Spooky Tales.

Ghosts. Heard of them ? Seen them ever? I haven't, have you? Though I would love to. Every one claims there's no such thing as ghosts. It's just an imaginary and made up hallucination of the mind. Well, Is it that way? I have no clue .

This post is a little longer as it involves some story telling incidents. So, please bear with me and it isn't for the weak-hearted.

I would like to narrate an incident that was told to me by my father some years back , though I never believed it. Unless and until one experiences it themselves one can never go around believing such fictitious things.

The first incident involves a property where in an uninhabited building stands. This incident was when my father had gone to Mumbai to get his flat painted and he was in the look out for some painters who would do the job as soon as possible . Through an old acquaintance and some friendly contacts my father could manage to get hold of two of them and they agreed on the job to be done. Now, these two people are the main characters of this story and this incident happened with them ( that's what they claim). Believe at your own risk.

So the story goes like this. The two people( painters) used to stay at this vacant building which was under some dispute for a long time and during that period many people who used to stay at this premise left their flats and went elsewhere. Since then the building stands deserted and till today continues to do so. Now , these guys started staying there as it was an empty building , no inhabitants and they didn't have to pay any rent which was a big blessing for them. During the day time they would go off to work and it was only in the evening that they would return , totally tired after their laborious work and just drop dead to sleep. Before moving in there , a friend of theirs who had worked around that vicinity told them about a boy and girl who used to stay in that building and were in love though their parents did not accept their match and was dead against this alliance. But they were determined and decided to stay together , come what may. Then heard one day they committed suicide and the friend claimed that the girl is still believed to be loitering around that premise as a lost and unhappy soul. But this incident was something that had happened a very long time back. And no one knows if it stands true or just a rumor. These two on hearing it brushed it off saying its all silly and they do not believe in such concocted stories and it was just forgotten by them.

One evening after returning from work , they decided to have dinner early and go off to sleep as they were too tired than normal. So, everything goes according to their plan and off they go to sleep. In the middle of the night one of them wakes up to drink water as he was thirsty while the other was still fast asleep. Just then, he claims he heard someone's footsteps as though a person was climbing the staircase. He didn't bother at first but then the sound became more clearer and as it was midnight everything was motionless and noises become more clearer and sharp to the human ear and it was coming from towards the corridor . He claimed that he didn't hear this being half asleep nor make up these stories of the noise. At this point , he woke up the other guy and whispered about this weird noise to him. They just sat there and didn't rise up from their places nor do anything to find out its sources and just then the noises declined and gradually disappeared . They said for some more time they sat thinking what exactly was that and then slowly " tried" to go back to sleep, which was not an easy thing to do!

The same incident happened the next night and this time they decided to find out what exactly was this noise and from where it was originating as not a single other soul occupied that building other than them so there was no chance of anyone else coming to that place cos if it was so they would know .They both walk towards the end of the corridor and as they reach the steps they see a dark shadow which then suddenly disappeared without a trace! Now this was not witnessed by only one of them but both claim to have seen it. They got a shock of their life and just ran out of the building and didn't return back that night . They say they stayed at some friends place as they didn't have the nerves to go back there . Next day , during the morning hours they came back to their place of stay and just packed off their belongings never to come back again. That's when they believed the story of the love-lost soul being true!

So, this is their version of the story that they had told my father about their stay in that dilapidated and uninhabited building. My father told them that they must have mistakenly visualized all this out of fear at that spur of the moment. But they strongly disagreed as both of them were together at that point of time and said what would they get out of all this even if they did make it up. If thought about it what they said did make sense.

They are two laborers , working for their daily wages , trying to make their ends meet , saving on the rent by staying in an old, no maintenance , ugly, uninhabited structure. What are they to gain by making up all these stories? Nothing.

My father also just shrugged it off as a silly tale of two workers who , by virtue were painters , struggling for their daily bread so they imagined a figure in their minds and painted it black! That's it. The story ends there.

Though we family members never believed it when our father told us I felt somewhere by the look on his face that he did believe . And as far as I was concerned, I felt it was more of a curiosity , a mystery which would never get solved and whether I believed their version of the story is something I can never say 'yes' to neither can I say a 'no' .

Even now ,when visiting Mumbai and I happen to pass by that building as it's just some 10-15 minutes away from where my parent's flat is located , I get an eerie feeling when I look at that structure. This story comes running to my mind and I think to myself what if, maybe, who knows , and many such thoughts flood my head but naah , I'm not believing such things cos haven't experienced anything of that sort yet . When I would experience , though no hope of it happening ever then it would be a different story altogether!!