Nights in Himachal are pitch dark, not even the smallest ray from a 0 watt bulb. That sort of darkness always puts the imagination in fast forward and you start thinking of boogie monsters, giant brain sucking wombats and most horrible of all, a woman ghost. I am ill prejudiced towards the female gender of that particular community mostly because of the horrible make-up, creepy high pitched wails and the zocked out looks, their long hair flying in the moonlight is just about enough to freeze a fellow with a weak heart.
We were expecting some furniture late at night, and were up late debating about the magical powers of evil spirits and their irritating habit of getting photographed and giving us humans the goosebumps. The furniture arrived after midnight and being the strong, young and genX fellows that we were, volunteered to haul it all in. Our chappals were near the courtyard door and we suddenly realized that we had to pass one of those pitch black corridors to get to the other side. We huddled together like Charlie’s Angels and slowly began feeling our way towards the sliver of light on the other end. Around half way forward, we heard a strange scratching and quite suddenly, a gurgle and loud barks.
Three screams pierced the peaceful air and abandoning all pretence, we bolted towards the start, pushing anyone who was unlucky enough to be in our direct path to the side and towards the front yard which was endowed with bright yellow halogens and kept screaming our lungs out. The lights were switched on in the neighbouring homes and everyone started giving us the confused look, wondering the reason for our banshee like yelling and the crazy barking of the pet dog.

