All my life I have been tormented by ghosts. Since Delhi has more ghosts than any other city in the world, life in Delhi can be one long nightmare. I have never seen a ghost nor do I believe they exist. Nevertheless for me they are real. I have tried to overcome this ‘ghostophobia’ by exposing myself to the dying and the dead, visiting cremation grounds and graveyards. It has not helped very much. I come back feeling at peace with myself and imagine that I have exorcised the fear. But no sooner does the day begin to die, than spirits of the dead come alive. Doors open by themselves, curtains rustle without any breeze and I feel the invisible presence of dead people around me. The only one to whom I have confessed these fears is Bhagmati because she believes in ghosts. She is not sympathetic. She laughs and calls me baccha (child) and adds, ‘When I die, I will come to lie with you. Then you will be free of this childish fear. But if I catch you making love to someone else, I will never let you have one night of sleep.’ (She has not yet forgiven me for fucking Kamala, the Brigadier’s wife. But Kamala is gone now with her husband to a family posting so Bhagmati is no longer as angry with me!).

Of the many encounters I have had with ghosts, there is one I can never forget. This was some years ago. I was rung up and told that my uncle was very sick and I should see him before he died. This uncle had been dying for many years. Asthma had reduced him to a bearded skeleton with large, fiery eyes. He had been a kind of living ghost for a long time and something told me I should keep away from his bedside. But my morbid fascination with death, and wailing over the dead, made me ignore my inner promptings and so presently I found myself in a room full of solicitous relatives seated round the sick man’s bed. Some were praying, others whispering to each other. He was reclining against a bolster with his head tucked between his knees. His wife sat beside him holding a spittoon full of phlegm. He began to cough—a long never-ending cough—then raised his head. His wife held the spittoon under his chin and yellow, pus-like phlegm drooled down his black beard into the receptacle. The wife wiped his beard with a towel and told him I had come to see him. He fixed his large eyes on me without a trace of recognition. Then he lowered his head between his knees. A minute later he fell sideways with his eyes and mouth wide open. He was dead.