The Restless Spirit

Here I am going to narrate a story which is based on my mother's experience. She had a power of sensing dead persons. My mother has two brothers and three sisters. My mother is the younger one amongst them. My mama (maternal uncle) named Gopla who was also the youngest amongst his brothers and sisters, was pretty close to my mother.

Gopla was a good swimmer and he used to swim across the Ganga river which was almost two km in width every morning. My mother who is too a good swimmer and they used to compete with each other at every morning at Ganga River.

Coming back to the story, one early morning, Gopla awaken a little bit earlier than usual but my mother was still in sleep. Since he and my mother used go together for swim every day, he tried to awake her. But my mother said that she had no interest in going for a swim that day. Hearing all this, he (Gopla) went for a swim alone. After an hour or so, when my mother woke up she noticed that Gopla is not present at home. So, she immediately headed towards the ghat where they used to go for a swim. On reaching their, she didn't found her. She asked every single known person who daily makes a visit on that particular ghat, but she didn't get any satisfactory answer.

After searching for two hours, she rushed to home and told the entire incident to my nana ji (maternal grandfather). He then immediately contacted the nearing police and registered a FIR. Police then reaches to the ghat with some scuba-divers and started a rescue/search operation. The search perimeter was about 4 km in radius; but they found nothing. Then they extended their search radius from 4 to 10 kms and they also brought a motor-boat for fast searching.

Unfortunately, they found Gopla's dead body 8 km away, near to a pillar of a bridge. Actually, his body was stuck in fishing net. My nana ji almost lost his consciousness. Our whole family was in shock. My mother lost her consciousness on seeing her youngest brother's dead body.

Time has the power of healing, every one slowly but simultaneously recovered from that heart breaking incident. Three years later, my mother got married. When my mother settled in her in-law's home, she started filling Gopla's presence. One day, when she was cooking, she saw Gopla entered from kitchen's door, passed her and existed from the open window. At that time maid was too present in the kitchen. She ran away shouting and my mother fainted. My grandfather along with my father and grandmother organized a blessing and cleansing worship.

One afternoon, my grandmother was drying some papads (it is a thin, crisp disc-shaped Indian food typically based on seasoned dough made from black gram) in the terrace. As soon as she turns back, she saw a teenager boy sitting on the shade hanging both of his legs down, staring and smiling at her. My grandmother started cantering name of goddess. Few seconds later he vanishes. Again the same blessing and cleansing worship repeated.

After that he didn't appear for several years. But in the past week, my mother again seen him when she was preparing food for me as I have a cardiac arrest and I was hospitalize for a week.

I don't know why after several years, he didn't get salvation from his ghost stage and why he is showing himself up? Had he harmed anyone yet? I would say no. But every time he appears, the whole surrounding fills with a strong smell of tuberose.