Toastmasters Speech # 6 ‘Stranger Things’

This is the script of my CC6 Vocal Variety Speech in Toastmasters:

Who all here believe in God?  

And who all believe in the “other entity”?

Rest are atheists here or just shy so that ‘they’ don’t listen to you?

Fellow Toastmasters welcomed Guests and those “guests” who are not welcomed but are here anyway, silently observing us, Good Afternoon!

I personally don’t believe in any entity for that matter. However…  sometimes, you may experience events which make you doubt your beliefs. Let me share with you, one such instance.

2 of my friends Abhishek and Abhilash, along with myself, Abhinav were planning an all-night-out trip.

Abhishek suggested, “Why not Bhangarh?”. He was always the adventurous type.  “Bhangarh? really?”, Abhilash said, who was not an outgoing person per se.“We can try..”, I added. 2 against 1, the majority won.

We decided to head over to a place called as Bhangarh, about 80 KM north of Jaipur, Rajasthan.  Bhangarh is also known as ‘Bhooton ka Bhangarh’, which means, ‘Ghost Town of Bhangarh’. Google it for more information. It is mostly in ruins now. But once upon a time, it was a small prosperous town with a fort, few temples, and a bazaar. It is said that the place was “cursed” by some priest and since then it has been in shambles.

It is often said that one shouldn’t go there after sunset. So, we decided to reach there by 9 PM to see what the fuss was all about. Because we thought, why not!

It was May, Friday the 13th, 2011 and a full moon night.

We reached the entrance of the Place. It had an eerie silence which reminded you of a cemetery. Slowly we climbed the metal gate and entered the compound. It led to a pathway, which had another smaller metal gate which rotates when one enters. I entered it first, carefully, watching my steps. The rusted old gate rotated and made a weird sound. We all looked at each other. We entered eventually and walked towards the deserted fort.

Most of the place was dark but we could see a dimly lit window on 1st floor. “Should we go there?”, Abhishek asked. Abhilash said, “Let’s go back home”. With trembling voice, I swallowed and nodded,  “No harm in trying”. With creaking steps and wide eyes, we found stairs to the 1st floor. The place had slight chill in the air, even though it was May in Rajasthan. We reached the 1st floor. The dimly lit room was about 50 ft away. We walked towards it. The room had a wooden door, slightly ajar and with cracks big enough to see that it was lit up from inside,  probably it had a lantern or a fireplace. As we reached closer to it, I heard giggling sounds.  Probably of a girl.   Sweat rolled down my cheeks and I slowed down. My heart was pounding so heavily that I felt it would come out of the rib-cage. Abhilash also heard it but kept on walking just because of curiosity. Abhishek was beaming with excitement to see the inside of the room and had ignored the sound completely. When we were just about to reach the gate, the door slammed open! BAM !!! and then suddenly room’s lights went poof! Pitch dark!   And then there was a sudden loud shriek. EEEEEEEE!!!

Just before it went dark, I am sure, I saw a glimpse of a young girl standing in the room with a doll with red hair.  

We, turned and without wasting any time, we ran faster than Usain Bolt, and kept on running till we had reached the main gate. We jumped into our car and headed back towards Jaipur. Nobody said a word till we had reached the safe confines of the city which had proper lights and warmth. We promised each other to totally erase this cowardice from our memories and promised to never do this stupidity again or even discuss this anymore.

Phew! Days passed. Eventually we got busy in our daily routine and put this incident behind us.

I still don’t believe in ghosts.  But that incident was strange, and weird, and scary. Maybe it was a prank by some people. May be I didn’t see properly in the dark. Or may be I was hallucinating. But my friends were there too and they also confirmed that someone was in that room.

Anyways, few days ago, I was returning from office, and it was late in night. When I reached my lane and was about 100 m from my apartment building, I saw one girl standing at road side. She was holding the same doll with red hair.

Back to Ghost-Master, I mean Toastmaster!

Rehearsal Audio