Do they leave or just hover around??

Ghosts... Of Christmas Past, Present or Yet to Come?? That is the first line of thought. Charles Dickens' Christmas tale was very entertaining, not scary at all. It talks of redemption, of realisation of one's folly and subsequent change in one's behaviour, I mean I can actually hear the clanging of the bell in the temple in a Bollywood movie at the moment when Scrooge decides to turn over a new leaf. (Can I be more cliched??)
The Ghost of Christmas Past is a favorite character of mine. Every time a skeleton comes walkin out of my closet or a person I had buried deep inside reappears, I get this intense feeling of Deja vu. I mean the ghosts just do not go down quiet. The calm moments in life are always the lull before the storm, like a temporaray ceasefire. The blasts from my past are loud and very very real. They come flitting in, do their thing and walk out just as coolly.
Sometimes, when I look around myself, I see people who I know I wil carry with myself, who have been there for a long time. And then there are those who will most definitely phase out of my life, then realise that they did not like the way I treated them and so walk right back in at the most inopportune moment. It has happened before and I know it will happen again. So what do I do? Nothing :-)
This prompt raised a lot of disturbing thoughts, most of which I would keep in my head and not put into words, for the sheer fear of being haunted by them for days to come. However, it also struck this nostalgic chord. Of childhood and vacations and ghost stories.
My dadu (maternal grand-father) is like a master story-teller. A pause here, throat clearing there, the expressions and the intonations, and most importantly, the well-timed break in the story. Vacations with him meant long walks, eating otherwise-banned 'khuch-khach' at otherwise-banned roadside shops, continuous search operations for his specs and snuff-box, but above all, 'bhooter golpo' or ghost stories. Dadu was a railway guard, for goods trains. So his stories had the element of lonely journeys on secluded tracks, to places I had never heard about. My grand mother scoffed at his stories, my brother was always busy with his cartoons but my childhood revolved around his words, so much so that some stories were spread over successive visits. One day, the stories stopped. I really dont know why. He says that he ran out of stories. I think I grew up and he lost his most ardent listener. I havent asked him to tell me a story in a long time. I remember his animated face and the seriousness with which I held onto his every word, to the point of shooing people who let out giggles during story-telling. I dont think I would have the same fervour today. I dont want to dilute the memory.
I wish dadu is around forever.. Not move on like didu and amma or my other dadu who I never saw.. My kids need to experience his presence, of having a dadu who enlightens you with the forms of ghosts in the world, reinforcing the existence of bad which you can eliminate with the good in you.. He has been a essential part of my growing up, he has to be a part of theirs.
So while I call up dadu and coax him into penning down his stories for me....Cheers to ghosts, both friendly and scary, to each his own!!!!!

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