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<\/figure>\n\n\n\nIt was November 17th, 1996, when I met Ratna. Driving through a remote road to Harnai, I saw a girl waving her hand on the outskirts of Mandangad. She looked about 15 or 16, sweet-faced, wrapped in a salwar-kameez. She asked for a ride to Anjarle, a beach village on my route. For an hour, we chatted like strangers sharing a journey. When she asked me to drop her off by a lonely hill, I offered to walk her to safety. She declined, saying, \u201cI\u2019ll meet you again.\u201d Something about her voice had changed, but I drove on, puzzled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Later, I learned that Ratna had died in an accident on that very road\u201410 years before we met. Her father confirmed it; he lost her on that exact date. Struck by disbelief, I realized she wasn\u2019t just a girl needing a ride\u2014she was a spirit trapped between two worlds. Over the years, she returned to me, first explaining her death and the otherworldly rules she lived by. Though she had no ill will, her warnings about others in her realm terrified me. In time, I realized Ratna wasn\u2019t just another ghost. She was drawn to me for reasons I could not understand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After years of sporadic encounters, Ratna visited me one last time. She warned me against moving into a house, saving my family from a dark past linked to the property. That was in 2005\u2014the last time I saw her. I\u2019ve wondered often why she kept returning to me, but one thing is certain: there was an unseen connection between us that transcended the living and the dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/image-733.png\")
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