PAVANPUR AND GHOST - Vaman Acharya (if you give a mouse a cookie read aloud TXT) 📗

a sudden Narendra’s ferocious dog died. He felt sad at the sudden and untimely death of his beloved dog. People were under the impression that the dog died due to the attack of the ghost. Narendra took the dead body of the dog to the veterinary hospital for post mortem. It was revealed from the doctor that the death was natural and not by any external action.
Narendra had selected the building with great care and keeping in view of his ambition to complete the research paper on the existence of ghost with the sole intention of obtaining doctorate in the subject. He had to undergo lot of trouble to search the house with the presence of a ghost. He gave an attractive advertisement in the local news paper furnishing all the requirements. The ad was as follows.
Is ghost residing in your house? If the answer is yes, need not worry! Here is a man who desires to purchase the house with the presence of the ghost. The ghost will be staying with me as one of the family members. Do not get yourself scared as I am a normal human being like you. Contact immediately on the telephone no.556328 furnishing the details such as description of the house and the price expected. The owner of the terror building was waiting the opportunity to find a customer. On seeing the ad in the paper, approached the prospective purchaser and finalized the deal. One evening, Narendra was going through the notes prepared by him for the research work. He was recollecting the story told to him by the owner at the time of purchase of terror building.
The building was about 10 years old. Ram Kumar a reputed business man in the town had constructed the house. His only ambition was to construct a beautiful house having all the modern amenities. Kumar wanted to stay in the house along with his family members. For this purpose, he engaged a famous architect and asked him to prepare a unique plan to fulfill all his desires. He never bothered about the budget. His sole intention was to convert his dream into reality. But while making arrangement of finance, he had to undergo innumerable problems. The source of providing finance for the building was his savings made out of the profit earned from the business and remaining funds by obtaining loan from the bank. His savings were marginal and inadequate. When the construction was in full swing, the bank expressed its inability to finance further due to some problems relating to security and procedural matters. The situation became delicate and it was not possible to stop the construction at that stage. Kumar’s position became very critical. No other banks were ready to finance to complete the remaining work. Due to this unexpected development, he started thinking alternative means. Accordingly, he arranged required funds by duping his sleeping partner Rajendra. He managed to complete the house keeping his partner in dark. How long Kumar can keep this matter secret? When the matter was disclosed to the partner he requested him to bear for some time. But Rajendra refused and threatened to sue him in the court of law. Rajendra engaged a lawyer and filed a suit against him. After one year, judgment came in favor of Rajendra. Accordingly, the ownership of the building transferred to Rajendra by the honorable court. This adversely affected Ram Kumar, who constructed the house by illegal means. He was upset and committed suicide. It was presumed that Ram Kumar, who committed suicide, had become ghost and wandering in the building giving trouble to the occupants. According to the opinion given by some scholars that any one who commit suicide without fulfilling his last wish would become ghost.
Narendra after reading the above line got up and dancing in the hall with great relief that he found a useful point to proceed further on the research project. Ghost according to tradition, is a spirit of a dead person that visits the living. Most people do not believe in ghosts, but some do. Seeing or hearing the ghosts have been common. Good number of people enjoys ghost stories through books, movies and plays. Even in ghosts there are friends and foes. If a person was murdered or committed suicide become ghost only to take revenge. A ghost that haunts a place often makes strange noises and causes doors and furniture, and other objects to move themselves. Friendly ghosts never indulge in harmful activity.
In the present case Narendra was of the firm opinion that Ram Kumar who died without achieving his object became a ghost and acting in a terror only to take revenge. But he was also thinking otherwise. Ghost never exists in the building and one unknown and the person related to the episode must have been playing tricks in an intelligent manner. Narendra was in a dilemma as to which point he had to stick up. He took a bold step to find out which thinking was true. His friend also assured him to help by all possible ways. Both of them spent whole day to chalk out a plan in search of truth.
After a hectic attempt continuously for a week the young man Narendra succeeded in his difficult venture. When he came out with a true picture, most of the residents of Pavanpur became dumb and were unable to express their views. But everybody appreciated him for the achievement of success in the adventurous task.
What was the truth brought out by a young man?
During their hectic efforts to nab the ghost or otherwise, found that the images and voices came on the dark night was nothing but artificial created with the help of some advanced electronic instrument recorded with the terrible voice of the ghost. After the careful observation, Narendra and his friend tried to find from where this image and voice was emanating. It was the mastermind of Raghu, who was a son of the deceased business man Ram Kumar. Raghu watched number of horror movies before jumping in to such dangerous venture. Narendra lodged a complaint against Raghu with the local police. In the first information report, he gave detailed account in a chronological order and the modus operandi adopted by the culprit. In the police enquiry, Raghu has accepted the charges leveled against him. His nature of offence was murdering number of innocent people by his cruel act. Police took him in custody and preceded the case as per law. The culprit was awarded capital punishment by the judge.
Narendra submitted his thesis and titled it as ‘People’s Faith in the Existence of Ghost’. He was awarded the doctorate degree from the University. Narendra was honored by the Pavanpur public for the outstanding work. The intellectuals of the town praised Narendra for his bravery in dealing with a non-existent ghost. The function was arranged in the auditorium of the town municipal office. Narendra, who was till recently leading a lonely life, became easily accessible to everybody. He was moving with the people freely and educating them to give up the false impression of existence of ghost.


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Publication Date: 09-20-2012

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