It all started when I was leaving to office on Tuesday morning. I thought I saw a group of people piling up pieces of wood in the open ground that is diagonally opposite to my hostel. In the midst of this peculiar pile of wood, I spotted something that was wrapped in a white cloth. As I stood there observing this scene, One man lit up a torch and set fire to the wood pile. It was then that I understood that a poor man’s funeral was under way.

I was completely unaffected by this incident and went on my way. The day drew on as would any other day and towards the evening, I returned from office a bit early in order to plan something for our friend’s birthday. Me and another friend went to the nearest cake shop and bought a birthday cake. On the way back, my friend chose to relieve himself in the open ground behind some bushes.

After he was done, I mentioned that there was a small funeral taking place in the morning very close to where he attended nature’s call. The look I saw on his face can only be described as one of pure terror. His pace increased and asked me to walk faster and get back to the hostel soon. This was at around 10 PM. I didn’t pay much heed to this and walked back with him to the “safety” of the hostel.

The rest of the time was pretty uneventful. We had all gathered in my room and talking about general stuff when my friend nervously narrated what happened on our way back. This seemed to make almost everyone uneasy. Then I remembered that I had forgotten to buy a knife with which to cut the cake. So I asked a friend to join me to the kitchen downstairs to get a knife. The kitchen was completely dark except for the street light pouring in through the small window.

I found the knife and turned to leave when my friend screamed out. I was a little confused and thought he took a tumble. But he then pointed to the shadow on the wall that looked very much like the one from the thriller movie Psycho. I smiled at him and said it was just a shadow. We then made our way back to the room and celebrated our friend’s birthday in the highest of spirits.

Although, I was wondering all the time why people are so afraid of ghosts? You might ask me, “Aren’t YOU afraid?” To that I say, I don’t believe in ghosts. I can’t be afraid of something that I don’t even believe in. That said, I am still wondering what makes even the most macho man tremble like a cup of jelly on mention of ghosts. Any answers?

I am a Tamilian by birth. However, I did not write my first words in Tamil. So I want to take this opportunity to attribute this post to the first words I wrote. Hence the title – Mudhal Ezhutthu. It means “First alphabet”. Now let me come to the title of the blog  The title is not something new. Most of my old visitors would remember it as the title of a page in my old blog Care to take a Look? I have explained it there. But let me still give you the meaning of the title. It means “The handwriting of a Stranger”.

The reason I started this blog is to make an identity for myself in this world. I started blogging 4 years. I compare between myself then and now. And I realize that I have changed significantly. Most of these changes are positive. There are a couple of negative (according to society) changes too. However, I consider them assets to my personality. This blog is going to be my signature; my identity.

That said, I would like to wrap up this post by making a small disclaimer. I will not post anything new in my old blog. So for all my regular(still??) readers, join me here. Signing off, AnniYan.