there is no clock in my room since i can’t stand the sound of time. it was, however, 5:43am. i checked my cell. it was blank. i tossed. the thought sped past barriers of my subconscious like a dart that missed the shield i often put up, and i thought of him. the one i loved. i tried to blank my mind and put myself to “sleep” – or rather, as it had now been reduced to, background thinking. but no. he refused to go. rather my mind refused to let me get away from the same questions that had been jarring on my mind since quite long. i felt like calling him up. to just reach out. then thought why disturb him by interfering in his life that he’d so proudly pulled away.so i tried to think of something else, but in vain. i crawled out of my bed and put on my playlist. it belted the only rock i had come to adore and admire. concentrating on it i tried to sleep. the windows lay open and the wind rustled the tree peeking at my window sill. as i closed my eyes i could sense the dawn coming up – rather felt the light trying to seep through my translucent eyelids. And before i knew it, i was asleep; or so it seemed at first! then started the spirals of “dreams” as i relate it now to the best of my recollection…
thread#1 : seen as if i was filming it – in second person, exactly like Harry Potter would be when he entered thru’ the Pensieve.
“i had held my Dad’s hand.i was on the left.we seemed to have entered thru the iron gate of a building, though i didn’t see it.i felt it. i could see just our backs-i.e my Dad’s and mine.the coloring was a watery gray, nay, it wasn’t cloudy. the building felt like i’d been to it before. though i know,i haven’t. i saw one or two old people around, but it was not an old age home. again no faces. the building was like some of those buildings i’ve seen in the quiet areas of Paud Road. only the first storey was visible in my perspective,but i’m sure there were more.anyways,i took my Dad to a jhoola that was tied up in the parking lot- that was either a basement,or the ground floor.we sat down.i tried to tell him something. but i was tongue-tied. no emotion was the cause of it, i believe. i am just mute in my dreams most of the time. all throughout, there’s hardly any spoken communication from my side in any of my dreams. anyways, i just put my head down in my hands and cried- and the only evident emotions that were the cause of it were shame, grief, regret. but again , there was no face. not mine. not my Dad’s.”
at the end of it i felt strangely sad. as if i’d lost someone forever.a father figure.
it(my mind) switched dreams immediately.
thread#2 : again seen in the same way as described above.
“i was depressed. my mom and i were sitting this time in a cafe of sorts. it was a cafe run in what seemed like the first floor of an old building. again the building looked familiar – like i’ve been there. but this one seemed like i had been to in my present life. its proximity to the sloping road that was visible even from the far end of the room we were seated makes me feel it was on the first storey. the room wasn’t big. it had light, dull beige walls.a color i’ve seen on walls before. some of it seemed chipped, though i dont remember exactly. my mom was speaking presently. again i could not hear my voice. my responses seemed muted. though i don’t even know what my mom was saying, but it was evident that she was trying to draw me out of my low, depressed spirits. suddenly i saw a huge Volvo-like bus coming down that sloping road that was running along the building. we were just looking there. and then out of nowhere, a group of jovial but creepy film stars appeared. i can recollect one of them as KK clutching a woman, who appeared to be, more like the usual stylish whores.there were 2 more women, whom i can hardly recollect.then came another actor,who was slightly irritated by the whole group. and then, up came Saif Ali Khan, which is truly mindboggling!anyways, he seemed veyr happy to be there and kept giving me a stupid consistent grin.he had shades on. so couldnt make out whether he was staring at the wall behind me, since that gaze was so straight and blank. anyways, these people were coming up the stairs that started from the road below went up to each storey of the building from the outside. the stairs were made of wooden planks and not concrete, funnily enough, tough then entire building was concrete and there seemed to be no other way of entering the storeys. it seemed that they had come for a shoot. they all disappeared for a few minutes. my mother went up to the old fellow who was running this “cafe” and asked him if he would hold our table if we were to go and serve them some tea!!!(this is indeed ridiculously bizarre!) the old fellow seemed to be crouching n the floor washing utensils or soemthing like that. again no face was visible. amidst this confirming and convincing, this group of actors came downstairs and went back the way they had come. my mom was about to go back to convincing me when…”
it switches my dream suddenly again…
thread #3: here i was in my shoes.i was feeling i was there,rather than being a spectator as i was earlier,filming my own self.
“i’m in an old “waadaa” i.e cottage-style house. i’m standing just inside of the back door entrance from where i can see my mother laying down a bright blue straw mattress down on the courtyard, that has a “roof” held up by bright blue wooden poles. i wanted to tell her something urgently, but couldnt find the words(again).i looked to my left(inside the room where i was standing), and saw a flower pot about 3-4 feet high. beside that(still within the room), was a patch of soft, mocha brown,moist sand.it was moving. it would’ve seemed to someone that the movement was of an animal burrowing across, but i somehow knew it wasn’t. then there was another movement – more irregular this time. and i knew it for sure. the words in my head spoke to my mother, tellin her to stock up some dry foods like biscuits. but she wasn’t visible anymore.nor was i actually speaking to her.all through it,i was tensed but never afraid.”
suddenly my dream switched again into another thread.
thread #4: here too, i was myself, but this time more myself than i was in any of the earlier dreams.
“here the focus was on only a person-a child. i think it was a girl of about a year old who’d just learned to speak. she came to me.she had black and off-white granules on her mouth which, frankly, gave me a quesy feeling.when i touched her, i felt like she was a child i had touched before.i knew her from somewhere.and this was the deepest point of contact within myself i felt i had during the entire night.and i tried to get her close to me.and everytime she did, which was periodically, i would kiss her cheek, hopin the “spots” would go away.but they didn’t.i tried again.still nothing happened.and bizarrely enough, she would run a bit away everytime i kissed her, showing me a thumbs-down,u-lose sort of a sign, laughing naughtily.”
whirrrrrrrr… the dream switched again to thread #3 again wherein i was still seeing the movements in the earth.
i crashed into the most disturbing dream.
thread #5: here i was initially watching everything in an aerial view.
” i was speeding down a hill which seemed very much like those foothills in Assam on which tea is cultivated. except that they seemed to have passed. there seemed to be people in the jeep with me-can only recollect that i had an acquaintanceship with them.but there was no emotion present in this dream. the atmosphere was indeed cool and breezy like a hill station’s. there seemed to be foliage around too, though the jeep was speeding downhill, so it was all hardly noticeable.as i saw on my right, there was a Christian cemetary on that side of the hill slope. and very strangely enough, there were some Islamic men offering prayers beside the graves marked with the Christian crosses. i turned my eyes away from this sight.(now i was seeing myself again, like in threads #1 and #2) suddenly the loud screeches of parrots came to my ears. i looked toward the left and there were graves there too. but no crosses on them. in fact there were people dressed in white doing some kind of “work” there.i think they were women. and there, beside the graves was one (or more) huge cage, about 2 storeys high, densely populated with parrots- bright green with their brighter red beaks making noises. there was another cage just in front of this one, but more sparesely populated with the same kind of parrots. these were however feeding on human flesh, which seemed fresh and weirdly enough burnt.”
there was no negetive or positive feel to this dream.
but before i could react to it, my mind whizzed me to thread #4 dream again.
thread #4 (contd.) :
” i kissed this girl again, hoping this time that the spots near and around her mouth would disappear. this time when she pulled away after i did, she started laughing and pointing at me. her spots had disappeared. and she told me they were on my mouth now.”
i felt numb.not feelingless, but that i was still in the initial stages of reacting to the shock.
my mind again zoomed to thread #2!
” here my mom who was trying to lift up my spirits, told me that they had got something for me. a lovely pair of capris, peach colored – my instinct told me, from Shopper’s Stop here.(now we suddenly seemed to be in bombay).i was interested.and we seemed to be leaving that room.”
and here the whole dizzying spell of my dreams ended. i never saw the capris though!
Date of the dream: 17th July, 2006
