A ride with a ghost

 

Fiction

It was about midnight when I stopped my car near the roadside eatery known as thattukada in Kerala. I still had another 27 kilometres to go, according to Google map. Since I didn’t always trust Google map, I decided to ask one of the few men sipping red tea or black coffee along with some snack at the thattukada. “How far is Anakkad from here?”

Anakkad was my destination, where my friend Varghese lived. He had invited me to spend a day with him in his god-forsaken village on the edge of the Gavi Forest. I love forests. I also love night drives.

“You’ll get good roads until just a few kilometres from Anakkad,” Varghese said meaning that my night drive was no big deal. It was mostly state highway all along and I had nothing to fear.

“But I do want some fear,” I said intending to sound funny. “For example, what if I get a ghost asking for a hitchhike? That’d be good for the next blog post.”

“Make sure that it’s a male ghost,” Varghese laughed. “Female ghosts will add more judicial problems in case you run into trouble.”

Varghese was a hardcore rationalist. One of the reasons why he chose to live in a desolate place far from other human beings is that he detested people’s superstitions and “shameless lack of reason” (in his words).

One of the men who heard me inquire about the distance to Anakkad asked me whether he could get a ride in my car to his destination which was just a few kilometres on the way. I looked at him with some hesitation. I wanted a ghost for a hitchhike, not a disgusting human company. The other men in the thattukada were watching me. I didn’t want to appear inhuman before them, though they all looked rather indifferent about a beggarly man asking for a free lift. “Why not?” I said though the man’s appearance didn’t appeal to me at all. He looked shabby with his unclean dress – mundu and kurta. He had a rather long beard which looked dusty. His hair was a curly mess.

I paid for my cup of lemon tea and got into my car. The shaggy stranger sat in the front seat near me. A rotten stench suffused the car. Or was it just my feeling?

“Until a few years ago there used to be no light on this road,” he said. Did his voice sound tinny? I began to feel quite uncomfortable, if not eerie, with him by my side. “It used to be pitch dark with massive trees on both sides of the road. Only cats could see in such darkness. People hardly used the road at night in those days. Anyway who would go to the forest in the night except smugglers and outlaws?”

I didn’t say anything. I wanted to say something like: “Where are you going at this time of the night without a vehicle?”

He seemed to sense my doubt. “My house is nearby. I’m returning home.” The streetlights ended there, I happened to notice.

Another few minutes and a few kilometres ahead, he asked me to stop the car. “My house is just across the road. Thank you.”

He stood outside the car with the door open and asked me, “Do you believe in ghosts?”

“Eh?” I felt a terrible dread rise from the pit of my stomach.

“I don’t,” he said. And he vanished. Just like that. Without a trace. Leaving the car door open. And the engine of the car shut down. I turned the ignition key but the engine wouldn’t start. Switching off the headlight and turning the parking light on, I got out and looked around. There was a house across the road. There seemed to be a glimmer of light inside it. I walked towards it in spite of my terror. I needed help. Not help, really; I needed human company.

The glimmer of light seemed to dim in that house as I approached it. I stood in the front yard and called, “Anyone in there?” No answer. I repeated the question. Then a cat appeared at window that was open though I had not noticed it earlier. It shrieked an angry meow at me as if telling me to get lost. I ran back to my car.

The car started without any snag this time. My mobile phone showed 3.59 as I stopped the car in front of Varghese’s house beyond which lay a dark and forbidding forest.

Varghese told me to have a good sleep first. He insisted on it. “You need rest.”

I could hardly sleep. The shaggy man, his mention of cats, his question about ghosts and his instant disappearance… and the cat at the window. They wouldn’t let me sleep.

“There was a man living in that house many years ago,” Varghese said as we sat for breakfast later in the morning. “He was known as Poochakkaran, Catman, because of his love for cats. Of course, there were hardly a few people living hereabouts to call anyone by any name. But Poochakkaran could not escape anyone’s attention. With his long hair and beard and dirty clothes.”

“Are you sure he died many years ago?”

“Of course. He died in a vehicle accident. The vehicle belonged to some mafia that smuggled sandalwood from the forest here. One of his cats was also killed with him though no one knows how. Who cares about cats anyway?”

Varghese wouldn’t believe what I told him about my hitchhiker and the cat at the window. “That man’s house is a dilapidated mess today as you can see if you visit.” He insisted on our visiting it just then.

In a few minutes, we stood in front of that same house in whose front yard I had stood last night. The window that was open in the night remained shut now. Not just shut. It had never been opened for years. It was a heap of white ants’ nests.

Varghese continues to be a rationalist. I continue to be a sceptic.

“Your mind can create ghosts and gods and anything,” Varghese insists.

I recall the brown stretches of white ants’ nests and nod my head.