Phantom Smell?

Greetings from the sunny Island! Hope you all are being haunted only by friendly ghosts, not the really bad ones! ☺

Please bear with me on my English, it's not my first language. Hope I'm still be able to get my story across to you clearly.

Well... This story is not one of my personal experiences, at least part of it. And probably you might think it doesn't even qualify as being paranormal. But I thought of sharing it with you since it has refreshed my memory of some other unexplainable incidents that had happened throughout my life.

A couple of nights ago I met Ravi (not his real name) on my way home from town. He's one of the took took (a small taxi cab -looks like a hybrid of a motor bike and a tiny car with a leather top and bare sides;cheap rates) drivers I used to travel with and know for quite some time, who is stationed in the small town somewhat near where I live. It's called Pitakotte, you can hardly call it a town since it's just a few shops spread along the cross roads.

As we head towards my yard, after the small talk, he tells me something weird going on in their three wheel (took took) park; Literally it's just the side of the road not a taxi park. Which lies just outside one of the countries' political party head office. And he was waiting to tell me this thinking that I might have a say on this, since he knows that I was there and was involved in the horrible event that took place in the above mentioned spot few years back. (July 2010; had to do a research to find the exact date because I've forgotten the details of it. Purposely) He says from time to time the smell of barbecue wafts around the area when it's not windy. And I, knowing now where he's getting at, said c'mon it might indeed be coming from a barbecue in a nearby garden or a hotel. He says he wanted to think the same but the smell occurs in the oddest of times (even late at night and early mornings when it's still) And it's accompanied by the smell of burning clothes and sad, strange feeling. As morbid as this may sound, 7 odd years ago this was how it smelled when a man (we'll call him late Mr. K out of respect) set himself ablaze using petrol (gasoline) in the same spot. Burnt flesh and fabric. Ravi insists that the place is haunted by the phantom smell of this man. And he also had scanned the area to see anything out of the ordinary when the smell is there, but couldn't see anything. I'm sure he's not making this up. I think there's a possibility this type of thing could really happen. Based on some experiences I had when I stayed in places where they had a history of war, violence and tragedy. I believe that when someone sufferers a sudden or a violent death or both, their spirit tend to linger around the place they die or the places they love. Maybe be not knowing they really died because it was so sudden or not being able to make piece with the tragic death they faced. So I'm planing to go and spend some time up there, see if I can sense something when I have some time. May be help Mr. K out at least this time round. Which I don't have a clue of how to, for now. May be you guys can help me out on this please.

Here's how it came to pass: Back in 2010 it was a warm sunny afternoon. After gym (I go there during my very rare 'try to get healthy' bouts) I refilled my bottle of water from the water cooler. Stepped out, was walking towards this place to get a took took and I see a crowd, all looking at one direction with horror. They all are looking at, I thought at the time, was a pile of rubbish being burnt across the street in a lane right in front of this so called politician's office (yeah we burn stuff by the streets even in crowded areas) To my horror I see two shoes moving about in the fire. Finding it hard to believe my eyes for a second, I asked one of the guards at the gate whether there's really a person in that fire? Because I couldn't imagine suicide or not, this much of a crowd would just stand and watch a person being burned alive. Also later I've found out that these guards were ex-cops, who would have been able to react and help in a situation like this and they had known Mr. K personally since he was a hardcore (I would say quite disturbed) party supporter and frequented the place. He tells me "Oh, that man set himself on fire no" meaning that they were there long enough to have had stopped Mr. K from going through with it altogether. On my opinion, they should have slapped some good old sense into him as cops mostly do down here. Maybe they thought it was only a bluff and Maybe the man really was bluffing, hoping he'd be stopped. Maybe they were paralyzed from the shock of it.

Well... Lots of maybe's and if's here won't bring him back unfortunately, but it kind of helps to get it out my head. Please bear with me guys.

Anyways, can't blame them or anybody but this hell of a dude who decides to burn himself. Out of all the reasons to kill oneself, he picks the most bizarre one; He didn't like his party leader's cat fights and wanted to reunite the party. I don't know how he was going to achieve that by killing himself. He wasn't even on the inside of politics. Just a member of the public. So chances of him getting any benefits for his efforts, by dying or staying alive would be none. Sorry, can't help it, not a fan of politics.

So after the confirmation, I think I cursed and yelled water! And ran towards the man. Meantime a traffic cop who was directing the traffic at the nearby junction heard me and came up yelling even more, for help. (I saw this on my delay in crossing the road; traffic) Unfortunately by this time the fire had got into his body fat after going through his clothes. He was on his back and flapping his arms, legs like a upturned bug (no offence to late Mr. K). First I emptied the bottle of cold water I had onto his reproductives as it was not enough to do anything more and because somehow Mr. K had been able to put out the fire on his face using his hands. Then we ran for water, came back with buckets and a wet sackcloth and was able to put it out completely. Amazingly afterwards Mr. K was able to talk calmly, asked me (as I was talking to him to keep him from passing out;was asking him something along the lines of why he did it) to remove his shoes, they were hard leather and still smoking! I was deeply saddened while doing it because some of his flesh from his heel almost came off with the shoe. So I ripped the other one before taking it off. Finally when he was lifted to put in a took took (we didn't have ambulances; only this year it is said they started to dispatch ambulances for emergencies) He calmly answered my question (see above) and said thank you 'malli' (little brother). Which managed to bring a tear to my eye. He had ended his fight at the hospital few hours later. I was heartbroken for this man. Not just for the accident, about his whole life as man. He was sane man, had a family too.

It was amazing how quickly the crowd snapped out of their shock, stepped into action. Almost all who were there helped except one a$$#@"* who was busy taping it on his mobile; Made a healthy choice of not being there at the end. Because there were some really pi$$d off people around.

I really felt bad for days. Tried hard in order to forget thinking, as if in a loop I should have been there few minutes early/ had I been there soon enough...

He suffered a horrible enough death, to think maybe his suffering is still not over even on the other side? If that the case, is there anything I could do to help?

RIP Mr. K