The other day I was watching a show on mentalism on National Geographic. Though sceptical about such shows most of which seem to be staged nowadays, I couldn’t help but remember my own tryst with accidental telepathy, way back in high school.

It was the Doordarshan era and interesting shows were only a handful. “Turning Point” hosted by Girish Karnad was a favorite. That show had a Q&A section handled by Prof Yashpal. We could write our questions in a postcard and send it to them. They would choose questions using some heuristics and answer them in the show.

I was (am) a voracious reader and I read about some guys in a novel who were communicating with each other via “telepathy”. I was intrigued. I wanted to know more about telepathy and how it worked. I wrote my question in a postcard and posted it. And forgot all about it for some months.

One day, my English teacher at school asked me if my question about telepathy was answered in the show. I was flabbergasted. I hadn’t talked about my curiosity about telepathy with anybody and wondered how did my teacher knew about it. I asked her.

She gave a bewildered look and asked me, “You did tell me telepathically about your question and that you had posted your card”. Taken aback, I started thinking about when I did that and how did that happen. I was amazed with myself for having been able to transmit messages mentally. I was also wary about having amnesia. Maybe I had discussed this with my teacher and had forgotten about it. On all accounts, my mind was in a free whirl the whole day and a couple of days after.

After a week, my teacher gave me a postcard. That was my own postcard in which I had written my question and had posted it to Turning Point.

It turned out that I hadn’t posted it after all. Me and my teacher both used to go the public library in our neighbourhood to read and borrow books. I had written the postcard and must have kept it inside one of those books. My teacher had accidentally come across that postcard and used it to pull my leg.

I did send my question after that, but I guess Prof. Yashpal didn’t know the answer after all 😀

Image - https://www.flickr.com/photos/gaurangapada/383469953/in/photolist-zTofV