The biggest trick that life has played, is to find a way to diminish its own value in the eyes of its own children.

Every creature that takes birth and lives, be it a bacteria or a blue whale, has an innate desire to survive. They have a very strong yearning to maintain the status of “being alive” as much as they can. This is especially true for human beings.

And being smart creatures, one would think that human beings would understand this. They would understand the desire for survival. They would understand the sanctity of this one fundamental mantra that runs deep in the minds of all living things — to stay alive. They would understand then, how precious life is to every creature that takes birth.

They would understand that killing in the name of food and survival would be the only forms of killing that are justified.

Sometimes, without even knowing it, scientists hit the nail a little too accurately on the head. This is exactly what happened when they used the term “living things” to define creatures that are alive. Doing justice to the full term, a lot of people forget the “living” part, and end up focusing on the “things” part.

They can look at a person, and instead of seeing an entire existence, only notice an object that they can use according to their own whims. They see a person, and manage to completely disregard the life inside.

Aditya was sitting cross legged on a bamboo mat, ready to deny everything that the person opposite to him was saying.

‘And that’s why sir ji,’ Ramu said as he brought his statements to a conclusion, ‘no matter what you say, I will firmly believe that you just cannot handle desi liquor.’

Aditya was not about to take this insult.

‘See what you’re doing,’ Aditya said as soon as Ramu was done speaking, ‘is called discrimination. You have not seen me drink. You don’t even know who I am, and you’ve just gone and judged me.’

Ramu opened his mouth, clearly offended, but no argument came to his mind, so he closed it again.

Chotu, who had been looking back and forth between the two guys until now, turned to Aditya and spoke, ‘But sir ji you just don’t get it. You might have drunk some crazy alcohol, I know, but until you have actually tried the desi stuff, you just don’t know how hard it kicks. It’s like driving a car all your life and saying you can handle driving a tractor, with only a wooden board for a seat, the whole day without breaking a sweat. You just can’t compare the two things.’

Aditya opened his mouth, ready to respond that he had, in fact, definitely driven a tractor before, but then remembered that the tractor definitely did not have a wooden seat, and so closed his mouth again.

He was sitting in a local roadside dhaba. All things considered, it was a nice place. It was also exactly the type of place that families would take one look at, and then hurriedly drive away, as if a lunatic would jump out of the bushes and start attacking their car if they stayed in front of the place for too long.

Aditya loved to stop at such places. There was some kind of an old school charm that attracted him. Over time he found it became very easy for him to strike up a conversation with the truckers that were the usual clientele of these places. He also very quickly found out that the truckers were usually an absolute gold mine of all sorts of stories.

He was on an overnight road journey when he came across the dhaba, and decided to get a heavy dinner before driving for as long as he could.

He had found Ramu and Chotu sitting on a khatiya, and within a few minutes, was talking to them as if they were old friends. This was another thing he found — these random truckers usually turned out to be the friendliest people he had met.

Aditya tried to think of an argument against their advise regarding desi alcohol and could only come up with a huge burp. He then shook his head.

‘Well, I can’t think of anything to say that would change your mind, but I don’t agree with you either,’ he said, looking at the both of them. ‘It was fun anyway. But I think I should be going now. If I sit for too long I might get drowsy.’

Ramu and Chotu exchanged looks.

‘Maybe you should just take a break. Y’know, rest for the night? This place might not look it, but it has some decent rooms,’ Ramu said.

Aditya shook his head. ‘I can’t do that. One of my closest friends is getting married and like an idiot I said I would reach on time. I didn’t know the drive would be this long. I really should get going now.’

Ramu looked disappointed. Chotu looked back and forth between his senior and Aditya, and when Aditya stood up, he blurted out, ‘Sir ji please don’t! Just rest for the night. You can go tomorrow night. If you’re worried about safety, don’t worry the owner is a very respectable man. You won’t be in any danger.’

Aditya looked at him for a moment. There was a weird desperation in his voice.

‘Ok first of all I told both of you already — don’t call me sir ji. And also, uh, like that’s not a problem. But I don’t think I should waste — ’

‘But it’s dangerous sir — I mean it’s dangerous. I wouldn’t insist if that wasn’t the case.’

‘You mean like bandits or — ’ Aditya began, but Ramu cut him off.

‘It’s nothing of the sort,” he said, ‘Actually, if we were to tell you, you wouldn’t believe us.’

Aditya laughed. ‘What — you mean ghosts?’

Ramu and Chotu only looked at each other in answer.

‘What — ’ Aditya said, his expression suddenly somber, ‘You really mean ghosts?’

‘It’s uh…’ Ramu said, ‘It’s more of rumours actually. They say that… that a woman’s ghost haunts that road.’

There was a moment of silence, and Aditya felt a slight chill travel up his spine.

And then he laughed. ‘Ok guys — uh — I mean thanks for the warning, really, but uh — I think I’ll — ’

‘Please,’ Chotu said, interrupting him, ‘They may be rumours but there’s some truth to them. There’s been a lot of cases. I personally know a guy who says he saw it, and he’s… uh, he’s not really been right in the top floor ever since, y’know? And we wouldn’t think much of it if you were in a group or something. You’re alone, and that’s not a good thing.’

Aditya looked at them with his mouth half open and a half laugh stuck inside it. They really meant it. He didn’t know what to say.

So he decided to respect their words, but politely disagree. ‘See I really appreciate it, I really do. But I’ll take care. Promise. I can’t afford to waste time that’s all. I would stay if I could, but I really have to go.’

Ramu sighed, and Aditya felt like he had disappointed his father.

‘Just… we can’t change your mind, fine,’ he said, ‘Just do one thing — when you reach the road, honk thrice and then keep driving and don’t stop and don’t pay attention to anything you see, no matter what.’

Aditya nodded. ‘Alright I’ll do that. You can trust me on that.’

He then changed the topic, tried to turn the conversation towards a lighter tone, and finally said his goodbyes.

Within fifteen minutes, he had already put quite a bit of distance between him and the dhaba, and had almost forgotten about their conversation.

Almost, because in the next fifteen minutes, he took a left turn and arrived at the road they were talking about, and with that he remembered what they had talked about. He remembered how earnest their faces had been when warning him.

Aditya slowed his car. It crawled forward at a speed of 20 kmph as he looked around. Away from the city, out here in the exterior areas, the night seemed darker than usual, and the road seemed emptier than usual. He was a bit surprised at that. Even if it was night, usually he would see at least one or two vehicles.

And then there was the silence.

In a weird way, the silence felt even more oppressing than the sounds of a traffic jam. The emptiness felt louder than the hustle and bustle of a city.

There was a light breeze blowing, and it shook the leaves and the bushes, making him feel like the trees were whispering in some dark conspiracy against him.

Aditya swallowed empty air. He wished they had not told him about this whole thing in the first place. Now he couldn’t get it out of his head. Fear and doubt gripped his brain. Should he turn around? No, that was stupid. Should he honk thrice, as he was told? He wanted to think that was stupid too.

His hand moved to the horn on its own. He looked around again. There was no one. What harm could it do? It was only three honks.

He pressed his hand down on the horn, and a screeching siren cut through the silence and seemed to echo all around. He almost jumped himself, not expecting the car’s horn to sound so loud.

He looked around again. He couldn’t see anyone — not even an animal or a bird — much less a ghost-like woman. Two more times, that’s it. What was the harm?

Instead of putting his mind at ease, the honking was having an opposite effect. He was feeling pressure now.

Was there a specific way to do it? Were you supposed to do a short honk? Would it be considered disrespectful if it was too long?

He swallowed again, ready to press down on the horn, when he saw some movement in the bushes to the right of him. He slowed his car to a stop.

The movement increased, as if someone — or something — was struggling to get out. His eyes widened, and he felt the hair on his arm stand up. Then something came out of the bushes.

Aditya jumped and accidentally pressed the horn. The cat that had poked its head through the bushes jumped too, and then immediately disappeared inside.

Aditya sat still for a moment, then burst out laughing. This was stupid. He was being stupid.

That whole story had spooked him for no reason. Of course there was no such thing as ghosts. He looked at his hand that was on the horn. He had actually honked too. He cringed thinking about how his friends would laugh at him if they found out about this.

He shook his head. He couldn’t believe himself. He realised there was a simple way to get his mind back on track. He just needed to ignore all of this. And the best way to do that was to ignore this whole honking business too.

He took his hand away from the horn, placed it properly on the steering wheel, focused on the road, and drove on ahead.

A few minutes passed without anything happening, and it was looking like Aditya had made the right decision by not thinking about the story of the woman.

And then he saw something in his headlights, far ahead on the road.

His foot automatically lifted itself up from the accelerator. He wasn’t sure what it was at first. It just looked like a shadow. And then, as his car slowly covered the distance in between, he could make out what it was.

His eyes went wide as his brain went slow. His mouth opened a bit as his breaths became shallow. His fingers felt slightly numb, and he felt a small shiver run through them, which then went through his body, and ended in his face.

He could see the figure clearly now.

It was a woman.

She was standing in the middle of the road, with her back towards Aditya’s approaching car.

The lights of the car were bright. It looked like she was wrapped in a dark coloured shawl. Her hair was open and hanging behind her. She was barefoot, and stood as still as a statue.

Without thinking, Aditya press the horn. It was as loud as before, but the woman didn’t move. She didn’t move a muscle. It was as if she hadn’t even heard it.

His car reached the woman, and Aditya slowed down. He wanted to speed past her, but his foot wouldn’t move.

The car was on a slow cruising speed, and he turned the steering wheel slightly. Even at this moment, the woman had shown no signs of movement. She just looked straight ahead, as if in a daze.

And then a thought popped into Aditya’s mind. Morbid curiosity overtook rationality, and he couldn’t control his eyes.

He wanted to look at her.

As the car overtook the woman, his head turned slowly, his eyes stared at her face, and he got a good look at her features.

He had never seen anyone look so white before. It wasn’t fairness; it was like the colour had been drained out of her. Her eyes didn’t have any irises, and looked like two white marbles shoved inside the sockets. Her mouth was hanging open, and a dark coloured tongue was hanging out of it.

Aditya froze. His foot moved away from the accelerator and the car slowed to a crawl. His mind was as blank as the woman’s face. His body was stiff.

And then the woman’s head jerked to the right. Her face stared through the passenger window of his car, and he knew she was looking at him.

***