A ghost is a visual stimulant caused due to either the over working of the brain or the under-nutrition of the brain. This would lead to the brain making unexplainable events while the person is going through in that moment. That would be the cause of strain on the brain and the main cause to freak out.
Today I have created a different perception to this view that I had thought.
I was heading home after a long time to meet my mother who was living alone after father died due to cancer, I don’t know what type till now as mother was afraid the disease would happen to us. I never took that excuse. The bus stop looked deserted when the bus reached there, as I got down all the people on the bus was staring at me as the bus went. I looked down as if to see if I was looking shabby. Negative.
The tea shop still has those customers as its all year trend, no one more, no one less. The seller was a new fellow, I had ordered for tea and some biscuits. While drinking, the stall man asked, “Who are you going to see?” “My mother of course. I hope my brothers have dropped by to see her sometime this year.” “Where does your mother live?” “She’s living alone, down through that field towards its end. The town has not grown. Where is the new stall that I heard of?” “That provision store? It’s a little further down the road. So you’re the son of Marabhai?”“Yes.” “Your brothers did come, few months ago. But now there’s nothing to go for you. The house is barren. So why are you here exactly?”
“To see her. It’s been a long time since I had seen her. And bought some presents for mother from the city.”The stall keeper just looked at me as if I was mad. But definitely I was a stranger to him as it has been a really long time. “Where is Mukkaka? The original keeper of the stall?”“His time had come, and so he retired and now I had taken over this stall.”paid the price and started walking to my mother’s home. A friendly face popped out of the field and greeted me. “Raju!! My my you look so different!” “Hai bhagavan! Moorthy! You’ve not changed yourself! Still at your uncles’ place?”“Yes, doing his fields now.”We filled in the lost details of the years while we walked all the way to the house. The house of my mother was truly looking barren. It was fully cobwebbed and sad looking. My mother was not a callus person, she was a more spick and span person, and hated to see her belongings in a disarray. “There are no servants for my mother?”“Well, there would not be any one for miles, and people were not wanting to come here.”“That’s helpful of them.”
I said sarcastically.“While you fill in with your mother, I shall tend to the fields.”I looked around, the fields were not looking as healthy as it used to be. Has the climate changed here also? “The field is not looking as healthy as it was last time I was here? What happened?”“That gas line of some private pipeline had broken and it covered the whole area here. That is the main reason that the fields don’t grow as better as it was before.”
I had read about a pipeline leak, but I never suspected it would be here. I pushed my way through the front gate which creaked with years of rust. A call from inside the house, I cried out mother its me. The door didn’t open, I waited for some time. Well I knew mother would not be as healthy, so I opened the front door and saw the house, it was as it was years ago. “Who is it?” I heard my mother asked.
“Ma, it Is me! Your Raju.” I walked into her room, there she lie, deteriorating in health. This could be because of the loneliness, I had thought. The next few days I had filled in with my life in the city, and she filled in with what goes on in town and outside. Mother’s food was delicious which I had not eaten for so long, reminded me of those days which were great times. The city was a fast life, the town a slow life. The differences were stark ones.The differences were stark ones. It shivers me to even compare them. She mentioned about finding a suitable girl for me, but is not able to do so. “Why ma?”“Well, for a start, I am very weak. Then the problem of traveling is going to worsen my health, now you don’t want that to happen, do you?”
The realization was dawning, she is growing old. And I don’t want her to rot here. I had suggested her to come along with me to the city, she declined the proposal. “Life in city is fast and an old me would not fit in that fast lifestyle.”
The words were true, she was an old village girl, who would find it difficult to adjust to the fast life. The day to leave was a sad occasion, saw the tears in her eyes and her faint good bye sway of her hand. It was a sad departs. Moorthy was there, waiting to chat me back to the bus stand. The whole feeling was great, the whole stay was a happy occasion to take with me back to my home. The bus came and I boarded it, and waved to Moorthy. “Was it long?” the conductor asked me.“Yes, it was a long time I had been back here.”“Sir, was it long that you waited for another bus?”“Well, no, I can say it was about 2 hours till you came along.”The conductor kept quiet. I reached office and reported for duty, my manager asked me how was my trip. I said it was rejuvenating. And I mentioned of my home and the people not changed at all, the same old home. “Rajesh, have you any idea of that place? That the place is now become a ghost town?”
My emotions stirred, “What? How do you mean?”“I have trouble saying this, you did read about a farm land that had been attacked because of a gas leak?”“Yes, I did. Infact it had been affected in two places.”“That’s the problem, it had effected only one place, killed the whole population over night, and that was your town, if I’m correct.”I starred at him looking for a logical reason. “But the town had people. I even met my old friend, Moorthy! Of course he told me of a gas leak that effected the growth of the field.”“I don’t know of it. But that town which was affected due to leak, no one was left alive.”“When was this?”
“Three months ago.”I was blank, I took up the phone and called my brother’s residence. It was his wife who attended. I had asked of how she is and she replied coping up. I didn’t know why she meant to say that. I had asked for my brother, she said he never returned after he left for mother’s place.
That moment, I realized, the whole thing was true. Gas line had broken and not only affected the fields, but also killed the entire area. I remembered what Moorthy had said of the fields, what my mother said of her not coming to the city, of the bus conductor asking of how long I waited for the bus. Remembering all this, I sat down and laughed and cried at the same time.
Ghosts don’t have evil intentions always, they also want to give good feelings to people who come in contact to them. But as to what affects the brain to give the ghost feeling. I had no proper explanation.