“I think there's a ghost”
Said Gaurav to Luxmi.
Luxmi replied “Okay!”
“O K A Y! What to do you mean by okay??” said Gaurav.
Luxmi then realised her reaction was too lame.
She reacted again, “ Oh My God!! What are you saying? Are you sure you didn’t accidently look into the mirror?”
“What!” Gaurav shouted in disbelief “NO!! by Ghost I mean an invisible spirit is existing in our house”.
“And you really want me to belive that?” questioned Luxmi.
“yes! Because I have seen that”
“Seen?”
“I mean unseen that! I mean I have experienced that!!”
“Okay!!” said luxmi by flipping the laptop down “Please share your experience so that even I would share your worry about finding and throwing that ghost out of our house!!”
“My clothes are missing! And I cannot find them!”
“Doesn’t that mean you should be more organised and disciplined with all your stuff!” why would luxmi miss an opportunity of hitting the ball out of the court!!
“I do keep my stuff organised. But the point is from last few days I feel my clothes are vanishing!
From the Washing Machine!!!!”
“you want to say that the ghost in our house stays into the washing machine!”
“YES!! Actually there’s a ghost into the Washing Machine”
“Okay! I understand, there’s an invisible spirit in the washing machine that is stealing your clothes!”
“or may be wearing my clothes and so I can not find them after the wash!”
“WOW! I didn’t realise your choice of clothes would amaze a ghost so much that he would actually steal that and wear them to make them invisible.”
“Haha! That’s not funny! Show some seriousness!”
“Offcourse I am serious!” Luxmi was controlling her laughter! “ Its just that I am just thinking of a plan to find your clothes!”
“And what about the ghost?”
“And off course a plan to find the ghost who is wearing your clothes!”
“Hmm.. even I am thinking about one”
Both then resumed their work.
Gaurav was very sure that there’s a ghost, which is probably a peaceful ghost, who is interested in clothes, rather than any revenge.
‘may be the ghost is a female ghost, whose last will was to steal clothes and that could not be fulfilled because of her sudden death.’ Gaurav entered into his world of thoughts.
‘NO but if the ghost is a female, she would have stoled luxmi’s cloths not mine! May be the ghost would start stealing luxmi’s cloths and then luxmi would believe me.'
As he was thinking, he suddenly remembered that he has not checked todays cloths. So he got up and went to the place where all the clothes are kept after there washing. He was trying to recall what all clothes he had put for washing! Obviously he could not recall, and surrendering to the situation he decided he would have a general look into the clothes and realised something!
He rushed to Luxmi, “Come fast! I found something! I mean I unfound something! My clothes are missing again!”
They both arrived at the laundry area. And with great feeling of achievement Gaurav told Luxmi, “See there really is a ghost! One of my socks is missing!”
“Why would anybody steal a single sock?”
“There is no reason why a ghost is doing something! Besides may be the ghost is having a single leg!”
“okay! Now please explain, how a single sock comes into the category of “Cloths””?
Gaurav took a deep breadth, “ You should have watched ‘Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets’. Harry Potter gives dobby the Elf, a sock, which mean that he was offered clothes by his master and he got his independence.”
Luxmi was looking at Gaurav in disbelief. “R E A L L Y ?” she sighed and returned to her work.
Gaurav was desperately waiting for Luxmi to finish her work. Once she was seen winding up, he rushed and willingly offered his help for cooking. She understood the reason but didn’t deny.
Once dinner was done she approached Gaurav and said, "I have thought of a plan!”.
“Really??” Gaurav was more than happy. Very impatiently he said. “Tell me”
Luxmi started explaining the Plan, “From Tomorrow while putting the clothes for washing we would count them and recount them after the washing is completed.”
“Superb”, exclaimed Gaurav and thought, ‘Does that really is a plan?’ but still he was convinced! They had to start from somewhere.
Next Morning like every day after completing other routine things they went to the ‘haunted’ washing machine. Cloths were put into the machine after completing the counting. All clothes were counted to 14. Machine was ON its job and so were they both.
However, Gaurav was eagerly waiting for the machine Bell. As soon as the Bell Banged, both went to the washing machine. Luxmi counted the clothes one by one. The recount was the same as the count i.e. 14. She looked at Gaurav! Gaurav was expressionless as he felt defeated! He said Nothing and went back to work.
After a week of this routine Luxmi finally declared, “ So the Ghost has vanished and our washing Machine is no more haunted”. Gauav just nodded. He was still in disbielf.
He said to himself, ‘I was so hoping that I would have a ghost as my pet, who would be like a Genie to me. He would revert to all the emails and fix all my bugs, just like Bhootnath.”
That day they didn’t count the cloths and were not at all consciously checking them.
In the evening when Gaurav went to the laundary area. He found that one of hand gloves are missing! He rushed and updated that to Luxmi.
Now even Luxmi was surprised and went to check the same. Yes!! One of the gloves was really missing! Gaurav was waiting for her to comment!
“Now what? Your ghost is having one hand and one leg?”
“Probably Yes!!” said Gaurav, “and may be he didn’t like us keeping a watch on the clothes, hence no stealing happened for these many days.” His eyes sparkeled as the hope of having a pet ghost returned to him.
He went to work, leaving luxmi alone with the washing machine.
Luxmi, still in surprise and shock!
Obviuosly she didn’t belived that there was a Ghost!
“Kuch to gadbad hai!” exclaimed luxmi and decided to investigate into the “There’s a Ghost case”
That day she winded up her work early, and with her cup of tea, went near Gaurav for her primary interrogation!
“Gaurav, Tell me, what all your cloths you think are stolen by the ghost?”
Gaurav said, “Lets name the ghost.. I think we should name it Bhootnath!”
“Yup” said luxmi sipping a sip of tea from the cup, “Bhootnath: The Cloths Thief”
Gaurav didn’t like the tag line, he had already made an imaginary friendship with this invisible ghost.
“Or we can call it….”
“Or we can just call it a “Ghost”. Luxmi didn’t allow Gaurav to pet that thought. “now tell me what all is stolen?”
Gaurav recalled, “One Sock and one of the gloves you know. One of my Monkey cap, two of my handkerchiefs, my sweat Band and an office Tie is missing!”
“Okay” said luxmi and triggered her thought process. ‘that means this so called ghost is stealing cloths which are short in size. And what would a ghost do of a Tie? Do they have presentations as well?'
She laughed at her thought imagining a presentation given by a ghost wearing a neck tie.
She went to the luandary area and started looking for the missing cloths. Next to laundry room was there Bedroom. She continued her search into the Bedroom.
She peeped down the Bed. There was something under the Bed or somebody under it!!!!
She jumped on the Bed and slowly slowly peeped down the Bed again.
She tried to have a close look of what she wanted to see!
She could not believe her eyes. All the cloths which were missing were found loaded in a corner under the Bed. She went under the Bed and found that there is a hook like thing on one of the legs of the Bed and the monkey cap is stuck into that hook, while other stuff is just sticking to the monkey cap.
Thus, it was proved that there is no ghost into the washing machine.
Now, the task was to find out how these cloths went down the Bed!!!!
She was tempted to narrate everything to Gaurav, but firstly that would interrupt his thoughts about finding a pet name for the ghost and secondly he would again be hopeless about finding a pet ghost.
For the next two days luxmi was observing every activity in the laundary room.
Finally!! She was successful in finding the ghost.
She thought, “Now the time has come for reveling the happening of events.”
She went to Gaurav and said, “I got a name for the ghost! Shantabai”. They had a robotic Floor Sweeping machine, which they called as “Shantabai”.
“Why?” Gaurav didn’t like the idea. “ we already have one”
“Because the ghost stealing your cloths is none other than Shantabai!”
“That’s not possible! Wait! You mean we have a Floor cleaning machine that has developed human like feelings and is stealing all my cloths!!
Oh God!! We don’t have a bhootnath but we have a small Wonder!!”
“It’s just that, all the things you think are being stolled is just an accident or just a happening of an event.”
“Okay! Please explain further!”
“Instead I would demonstrate to you.”
She lead Gaurav to the laundry room and dropped the monkey cap at the foot of the washing machine.
Gaurav was surprised to see the stolen monkey cap, “where did you find that?”
“In a moment you would come to know!”said laxmi.
She switched on the Floor sweeping machine. Shantabai started with the cleaning activity. While sweeping the floor, the monkey cap fallen on the floor, got stuck into shantabai and was carried along with her. Shantabai went into the Bedroom with the monkey cap still stuck on it, Gaurav and luxmi followed her.
While she went under the Bed, they peeped under it. The moment she went near the hook on the leg of the Bed., The monkey cap got stuck there. Shantabai left the cap to hang on the hook and continued her sweeping job.
Gaurav after the realisation, exclaimed, “Oh the cloths are not stolen they are just getting stuck. So whoever is dropping the cloths on the floor in the laundry room is the real ghost.”
“yes! That’s right!” confirmed luxmi “I Told you earlier as well. Just look into the mirror and you will find the ghost.”
