4. Select the origin and destination. Click search.

5. Open your mouth wide when it shows that no seats are available. Then realize you forgot to change the date and it was showing today’s train. Change it!

6. Select your preferred train. If seats are available hit ‘Book’.

7. Connection error. Don’t get angry. Not yet. That’s how they’ve designed it. It’s all part of the grand design. Try again.

8. If you were born lucky and your stars are still shining, you’ll be redirected to a form. Fill out the form quickly before seats run out. This is a real test for your typing skills.

9. Then comes the “type from the image” part. This is tricky. It’s supposed to be a test that you are, in fact, a sentient being and not a dog trying to book a ticket. But there’s a trap. It takes longer to load the image than what your patience can allow. You will be tempted to reload the page. DON’T! Restrain yourself. Reloading will take you back to the login page and you’ll blow up. Like previously said, it’s a test. The portal is assessing your ability to keep your cool. Honestly, if you can’t control yourself now, how can you refrain from killing some irritating fool in the train? It’s a very trying and tiring journey.

10. When you’re done with this page hit ‘go’ in the bottom.

11. If everything goes well this will most likely take you to an error page.

12. Curse aloud. This will help you keep your composure.

13. Try filling the form again. Don’t worry, the second time always works.

14. Alright, that wasn’t totally true. Maybe the third time will work. Loop.

15. Got it right? Now the payment page will show up. Choose your mode of payment. I prefer card payment. Once I tried online banking but my password had expired. Thankfully it provided a link to change the password, but then it didn’t go back to the previous page. When I got back to IRCTC page my login had expired as well (totally worthwhile experience). So, stick to the cards. Enter your card number and the other numbers.  Make no mistakes here. Mistakes are the prerogative of IRCTC.

16. If you entered your figures right it’ll now go to the bank’s secure link to confirm your identity. Nothing can go wrong here, unless you entered your password wrong that is. Hit ‘Next’ with head held high and collar raised. You have done it!

17. Look at the running dots for a while. Your request is being processed. In any minute now you’ll get the tickets.

18. What? Error again? Let me guess, no ticket booked but your money was sucked into that black hole, right?

19. Curse even more. Summon all your energy to your palm, roll it into a fist and punch the monitor with all your might, but then realize that it’s a very costly PC and pull it back before the punch is delivered. Punch the wall nearby instead.

20. Apply bandage over the wound.

21. Claim a refund. Actually you don’t have to. The portal is very clever. It’ll transfer the amount to your account in a couple of days. It’s crafted to automatic perfection, you see. But in all this hassle, all the tickets would’ve already been booked.

22. Try next day. (This one is the most important step)

All the best. J

UPDATE: Now, theoretically, we can book flight tickets through IRCTC portal. I would like to have fries with THAT piece of cake.