The Ghost

Yes, he exists, my kitchen ghost. He lives up in the chimney of my modular kitchen. I have felt his presence for long now, almost 4 years. I am quite sure it’s him and not her. The reason why I am so sure about this, is well, something too censored to be mentioned here.

Initially I used to think that my ears were ringing when I heard the clang clang of the utensils in the middle of the night. I would often wake up to go check the kitchen and find nothing. I was also forced to believe that it was a problem with my hearing since my husband never ever heard them. But since it happened almost every night, I had no reason to deny that there was a ghost in the kitchen.

There were days when I would hear a huge ruckus up in the chimney. While my cook blamed it on the pigeons who had apparently managed to enter the chimney through the exhaust end, I knew it is him. Surprisingly neither SSM nor the cook ever felt his presence. Or maybe they did but they blame it on all kinds of stupid external factors. They thought I was quite out of my mind when I tried mentioning about him. But somewhere I kept getting this feeling that my one and half year son, Ri could sense him.

 Well although I had never seen our ghost I knew that he had certain characteristics. His love for chocolates. I realized that when I noticed that chocolates would suddenly disappear from the refrigerator overnight when i was sure no one else had eaten them. He loved mess. So no matter how much I tidy up my kitchen, I would always find it in a mess the next morning. The utensils would be out of place. Kitchen roll shredded and lying around the kitchen.  Grease that had been cleaned would appear again out of nowhere. And of course chocolate wrappers scattered around. I would always get blamed for being the messy, untidy woman. He basically loved the kitchen. It was his home. He never once tried to move to any other room.

But the real fun began when SSM was deployed out of the city for four months, our ghost decided to be exceptionally bold. So one particular day when I was awake late at night watching a movie in the living room while Ri slept off, the ghost kept opening the kitchen door. (I don’t normally shut the kitchen door while watching television unless I have the air conditioner on, or, well, if I am watching a movie that I don’t want anyone prying with binoculars from the neighboring apartment to know about.) So the door was shut, ummm, for one of the above reasons, and he kept opening it. Every time I would go and shut it tight, he would click open it again. This happened around seven times till I went and finally told him, “listen, I will sleep. But just please let me finish the movie. Be good. I will get you some more chocolates tomorrow.” And he listened to me. He didn’t trouble me anymore.  And I kept my promise and got some chocolates for him. So we kind of became friends.  And such night rendezvous became quite common.

But what was interesting was the way he befriended Ri. Ri suddenly seemed really interested in the kitchen. It kind of lured him to enter.  I was sure it was the ghost. And then Ri started saying these weird set of words. They sounded like this “buck-a-baai… buck-a-bub-bai” I just knew these were words taught to him by the ghost. I was just not sure what they really meant. Was he being nice to Ri and singing ‘Rock a bye baby’ or was he telling him about Hagrids favourite hippogriff (that’s a huge possibility, we all being Harry Potter fans) or was he using the abusive "F" word and my son picked it up from him. While I was sure it wouldn’t be the last reason, I still made a mental note to give a dressing down to the ghost that night. We do not use abusive language in front of Ri. Not when I try really hard not to use swear words in front of him, I don’t want to be the one blamed if Ri starts using offensive language.

Ri also started doing this funny dance where he would close his eyes and go round and round with a saintly smile on his lips. I was sure it was the ghost teaching him this. What with staying for so long in a cylindrical tube and years of going round and round in it, it had to be him. Ri learnt to eat chocolates as well. Oh no! we did not introduce them to him. He just knew a chocolate when he saw one. And, I knew the culprit.

So for these four months when SSM was away we, the ghost, Ri and I had a good time. He was a great company for both of us. While conversations with me were monologues, there seemed to be two way conversations between him and Rihu.

But the ghost went back to his old self when SSM came back. There were just occasional sounds at night, messy kitchen, and noises in the chimney. And then, after numerous complaints from the cook, about the chimney does not functioning right because of the pigeons and that leads to loads of greasy mess in the kitchen, my husband got home a new chimney. I was worried for the ghost; I guessed Ri was worried too. He seemed disturbed. So I had another private meeting with the ghost that night when everyone was asleep. I told him that even if there is a new chimney, he can make himself comfortable in it. He really need not worry and we really love him. We don't intend on taking him away from his home. Hoping that he believed me and would continue to stay on, I went off to sleep.

The next day the new chimney was installed. And it’s been a week since then but I haven’t heard him once. The chocolates stay put in the refrigerator. The kitchen seems clean as well. And the cook and SSM both believe that it’s because of the new chimney. I have been feeling sad. I really wanted our ghost to stay on. He was nice. He was fun. He was good company. Ri seems sad too. Keeps going to the kitchen and says “buck-a-baai”.

But tonight after Ri went off to sleep, SSM and I were in the living room watching a movie. The kitchen door was shut, (It was because of the air conditioning) and suddenly click the door opened. My heart skipped a beat. SSM got up to shut it blaming it on the wind. Five minutes later… click it opened again. He again got up and shut it tight with a frown. And then it happened again.

SSM looked at me with his eyes wide open while I stared back at him with a wide gleeful grin.