There are many things you can accuse my wife of, but having a vivid sense of imagination is not among them, so it was hardly surprising that she should turn to me and say, “You don’t look like a ghost.” “Of course I don’t look like a ghost,” I objected — besides, what does a ghost look like, anyway? — “all I said was that I am now officially a ghost.” “Are you acting in a Ram Gopal Varma movie?” she looked up in some amusement. “Don’t even say that as a joke,” I reacted in alarm, and then clarified, “I’m writing a book on someone else’s behalf, which makes me a ghost writer.”
Turning critically to me, my wife appraised the evidence before her eyes and found it wanting. “You’re too plump to be a ghost,” she said. It seemed pointless explaining to her the difference between a ghost and a ghost writer. Besides, she had a point — there was a visible plumpness of midriff that wouldn’t serve the ghost industry too well, and yet it was the ghost trade that had contributed to it in the first place.
I was ghost to a man fond of his food and drink, though that was not the subject of his memoirs. We’d met over kebabs and Glenlivet, discussed the project some more over biryani and Glenfiddich, and sealed the deal over pasandas and Talisker. Thereafter, we’d meet in the evenings, after our day-work was done, to get down to the serious task of dredging up his memories. The past is a minefield, not something you approach over such namby-pamby beverages as coffee (we tried it), or buttermilk (which does little for the brain cells), or other swills more suitable to a gathering of nuns than a table for intellectuals. It was only a little experimentation later that we discovered that what suited both host and ghost was pure malt poured over ice.
Someone, somewhere, no doubt, will do a study on the role of malt whisky and memory — all I can vouch for is the fact that it stimulates loquaciousness. “Let’s talk,” the ghost would prompt and prod, “of cabbages and kings.” “Cabbages,” the host would react, “not on your jolly life,” clapping his hands like a modern pasha and ordering the kitchen to lay out qormas and curries which would have been criminal to ignore. It was a fine way of going about his story, but in the cold light of day it was becoming evident we were achieving less than we might have hoped.
Many evenings, many bottles of Ardmore and Belvenie and many plates of chaamp and mahi later, it seemed we were somewhat closer to the end and hastened the pace of the meetings. “Withdrawal signals?” sniggered my wife, when she saw I seemed to be spending a large chunk of my weekends in a fugue of malt. “Actually no,” I said, for I had taken a shine to the ghosting business, “I’ve lined up my next ghost assignment where,” I pointed out, “single malts may not be the preferred brew by choice, but there’s a cellar full of rare French wines which, I’m sure, will last us the course of several evenings of cerebral stimulation.”
“And that,” I said reaching for the phone as it rang, “must be confirmation of my next meeting, though I don’t know whether I feel like whisky or wine tonight.” Looking at my face as I put the phone down, my wife remarked tartly, “What’s the matter — you look like you’ve seen a ghost.” “I might well have,” I said, “that was a call from your mother to say she’s on her way to haunt our house this summer.”
