Why Ghosts Never Leave Our Homes-or Our Minds

H --- ## **Why Ghosts Never Leave Our Homes—or Our Minds**

The thought crossed my mind while watching the film *There Is a Ghost in Our House*. It was not fear that lingered after the screen went dark, but familiarity. A quiet recognition—as if the idea of a ghost was never foreign to us. It has always existed, silently occupying a corner of human consciousness. From there, my mind drifted, as it often does, to my all-time favourite ghost film—*Ghost* (1990). Not for its special effects, but for its emotional depth. Love that refuses to dissolve with death. Memory that refuses to fade. And of course, **“Unchained Melody”**—a song that seems to float between two worlds. When it plays, one does not think of fear; one thinks of longing. Of bonds that death cannot neatly sever. Indian cinema understood this truth much earlier. Long before Hollywood romanticised spirits, Hindi films explored ghosts as carriers of **memory, justice, and unfinished destiny**. *Mahal* (1949), with Ashok Kumar and Madhubala, remains etched in the collective psyche—not because it frightened audiences, but because it mesmerised them. The dim corridors, echoing footsteps, and that unforgettable boat scene where the past seems to glide silently into the present. The song *“Aayega Aanewala”* does not announce a ghost; it summons inevitability. Then came *Madhumati* (1958). Vyjayanthimala’s character returns not merely as a ghost, but as a force of moral reckoning. Wronged in one lifetime, justice eludes her until another. Here, reincarnation and revenge merge seamlessly. The ghost is not frightening; she is purposeful. She restores balance where life had failed. What is striking across these films—Indian or Western—is that ghosts are rarely grotesque. They are melancholic, restrained, even dignified. They appear when something remains unresolved: love unfinished, injustice unanswered, promises broken. The ghost, then, is not an intruder, but a reminder. This universality extends far beyond cinema. Across cultures and continents, belief in ghosts persists. India speaks of *bhūts* and *prets*, Japan of *yūrei*, England of manor-house spirits, Africa of ancestral souls, and the Middle East of *jinn*. Civilisations that share nothing else—language, religion, climate—share this belief. Technology may have advanced from oil lamps to LEDs, from handwritten letters to Instagram, but this idea has remained remarkably untouched. Even great minds were not immune. Abraham Lincoln reportedly spoke of apparitions in the White House and even foresaw his own death. Winston Churchill, a man of iron resolve, once fled a room convinced he had encountered a spectral presence. Napoleon Bonaparte believed a guiding spirit accompanied him. Charles Dickens, realist and reformer, firmly believed in ghosts and claimed personal encounters. These were not timid men. They were leaders, thinkers, and rational minds of their time. Their belief suggests that ghosts are not born of fear alone, but of **humility before the unknown**. Which brings us to the inevitable question: *Are ghosts real?* The debate, perhaps, is misplaced. The question of whether ghosts exist is no different from asking whether God exists, or whether rebirth is possible. Rationalists like **Yuval Noah Harari**, armed with neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and data, will dismiss all three as stories humans tell themselves to cope with uncertainty—useful myths, perhaps, but myths nonetheless. And yet, for every such argument, millions smile back. Not in ridicule, but in quiet confidence. Because belief is not always an argument; often, it is an experience. One does not prove love before feeling it. One does not demand laboratory validation for grief, memory, or presence. Ghosts, like God or rebirth, survive precisely because they operate outside the jurisdiction of pure reason. They inhabit memory, intuition, moral order, and unresolved longing. Indian philosophy offers a calm explanation. The *Bhagavad Gita* reminds us: **“Na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre”** *The soul is not destroyed when the body is destroyed.* If the soul is eternal, then perhaps a ghost is not an aberration, but a pause—an echo when the transition is incomplete. Cinema, music, and storytelling merely give that echo a form. Whether it is Vyjayanthimala standing silently on a misty hillside, Madhubala’s voice drifting across still waters, or *Unchained Melody* playing as love transcends death, ghosts return to remind us of one simple truth: **relationships do not end neatly**. Ghosts endure because **memory endures**. They are not here to frighten us, but to whisper—of love that outlives life, of justice delayed but not denied, and of journeys that do not conclude when the curtain falls. Some debates are not meant to end. They exist to remind us that however advanced we become, the human mind still bows before mystery. And perhaps, when rational certainty laughs at belief, belief quietly laughs back—secure in the knowledge that not everything meaningful needs to be measurable. As the *Gita* gently concludes: **“Avyaktādīni bhūtāni vyakta-madhyāni bhārata”** *All beings emerge from the unmanifest and return to the unmanifest.* Between the unseen and the seen, between silence and song, ghosts—real or imagined—continue to walk with us. ---