Festival of Shudder and Screech

The worrying part was that no-one else could see the rickshaw! It was a wicked, persistent, nasty yellow rickshaw with someone inside it, and it would not let me work in peace. Someone from inside it spoke a story and those of us who love to write or read stories, cannot move away.

Then I tried feeding the cats but was now caught by a sad house. It was a very sad house a very sad, very depressed and very hurt house. Its sorrow and grief caught me like a massive giant and I shuddered in its pain.

Could anyone ever bear to live in such a house? Everyone who stayed there was caught by its pain and a darkness that covered the heart and soul like a sticky net of rattlesnakes and snake venom! Not at all a healthy combination! It is somewhat like eating pizzas with rat poison!

I tried yet again to finish cooking sambhar and rice but was now held firm by a man who had vanished from his own house and a strange, creepy, unpleasant visitor who crept around the lonely house at night and sat down on chairs without permission, lingered and nosed around, and drove the new owner of the house crazy!

The reason for not being able to finish any of my work was that I was waylaid and imprisoned by Kipling’s ghosts! Have you ever read Rudyard Kipling’s marvelous ghost stories? Each one is a priceless gem and may frighten the life out of you, but what a lovely way to enjoy your holidays! You will shudder and shiver and shriek and fall into the spell of Kipling’s writing. It is even more spellbinding than the tale itself.

While his animal stories and poems will enchant you, his ghost stories are simply irresistible. It is difficult to scare me, but Kipling’s weird and worrisome creeps made me shake a little and wish that I was far away on an island with just cats and ducks to calm me down!

My favourites were The Phantom Rickshaw, The House Surgeon and The Recrudescence of Imray, but you can pick your own favourite.

So in this holiday season treat yourself to Kipling’s Ghosts if you like ghost stories.
You will be hooked and will love to huddle in brighter corners!