I entered school that morning to the normal buzz of friendly voices. With my arms full of papers and books and my lunch pack over my shoulders, I smiled and responded to every greeting on my way into my office. It was still being cleaned, so I picked up my pen and a notepad and went out into the central courtyard, which is open to the sky.
I spend most mornings there until the bell rings because it gives me a feeling for the pulse of the school. I have a few moments to exchange pleasantries with the teachers, maybe a remark about someone's sari or an inquiry about a baby. I often settle down at one of the tables on the veranda and jot down messages, assignments, and reminders for everyone. Notices that have been hovering in my mind since I left school the day before finally get written down. That morning it was, “Now is the time to start work on the exhibition for the 6th of March. Show me your plan by Friday.”
I was trying to remember another notice when 8-year-old Asmita interrupted me. “You know,” she said, “there's a ghost in the tree on the other side of the yard.” With enthusiastic support from her classmates, she didn't need any pressing to come out with the rest of the story.
“Kedar saw a white figure, but when he went in, it disappeared,” she said.
Another child added, “There's a skull on the ground, and when Yash cracked it he found a gold ring.”
“There was a diamond there.”
The noise increased as they poured it all out. A “ghost” had been sighted the previous day, and now this whole group was quite unwilling to venture out into the courtyard. Sayali was breathless and her voice shook as she said, “Yakil says he heard a voice saying `Don't come on the ground. I will des—, de—...'” She just could not find the word.
I asked for Yakil. He was eager to talk about the story, and his report was full of conviction. “Yes,” he said very emphatically. “There is a ghost. I saw it. It wore pants and a hat. It made the sound `hoo.'”
The bell rang, and the students assembled for prayers in the courtyard under the trees. As the music died down, we chanted our traditional slokas to the peaceful quiver of leaves. I was sure there was no sign of any ghost in this school.
After we listened to “The News This Week” and sang the school song, I popped the question: “Did someone see a ghost yesterday?”
The tempo built up gradually. Sayali came to the microphone and said, “There was a white shadow in the tree.”
“I saw a golden ring.”
“The tree changes shape everyday.”
“There is a bone there.”
The older children, nearly 10 years old, just couldn't believe it. “There are no ghosts in this world,” said Shailesh emphatically.
“He must be dreaming.”
“He must have seen a movie.”
“It could have been a thief.”
I tried to rationalize with them. “Do you have a skull?” I asked. “Then are you a ghost?”
Though one child suggested that a dog had left the bone, other children had doubt writ large on their faces. Yakil's voice became querulous as he said, “There is a bad smell there.”
The matter could not be settled at assembly, and I instructed the children to visit the “ghost” site with their teachers in the course of the day to collect the evidence. I told them I needed proof to believe in the school ghost. If anyone saw the ghost, we would get a camera to photograph it. I pointed out there was a difference between seeing a ghost and hearing about it from someone.
Several children visited my office throughout the morning, and the pattern was very interesting. The more scientifically inclined collected evidence like bits of bone and some discarded cotton wool. One child brought me an old pair of trousers, gingerly balancing them on a stick because he did not want to touch them. A couple of children made lists of observations. Some wanted to do a play about ghosts, and someone proposed a novel. Still, the children found plenty of grist for the rumor mill, and imaginations ran amok.
“When I touched the tree, my lip began to bleed.”
“When I plucked a leaf from the tree, black spots suddenly appeared on it.”
This was going too far, I thought. All this grotesque imagination in 8-year-olds? I began to wonder if I had done the right thing by bringing the matter up, but the gruesome tales were the peak of it.
By the end of the day, the children had worked the whole thing out. They had inspected the site, and one had even climbed the tree to check it out. They came in little groups to tell me the story.
“There's no ghost there. It must be a dead root.”
“This is all nonsense.”
“Someone threw away his trousers.”
“A crow must have dropped a bone.”
“The leaves of the tree are falling so it changes shape.”
Sayali, the nervous one, gave me a relieved smile. “No ghost,” she said.
The last one to visit me was Yakil. He told me, “The college gate was creaking, and I thought it was a ghost. A man was reading a book there and he said not to worry, he comes there everyday and there is no ghost on our ground. ” In his reassuring tone, he was telling me not to worry about it any more. We had nothing to fear.
We had laid the ghost to rest.
