Diaries Of A Ghost

I am a spirit, also known as a ghost. People usually conceive of me as a wandering spirit from a being no longer living, having survived the death of the body yet maintaining at least vestiges of mind and of consciousness. Well, this is what the popular encyclopedia Wikipedia says. It also defines a ghost as the soul or spirit of a deceased person or animal that can appear, in visible form or other manifestation, to the living. Wow! I mean, that is some definition. Impressive, isn’t it?

Well essentially I am a wandering ghost spirit. I like having the characteristics of both, although I can’t really differ substantially between the two. That, however, is another issue. Being tagged as a ‘ghost’ doesn’t necessarily mean I scare people. I’m usually a friendly person to talk to considering many people have tried talking to spirits and when I was the one they got a chance to talk to, I didn’t inflict any harm on them, none whatsoever. My dangerous counterparts, however, have always been the ones to have some fun. Flying objects, scaring them by telling things or rather ‘predicting’ things are some of the usual scare tactics employed by others of our kind.

On a more serious note, since time immemorial, humans have been fascinated by the supernatural. It is something which has allured them. And their attempts to communicate with us form an essential part of our ‘lives’ because that only makes us who we are. People have called out to us to ask questions about the future and seek answers for their past. Their voices have called out to us, time and again. Many of us try and help by reaching out o the voices of people who want to communicate with us. But the degree of help we can provide is only determined by their own state of mind and condition of the soul. After all, we were also humans at some point in time and there are thousands of people in the world who are alike. It’s just a matter of helping them hear their own voices so that they can help themselves.

Mankind has developed several tools to talk to us, to reach out to us and make their voices heard. The crystal balls are my personal favourite. However, in the recent times, they have developed a board to talk to us; something called an Ouija Board or a talking board. It is a flat board marked with the letters of the alphabet, the numbers 0-9, the words 'yes', 'no', 'hello' and 'goodbye', and other symbols and words are sometimes also added to help personalize the board. It uses a movable indicator to indicate our message by spelling it out on the board during a session. It was regarded harmless initially but afterwards humans’ fascination with it grew tremendously. This was one of the main factors for our newer clientele. Earlier, it was mostly adults, but due to this board, youngsters have also begun talking to us. Everybody thought it was a just a board game, even the parents of those children who played with it. The fascination of teenagers with this Ouija board climbed to such great heights that it almost became irritating for us as we were disturbed time and again. Adults are usually more cautious with this stuff. But when this was introduced to teenagers, all hell broke loose!

I am going to tell you about my first encounter with an Ouija. It is not scary, at all. So you need not sit at the edge of your seats with baited breaths. It’s kind of funny, actually. I could have banged my head on the wall if I had one, that is.  A few years ago, a bunch of kids had decided to have some ‘fun’ with the Ouija board. I was a young spirit then and I was eager to let out the secret of my death to the world as it had been hidden very cleverly by my killer. I wasn’t familiar with the board though. I was relieved initially to have found those kids using a board as a medium to communicate. But I was wrong, terribly wrong.

It started with the five girls giggling while taking out the board from the closet. Some of them were poking fun at a girl who didn’t want to join the session. She finally relented and they all sat down in a circle with the board in the middle. All the girls were in their early teens and were really excited. They had put off the lights and had lighted some candles to give it a spooky feel.

“Is there a spirit present?”

Yes! There was a brief round of giggling again.

Delighted to see five kids trying to communicate with me, I replied quickly. Now listen, girls. My name is Bhavesh Kumar. I was murdered by a woman called Jaishree... I started to communicate with them but was stopped midway.

“Will it rain tomorrow?”

What? How should I know? Jaishree poisoned me to death! There’s a video recording of the murder in a locked briefcase in her apartment. You need to break into her bedroom, unlock the briefcase and show the tape to the police!

Y...E...S! I made a random guess so that I could move on to the next question. But as soon as I answered, they started laughing again.

“Cool! Then we won’t have to go to school tomorrow!” The answer distracted them from the session and they had begun talking among themselves.

Okay…that’s…that’s fine. I’m glad we got that out of our system. But now it’s time to get serious. We might not have another chance to talk like this. I need you girls to go to Bhoot Bangla Cemetery and dig up my body. Do an autopsy. You’ll find—

“When will Rosesh stop reciting his poems?”

What? It’s like you are not even listening to me! Okay, I will try to use the stupid board.

J

A...

I...

“What? He’s spelling out jail! When he is in jail? Whoa! Rosesh is going to jail!”

No! That’s not what I was trying to say...

At that point I realised that it was no use trying to talk to them through the board. They kept asking me stupid questions but I stopped responding. The girls finally gave up on the board and ended up playing with Barbie instead. That is the day that I realised the fact that it was no use communicating with such young people. Their voices did not have purpose and just asked totally useless questions. I would have literally banged my head on the wall if it had continued any further. All that theory about human voices reaching out to us was formed after some mature communications with adults through some different media and not the Ouija board. To deter the people from using the board, we decided to scare them a bit so that only the serious ones would try and communicate with us and all the kids are kept at bay. So the next time you decide to play with ‘us’, keep in mind that we can scare you too.

Boo!