Mhatre and his neighbours now live in the newly-created Killari, five kms away from the epicentre of the quake in 1993 that killed 11,000 people. They are among the survivors of the earthquake, whose rehabilitation was completed and announced recently by the Maharashtra Government.

The journey to the Old Killari is a ritual, they rarely go alone, usually in small groups and as the last light fades, they scurry back to the cluster of match-box like structures in New Killari.

As darkness covers the ruins and varying moonlight creates eerie shadows, the spirits of those who lie under the rubble take over, they say. Many of the Killari residents who lost their lives minutes before the sun rose on September 30, 1993, were never found.Every house and every family has someone there, in the ruins. In the inexorable rush for safety, survivors abandoned their fallen homes and ran from the trembling earth.

Now the living return there to pay homage. ``Nobody dares to stay back after dark,'' whispers Mhatre, ``we believe it is haunted by those whose bodies were never found. We sometimes go there to visit but that's all.'' Killari is too revered to be disturbed otherwise. That's partly why no one had ever dared to rebuild his house here though they don't mind cultivating small plots of land nearby. Also, the area was deemed seismically sensitive and all re-settlement began kilometres away. But even if they were given a choice, survivors say they would not reconstruct anything in old Killari. It's the resting place of the dead. Sahebrao is among the more courageous ones, a tad more brave. He takes his cattle to graze on the recognisable mounds there. Parts of the old Killari is carpeted with a lush green cover but it's possible to outline thestructures that once made it a bustling agricultural village. ``That whole place is haunted,'' Sahebrao shudders. ``People were killed in front of our eyes, hundreds of bodies are still buried in the debris..'' Through tales and beliefs recounted again and again, Killari has been mummified into a ghost town. Creepers that hug abandoned structures, plants that have grown around the debris, dense undergrowth that blankets the ruins, and the ubiquitous shell-shaped mounds that arise from the earth that settled and resettled itself so many times all add to the overwhelming eerieness.

The only structure that stands out is Lord Ganesha's mandir half ruined but with the stone idol and plastered platform in place. Killari felt the first tremors hours after the ten-day Ganesh festival concluded with the festive idol immersion ritual. ``I was preparing to sleep after attending all the immersion ceremony in the village,'' recalls Raj Kumar, Resident Deputy Collector R L Gagrani says that there are no plans to builda new settlement there. The special earthquake rehabilitation and resettlement cell in Maharashtra Government is trying to grapple with the question: What to do with Killari that's still on the map?