That was Spooky

There are times when a strange incident occurs and you tend to ignore it. What if a similar incident occurs again? It happened with me a few days back, while I was learning to drive at Ballard Pier in Mumbai. Some of you might already be aware about this place being a commercial area in south Mumbai housing a lot of offices since a very long time. A very high count of people from town, suburbs and adjoining towns visit this place on weekdays. In the evening, however, this place is very lonely. Wide roads, zero crowd make it a perfect for rookies to learn bikes and cars. Well, that's what they say but I really doubt that now.

About 2 weeks back, Pushkar and I reached this place and I started practicing. Everything was smooth for some time. Later, Pushkar got out of the car and asked to try the reverse gear. The moment he got out some stray dogs looked at him and started barking intermittently, as if they have seen something abnormal. We ignored them, although Pushkar was a bit scared, and I continued. Things were fine for some time and then suddenly the car stopped! We tried hard to get the car running but were unsuccessful. Some cab drivers, who helped us, suspected it to be a battery issue. We had to drag the car down to Pratik's place, thankfully he stayed close by, and then left for home. The next morning, Pushkar returned with the mechanic to get the car. To his surprise, the car started in the 1st attempt itself! Apparently, there wasn't any issue with the battery. Just to be sure, the mechanic took the car to his garage. He double checked the battery, changed a few spare parts like the starter, battery belt and gave us the car next day. Again, it was working fine.

In the last week, again we had been to the same place for driving. I practiced reverse gear for about half an hour. Pushkar was tired by that time and wanted to leave. Just then he saw a cute puppy by the side of the road. He asked me to come play with it for some time. I love dogs, and couldn't resist playing with it. We hung around for some time. We set out to leave when I said, "One more. Then we'll leave." Just then, the puppy started making weird noises, as if he's crying or seeing something abysmal. The car, which was doing so fine till now, was not ready to start, again! We tried a lot but to no avail. Looking at each other, we knew we had to drag it back to Pratik's house, again. Both of us got out of the car, and started pushing it. It was when we realized that a stray dog, who had been sleeping till that time, was following us and barking intermittently. The puppy continued its weird noises, which we ignored at that moment. Pushkar decided to jump start the car, and asked me to push it. The 1st attempt was unsuccessful, which made us tense. The dog following us was still barking, and the weird noises of that puppy could still be heard. We tried again, and luckily the car started! I got in and Pushkar drove me back in no time.

The other day, we were discussing this during lunch break. Pushkar told me that once he reached his place, he tried starting the car and, to his surprise, it started instantly. I complained about his car being a spoilsport. Suddenly, he realized something about that incident. There was a significant similarity in both incidents. It was the same area, around the same time of 12 am, the car stopped working suddenly and was fine in sometime, dogs were barking in a weird manner and the car stopped when I was driving. Was any paranormal activity involved here?

It feels spooky to think about it. But, there may be logical reasons about those incident. The car being a very old model, it might have stopped. Maybe the dogs were barking as it was very late in the night and they suspected us to be troublemakers as we were dragging the car. But, why did the puppy started making weird noises and continued it when just minutes back he was playing gleefully with us. During the 2nd incident, the car started when we were almost out of that area. The same area and similar time cannot just be a coincidence, can it? I do believe in the concept of spirits and so It would be thrilling to visit that place again, probably on a new moon day or a full moon day. On second thought, do we really need to take that risk? What say?