The Kingdom Of Ghosts

Once upon a time, there was a king named Shakti Singh. He was the king of a kingdom named Shakti Nagar. He was an able king but he had a bad habit. He disliked hermits and rishis and insulted them whenever and wherever he met them. Once he abused a Rishi, who got very angry with him and cursed him to become a ghost and leave the state. He became a ghost and left his kingdom. After becoming a ghost he gathered 'all' the ghosts of his erstwhile kingdom and established a separate kingdom of ghosts. He had a new name Bhootraja.

Although the ghosts did not require the same living conditions and facilities as humans yet the ghost king developed the kingdom like humans' kingdom. Nice roads, palaces, mansions, and gardens. Every house has a banyan, neem or pipal tree. All the ghosts were welcome there. The cause behind this type of development was that Bhoot Raja thought by chance his human friends or some children visited his state they ought not to face any inconvenience.

Many ghost families had migrated from other places and settled there.

This kingdom was situated in the middle of seven hills and surrounded by forest.

Nobody knew that place.

Once a King of a nearby state Rajendra happened to reach that kingdom along with his prime minister and a dozen soldiers while chasing a game.

They were surprised to see this beautiful state and more surprised to find it deserted.

It was not deserted. There were more ghosts on the roads as they were celebrating the birthday of the king. All ghosts were heading towards the king's palace to wish him a happy birthday. It looked deserted to them as they could not see the ghosts moving on the roads. The ghosts were not visible.

King Rajendra liked the place very much and immediately decided to make that place his Capital. They did not know the name of the place so they called it the strange land.

They were also not aware that since they had entered the strange land, two ghost spies had been following them.

King Rajendra said to his prime minister, "This is a strange but beautiful place. It looks as if some unknown and sudden calamity has forced its occupants to abandon this place and flee. Before any other king notices it, we should annex it to our kingdom."

The prime minister replied, "We will follow your orders, Maharaj"

According to the king's order, they left the soldiers there to guard the place and returned to their home state.

The two spies reported the matter to king Bhoot Raja.

Bhoot Raja said, "Friends are welcome to my heart. The enemies will be kept outside the kingdom."

He called his army chief and told him about the intentions of king Rajendra.

The army chief assured the ghost king of the security of the borders.

He deployed his army at the border.

The ghosts used their primary weapon of frightening the soldiers, who were left there by King Rajendra.

It was a moonless night. The soldiers were standing and talking at the gateway of the strange land. All of a sudden it rained fireballs on them and when they ran to save themselves those fireballs chased them.

After a while, the rain of fireballs stopped. Then the soldiers lit a bonfire and sat around it. Now suddenly it started raining iceballs. Then strange, frightening voices started coming from the strange land. Now the soldiers got terrified and fled.

Those soldiers fled that place and came to Rajendra Nagar. They narrated the incident in detail in the Darbar. All were surprised. King ordered the army to occupy the strange land and install his state flag on the top of the royal palace.

The army marched to the strange land and laid a seize around that place. The chief of the army wanted to finish the enemy besides occupying the state. He decided to wait until night when possibly the enemy would take some action as done previously.

He had asked the soldiers to carry lamps and matchboxes also. Thus, they were equipped to fight in the night.

When it became dark, the ghosts applied the same trick. They showered the army with fireballs. The army soldiers were wearing helmets so they were saved. They immediately lighted the lamps and looked around. They did not see anybody. Now

ghosts remaining invisible showered the soldiers with iceballs.

The army chief of king Rajendra ordered to barge into the strange land. The soldiers tried to enter the place, but they collided with an invisible wall and could not cross it. They were puzzled and wondered whether the enemy was a magician.

The army chief reported the incident to the King. He also conveyed the doubt of the soldiers that the enemy could be a magician. On hearing this King called for the top magician of his kingdom Jadunath and told him about the incidents taking place in the strange land. He ordered him to go to the strange land and help the army in capturing the enemy and occupy the strange land.

Jadunath the magician was given a faster-running horse so he reached the strange land in a short time. It was evening when he reached there. He met Chandsingh the army chief and told him the purpose of his coming there. The army chief described the incidents of the previous nights. By the description, Jadunath inferred that there must be dozens of magicians on the

enemy's side. It could not be the handiwork of one or two fellows.

He sent a message to the king to send a few more magicians immediately. He also suggested the names of the magicians. Before midnight seven more magicians arrived there. There was no action from either side until then.

Jadunath said to the army chief, "Sir, if you permit us we can launch an attack similar to the attack, our soldiers faced the previous nights.

The army chief asked, "Who will be our target, no enemy is visible."

Jadunath said, "They must be hiding. We will launch a blind attack over the strange land and force them to come out of their hideouts. When they are exposed we can target them."

The army chief alerted the soldiers and permitted Jadunath to launch a magical attack over the strange land.

The magicians' team caused a rain of fireballs over the strange land. In return, a heavy shower of fireballs fell on the Jadunath and other magicians.

Jadunath told the soldiers to shoot the arrows towards the strange land when they would send the fireballs. Now the magicians sent a volley of fireballs towards the strange land immediately followed by the clusters of arrows. However, they did not notice any kind of movement in or around the strange land.

Jadunath said, " People may not believe this but I strongly doubt that the enemy is using ghosts to fight us."

The army chief asked, "What do you suggest?"

Jadunath said, "First we have to free this place from the ghosts with the help of some exorcists."

The next morning they went to the royal Darbar and discussed the matter with King Rajendra.

In the strange land, Bhootraja was sure the enemy army would not be able to win the battle. But he did not like the battle.

He called an urgent meeting of the ministers and other learned ghosts of the strange land.

He addressed the gathering, "You must know that for the last few days, we have been fighting a battle with the humans.

Seeing the beauty and development of our place neighborly king Rajendra wants to occupy it. I am sure we will beat them but in the future also we can expect such types of attacks by humans and the disruption of our peace. I want you to suggest ways to avoid such a situation and live a peaceful life without any disturbance."

One young ghost stood up and said, "We are living in a world full of strife. Because of greed and mutual intolerance, People are fighting in different parts of the world. We cannot avoid it so according to me we should strengthen our army and be prepared to fight to defend our land."

One old ghost stood up and spoke, "We should deploy some ghosts on the roads leading to our kingdom and passing by who should wear ugly and fearsome looks and scare the people to discourage them from traveling by these roads. By this method, we can make this place notorious as a haunted place. Then people will be afraid to come to this site. Less human visitors more comfort for us."

Many ghosts agreed with the old ghost, most of them had enjoyed the comfort of a place made notorious as a haunted place until some daredevil occupied the place and chased them away. People feared the word haunted more than they feared the real ghosts. They avoided going near a haunted house. of them demonstrated how ugly and fearful they could become. Some younger ghosts and female ghosts shrieked on seeing their fearsome looks.

One old female ghost laughed at this act. She said with pride, "I was the most feared ghost of my earlier residential township. When I appeared before humans, many of them used to faint out of fear. I had a group of ghosts. if anywhere we found an unoccupied house and we liked it we used to scare the people around for a few days and soon the people would avoid coming to that house. They would call the house a haunted house. Humans feared word haunted more than they might fear us. We used to live in that house as long as we wanted.

Finally, King spoke, "I have seen most of the ghosts remain on the trees standing in front of their houses. We don't need any conveyance for our movements. We created all these facilities for humans only if they become our friends and like to visit us they should not face any inconvenience.

However, I feel people are turning greedy and having the idea of chasing us out and occupying this place.

So my idea is to remove all the buildings, roads, and other facilities, and create a forest here. that will provide us peaceful habitat and help humans also by reducing pollution

Ghosts cast a spell on King Rajendra's army and made them sleep. When they woke up in the morning they did not find the strange land. In its place, there was a thick forest. On hearing about this miraculous occurrence King Rajendra came there along with the army chief. There was no trace of the kingdom.

He exclaimed, "Probably we had mass hallucination. There was a forest only here.

He ordered his army to return."