The Seance

Raman, me and three of our friends were seriously discussing about ghosts. “There is nothing like evil or demon in this world. It’s our outlook regarding energies that makes our actions seem good or bad which we attribute to God or devil respectively,” Raman said.

Arpit was more of a spiritual kind. “Nature has created two powers, one positive and another negative. The positive which we attribute to as God and the negative, evil,” he was interrupted.

Jai was a man of science. “I don’t believe in spiritualism until and unless I am confronted by this negative power,” and he looked at Arpit challengingly. Prove it.

“Let’s do a séance,” Arpit proposed. All of us were interested though slightly hesitant. It was something, never done before.

“Do we need an Ouija board or something?” I asked him.

“There are different ways of conducting a séance. We’ll try the trance and channeling way. There are few risks involved too. First and foremost, if someone else comes to know about this, we would be mistaken for a satanic cult. Secondly, the pentagram, the candles and other setup, if done in our apartment can raise doubts amongst our neighbors that we are black magic practitioners,” Arpit said.

Nikhil, the fifth one added, “There’s my farm house, a few KM’s away from the international airport, Shamshabad” and a smile crossed all our faces.

Three days later, we arrived at Nikhil’s farmhouse on the outskirts. The farm house is 3 KM from the B’lore highway and the whole area being wooded, we had to resume our journey on foot.

I alighted down the car and looked at the sky. It was a new moon day. And I had goose bumps when the wind lashed my exposed skin. A chill ran down my spine. This is the month of December and its freezing out here. The milieu was perfectly creepy. Amidst the rustling of the leaves and chirping of the crickets we trampled the grass blades and made our way to the outhouse.

Nikhil pulled out some keys and unlocked the door. We entered the house. I pulled out the candles and other paraphernalia, Raman chalked the pentagram on the table and we sat along the corners.

The candles were lit along the corners of the inner pentagon.

“All of us remember what we are supposed to do,” Arpit said. We held our hands and looked at each other. “We’ll not break this chain until and unless the spirit becomes uncontrollable”

And then Raman started, “Oh sacred spirits, we bring you gifts from life into death. Communicate with us….” And he went on chanting some spells.

Jai was seated to my left. And he slowly started gripping my hand. His hands started to become cold all of a sudden. An invasion of the spirit, I thought.

“Never open your eyes, whatever happens”, I still remembered the word of caution.

Jai was crunching my hand. I could feel his body vibrating and he banged himself onto the seat.

I could imagine him jumping and tossing on the chair much like Regan in ‘The Exorcist’. I was sweating profusely. And my heart was thumping.

You are confronted by a force in which you never had faith throughout your life. As a student of science, I’ve never believed in ghosts and spirits. And now the inevitable truth is being unfolded right in front of me.

I wanted to shriek, loudly but I suddenly felt him easing the pressure on my hand before he disconnected with us. We heard a thud sound and we opened our eyes.

Jai was pushed forcibly onto the floor and there he lay in a state of shock. There were convulsions on his face. And fright on the others. He’s possessed?

We rushed towards him and asked, “What’s wrong?”

“How can this happen? The spirit will use one of us as a medium, a channeling medium, but it shouldn’t possess us...” Raman said. We looked perplexed.

“An evil spirit?” Raman was about to say something when Jai spoke.

“I suddenly saw a tunnel. It was totally dark when I heard a voice calling my name. I saw two huge hands coming to grab me. For a minute I felt as if I had no control on my body. I could hear my soul hollering inside my hollow body and suddenly I let go your hands,” Jai, convalescing from the shock, replied looking at me and Arpit. Arpit was sitting to the right of Jai.

Me and Arpit walked out of the room to smoke. As I puffed, Arpit said warily, “do you really think a spirit contacted us?”

The very chant of word ‘spirit’ made me tremble. I nodded.

After a while I walked deep into the woods to pe@. I heard two familiar voices whisper, “We’ll sit next to each other, when the séance is in progress, we’ll play this prank…” and the voices slowly faded out. Jai and Raman played a prank on us. My blood boiled with rage and anger.

I narrated the whole story to Arpit. “Let’s play the prank before they fool us,” he said and I grinned.

All of us sat again at the earmarked positions and held our hands. It’s been 15 minutes and nothing’s happening. I slightly pressed Arpit’s hand indicating him to start.

And all of a sudden, he started to vomit blood and broke the chain. He held his neck with both his hands and ran amok in the room before he opened the door and rushed outside. Man, he’s an Oscar winner.

All the others were totally aghast seeing this violent outcome happen right infront of their eyes. I particularly liked the spasmodic contractions due to fright on the faces of Jai and Raman.

I decided not to take this too far. And I started to laugh out loud. All of them were baffled.

“So, you guys played wanted to play this prank on us…” I said furiously looking at Raman.

“W…W….WH…what prank?” Raman’s voice trembled.