What is the most ghostly experience you ever had?

One summer we stayed in my boyfriend's aunt's mansion in Stockholm. It was scary, and there were random giant mirrors in hallways, and sides of balconies to give it a grand perception.

One night, at about 2 AM, I decided to bring some cherries from cherry basket in the central hall. (Do not ask why.) It involves going from bedroom to one floor down via a dimly lit corridor, then terrace followed by spiral red carpet staircase. My heart was pounding even before I started to make my move. I decided not to look into the mirrors or the paintings, and the plan was just to keep my focus on my feet as I go down and bring the stuffs back. I asked my boyfriend to keep talking to me while I go and come back. Sound like a good plan?

When I started, he started to tell me the Red Riding Hood story. Bad choice. I was laughing when I left the bedroom. I realized the lights were bright enough to see everything as clearly as day. The creepy thing was it was too damn silent and cold. And, the plan was flawed. As I was walking through the corridor, I realized the destination is far enough that his voice would eventually fade away. The second problem was, I could still see the mirror from corner of my eyes. So, I was looking at my feet and I could see them in the mirrors, though I wanted to avoid them.

As I was moving forward, the story voice was fading away, and noise from my footstep was becoming more intense. My heart started racing. I lost my friends voice when the wolf attacks the girl in the story or may be I panicked and stopped hearing his words, and instead my ears became super sensitive for whispering and hushy sounds made by my clothes, slipper, and creaks of the wooden floor. Just before I reached to the open area on terrace which was not scary, I do not know what hit me, I decided to see my face in the mirror. Oh, it was not so scary, I thought. Until I notices the parallel mirrors were creating infinite reflection of mine and I could see my face was distorted more in every subsequent one or so I felt. I ran about 10 feet, to turn to left to the balcony, I thought heard someone whispered, "Sherry...". I screamed. I ran to a corner and sat down with my back tightly touching the walls because I am always scared of something coming from behind.

I rested a good three to five seconds to realize that I was just being stupid. I rationalized the situation. I could hear aunt Becky's daughter talking over the phone. I also realized that the place was modern and very well lit. I thought I was too scared that viewed the mirror for too short time to come to any conclusion about distortion. I also decided to not have parallel mirrors in my house if I own one. Stood up. Tighten my clothes for minimum obstruction. Took my slippers in my hand. Slowly, I reached to the mouth of the corridor. Gulped my saliva. I did say something which was like a prayer for my life. And I broke into a sprint till I hit the room door flung open to find out that my boyfriend was was about to finish "The Miller, his son and their donkey" story.

I was surprised that I took so long that he finished two stories. He said that he realized that the Red Riding Hood was a bit grim story, so he changed it as soon as I left the room. It surprised me because I was hearing him tell the Red Riding Hood tale till the fox attacked. When I told me what happened to me, he took me through the corridor to show me that the mirrors were just one side of the wall, denying any possibility of seeing infinite reflection.

PS: I originally told it to my friend who was reluctantly answering a Quora request.

Reply: Uneducated Literates

Rarely you get a comment that is a mix of suggestion, criticism, answer and question. Here is one and I really liked it. Reply to this comment would be so explanatory and justified (may be controversial) that I could brainstorm in discussion for hours. Here is the comment posed on my previous post Uneducated Literates and follows my reply.

You went for nightouts for your projects, you studied and toiled with all reverence and you landed up doing a job where mere diploma-holders could suffice. Who asked you to do a job like this? Who stopped you from doing R&D? Who asked you to join the herd of sheep or that of penguins for that matter? The answer is simple dude, its "you"!! You could have sought a challenging career even as a photographer, you could have excelled as school teacher with all your knowledge. But no, you from the very beginning were after something else. And let me give you a simple suggestion my friend, very few places give you both of what you seek. So, stop cribbing about what companies are doing, because you yourself are in that very mess(i suppose). Go and join CERN if you want to do some high-level research and drill down your brain to the brink. You are talking about India as a country, look at yourself dude, "you" are India and so are all of us. Cribbing is the favorite sport for Indians. So let Mr.S be happy with what he is doing, rather stop your whole body from burning and do some good.

-Anonymous Comment


I am not sure what you mean by 'cribbing', I use cribbing for copying. But from the context that you are talking about, I feel you mean 'frustration outburst' when you use cribbing. So, lets take one-by-one bottom up questons of yours.

First thing, I am not writting something that is a consequence of some 10 minute frustration and I shed it down on blog. Yes, I was frustrated at the very moment when Mr. S described, but afterthought made me realize that the dream he was running behind could have been achieved some three years back, plus he would have been a specialized in the work he was planning to do.


If he could have joined a NIIT J2EE Expert course, he could have been learning technology specifications for 2 years, a certification from Sun and we would have had a strong Java developer. He could have add-on more expertise during his career.


The problem here is career guidelines are hazy. We follow mob psychology, so if Mr. S's cousine did his B.E. in Civil Engineering then he joined Infosys, and now, after 3 years in Infosys, he is on on-site assignment in USA. We follow that path blindly without looking at inefficiencies in that. And, actually, that's justified for it is verified. But... had there been a open minded thinking over the process, you see a guy learnt Civil Engineering for 4 years, does some hefty swift course for a quater of a year that enables (and perhaps specially made to enables) him to clear Infosys interview process. Do you find it smooth? I do not.

The same could have been achieved in a better and effective way. People know that Civil Engineering isn't paying. And if paying, it's not the craze. It is not the one where mob push lies. And moreover, we have tracked path to USA with the guy's brother as example. I ask why would anyone bother trying anything new? (Although it saves few years.)

It itches when you see all these potential, who could have started adding values long-back, is doing interview passer courses that enable them earn 8000 INR/month. And then they wait clock to tick away 2 years so that, they can apply a job where they ask 2+ experience.
It is too procedural. It is boring. Are we having all these branches, engineering colleges estabilished and mashrooming up to produce software engineers? You cant deny the preciding statement. And if you agree, then I ask another question. Is it correct? Isn't it a removable inefficiency. All my post says why dont we have courses that creates software professionals by keeping courses based on real market demand, instead of openning engineering degree colleges that make Biotechnologists, Mechanical engineers who later become software developers.


Now let's take on why I stress people doing diploma in engineering instead of degree. I am not sure whether you are following or not Ranbaxy is in rumour for ownership change. There have been long debates about IP, about patents, R and D and about egnineering and pharma grads. The main thing out of this story, India is a developing country with lot of cheap labour and heavy natural resources. It is economically favorable to be a producer than being inventor, at least for the present times. To be a producer you do not need engineering grads, or at least, you do not need bulk of engineers because you are importing alrerady-in-use technology from some foreign country which is well verified and approved. The technology won't break on daily basis in a manner that need engineering skills, all it need diploma guys who can manage them efficiently without getting frustrated. And, if you want to know the truth, India's current biggest automobile manufacturer RnD unit is a joke.


Let come back to "me" being India part. You are correct that we are the youth of the nation - we drive the country. I have that realization. I did had childhood dream of having my own version of R2D2, could be easily achieved by joinind Honda or probably I may go for higher education, some heavy duty RnD. I like those stuffs. But it is hard to stay sane when see lies opening up. You go mad when you see the best of our country labs are miles behind the sophistication they claim. You break to find out some of really nice labs are as useful as Pandora Box because of several reasons.

It is frustrating to see misguided talents and at the same time to find out misused resources and bubble boasts. So, who told me work in mob's way? I reply, I decided. I chose not to work in an area where we aren't frontiers. I decided to accumulate talent and streamline them. I dream to make an invention driven, innovation mativated environment. I look for the next big thing. And that is why I decided not to go for CERN but to create another CERN. Are you with me?

-Nishant

Life of a Crispy Cheese Roll

Life of a Crispy Cheese Roll

I think I was happy in that transparent glass-jar with all my Crispy Cheese Roll friends. We used to make fun of each single corner of Kesin’s room, never expecting that anyone of us could ever be a part of that hell. Unfortunately, the unlucky one was me. That day when Kesin picked me to eat, I was very happy to say my pals good bye and join other Cheese Rolls which already were in his tummy. But just before putting me in his mouth, Kesin realized red ants crawling up his sleeves from the desk. He shrugged his hand and lost the grip on me. I was thrown away on corner wall and from there I dropped down to ground via cob web just escaping a giant ciliary spider and reached near his oscillating foot.

There I realized the room was more hellish than we see from the jar. The floor was covered with thick dust except the places where he used to walk very often. Lots of small object were lying there in the dust suffering a hoarse time. None was familiar to me. Two small pencils, one ATM card, a small envelop, a T-shirt, few news papers and a key-ring – all were looking tired and unfriendly. Then I saw many thin tracks of ants and those where the only places where I could see how the actual floor was. It was white marbled floor which was looking like graveyard of 16^th century. Observing the small ant path, I found that my worst nightmare came true. I was barely an inch below of a thick black lump of cobweb hanging from bottom of the table-top and to make the matter worse there was a brown spider in it. I screamed with fear.

I heard a deep voice saying, “The hanging creature above you doesn’t eat you but the sneaking fat rat behind you sure does.” I snapped to my back and found my self in a situation ready to be fed to an ugly-fat-sharp-teeth rat, which I never wanted to. But since so much bad things were happening with me, it would be no wonder if the rat swallows me. Some how I maintained to pray to god not to send me in a rat’s intestine because that would be the last place I would like to go to before going to hell. I think god helped me for that one time. Suddenly I was dragged by Kesin’s swaying foot to a closed place between table leg and wall; and the second good thing was that the rat, startled by this action, ran back to invisible.

Here I was in a corner of the room from where almost three fourth of interior was visible and being a tricky place it was hard for the rat to find me. I spotted the source of voice which helped me when I was about to be a prey. It was a one inch long toothpaste squeeze which fall on the ground one day before me when Kesin was running late for morning class and dropped it in hurry; and never cared to clean it up. We became good friends.

Toothpaste told me lots of things about Kesin. It informed me that Kesin was actually a lover of art and sculptures but never cared about their maintenance. It showed me all the painting Kesin has on the walls which had got black because he never cared to clean them. Toothpaste spoke me about Kesin’s love towards ‘70s rock and how he threw all the music CDs into heap of old news papers lying in the room when he could not get Pink Floyds’ disc. I found out that Kesin was a drug addict and the fact that he might eat me someday when he would be on drugs, enthrall me like nothing did since I was slipped away from his hand.

It had become night. It was cold and damp, mosquitoes started coming out of almost everywhere. Humidity and irritating sound of water filter was making a creepy aura filled with fear. All of a sudden I felt someone is sniffing near me, to my disappointment it was the fat rat with its nose just above me. Somehow it could not find me and started turning back when its tail passed over me. It was a heart stopping experience. Within fraction of second it jumped over me and the result was I am now in its belly.

I wish if there is someway I could send a message to Kesin saying thank you for not eating me, I find rat’s stomach more elegant than your room.

Genre: Fiction, Drama
Type: Story, OK for all ages. :)
Date and Place: October 27, 2006. IIT Kharagpur WB India
Author: Nishant Neeraj