Monday, November 17, 2008

Sogni

It was early morning during the mid summer. I was strolling on the footpath in search of something. I could hear that it was 7 AM. The sun was already in its full delight and I could see my shadow cast in front me. I was trying to think of a song to hum, to go with good feel I had. What was I searching for, by the way?! “Suhaana safar aur yeh mausam haseen.” Yeah, that’s a nice song. Suddenly, there was chaos in the street. Everyone I could see started to give me a glare. It was as if I had stolen their wallet. It was hard to ignore them. They slowly began approaching me. Suddenly I felt my legs were heavy. I couldn’t move! I tried hard to pull my legs but in vain. The slow approach was now steady. Everyone had a mean look on their face. They had started to rapidly advance towards me. I tried one last time to free my legs. I didn’t know what was happening. Why are they staring at me, why do they seem to be so angry with me and worst, why are they storming towards me?!
Suddenly I felt my legs were free. I galloped across the street. But I had this strange feeling that I had lost something. My hands reached out to pat my pant pockets, to find out if I had my mobile & my wallet. Nothing missing. But I found that I had 2 wallets. Strange! I flipped open the wallet which I couldn’t recognize. It was someone else’s! How the hell did it get into my pocket? But I still felt I was missing something! As I was running, I turned back to look at the crowd that had started to chase me. I could hear shouts of “Hit him” and “Catch him”. But wait, where is my shadow?! It was still stuck there! What the hell is happening? I started to run hard. I hardly had a clue as to what was happening. I found a huge compound wall ahead of me. In one jump, I clutched the ceiling of the compound wall with my right hand. My left hand couldn’t reach it. I was hanging. I could feel the pull of gravity increasing. I could hold it no longer. I thudded onto the ground. The crowd was racing towards me. I picked myself up and leapt again. I missed it. Again, I leapt. This time a divine hand came from the top. It was as if the heavens had opened up. The hand pulled me towards itself. But I wasn’t gaining height. I shook the divine hand back to indicate that it needed to pull harder. And in one swift motion, it summoned in all the energy, dragged me out and I landed heavily on the floor. I winced in pain.
“Wake up, you ass” shouted Sanjay, my roommate! “I have been trying to wake you up since 7 AM. We would be late to office. Get up now and get ready in 15 minutes. Meantime, I will have the sandwiches ready” he screamed. Sam, my other roommate was laughing hysterically. I tried to hide in the embarrassment and rushed to the bathroom. This was our 5th day in another city and in our new 3BHK flat that we had rented out. I didn’t want to irritate Sanjay further by getting late. So I tried to be as fast as I could and was ready in 20 minutes. I skipped the breakfast but packed it for my lunch and off we three went to the bus stand. Fortunately we were on time for the bus. Sam and me occupied the seats that were empty. Sensing my unease, Sam asked, “Was it another bad dream that you had?’’
“Yeah Sam. I don’t know what’s wrong but this is the 5th bad dream that I have had in as my mornings. I mean, One day I was dead, the other day an elephant chased me, then I had an accident, yesterday it was an earthquake and today again it was sort of weird. I have tried changing my sleeping position every day. I have changed the pillow, the bed sheet and the blanket too. I think about all the good things and I have even started to pray before I go to bed! I don’t know what is wrong.” I said, wondering what I really needed to do to get over this. “Change your bedroom” he replied. I looked at him confused. Sam continued, “Change the bedroom. Look, this is a new city, a new house and may be your room doesn’t suit you. I don’t know if you would believe in this but my mom used to mention a lot about Vaastu. Sometimes, if the room or the house doesn’t confirm to your birth star/rashi, then some weird things do happen. Why don’t you move into my bedroom? My room has a double cot anyway.” I looked at him puzzled. I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t swallow what he just said. But what the heck I thought. I decided I try that out tonight.
We came home early as everyone was buoyed by the fact that it was the first weekend here. We had decided we’d go to the nearby jungle resort on Saturday. We got ourselves high on spirits, courtesy few mugs of brewed & fermented – Malted Barley! We had to leave early the next day and so we hit the bed. Next day, all of us were ready and in the bus stand by 6 AM. We took a train and then a jeep which dropped us at the gate of the Jungle Resort. We were escorted inside to the reception in a van. We were told that the next jeep to take us on the forest tour was scheduled at 8 AM. It was still 7.30 AM, so we decided to check out the area and click some pictures. I considered myself Salim Ali when it came to bird watching and clicking pictures of them, especially now that I had purchased a Canon SX110 IS couple of days back, I was very keen to venture into the woods. So with the digicam in my hands, I went for a stroll. That place was breath taking. Lots of trees, lush green hills on the back ground, thick carpet of grass that rose higher than my ankles, birds chirping everywhere. This is the place to be, I thought.
On the way, atop a Mahogany tree, I spotted a cute little woodpecker. I took out my camera, located it through the lens and zoomed in a bit to capture the bird’s close up. I wasn’t happy with the angle and so I went on my haunches and located it again. Now, I wasn’t happy with the lighting and so I took a couple of steps forward. I felt I stepped on something big, soft and slimy. Before I could look down and see what it was, I was clasped, curled up and positioned in a tight circle by a 27 foot, 210 pound Anaconda! The big reptile began to tighten its vice like grip on my body. I could hear my shoulders being crushed. My legs were free but I could hardly move it. Then from behind the reptile spiraled up and positioned its mouth above my head, ready to strike. I could not speak. I could see about a 100 razor sharp, re-curved teeth of its, ready to pull me in. I was choking. I had started to shake vigorously in fright or at least that’s what I thought I was doing. I had given myself up and was ready to face it. Then suddenly, thunder struck, my ears resonated and my head heaved and reverberated in pain. I woke up to the tight slap that Sanjay had implanted on my cheeks!
“You idiot, look at what you’ve done to yourself and Sam. You have kicked him out of the bed, strangulated yourself with the blankets and were choking yourself out. Poor Sam had to shout for help seeing you act like this. Goodness Gracious, what’s wrong with you?” screamed Sanjay. Fortunately Sanjay and Sam went out of the room to get some tea and saved me from further embarrassment. I didn’t know what to say or do. I was having these psychotic dreams in the mornings and I desperately wanted to get over it. That day we decided that I was moving into Sanjay’s room and Sanjay would move out to occupy mine, as his room was bigger with good ventilation! The weekend passed with no more superfluities and another week at office beckoned us.
There were no Monday morning blues, no hangovers and no sulking. I was in the best of moods to start with the work at office. To my surprise, not many were at office that day. Colleagues of mine started to trickle in slowly. I was busy planning the efforts and cost estimation for the new project that we would be taking up. The knock on the door disturbed me. It was our office secretary who wanted my signatures. She looked stunning in her new low neck black designer formals. Her low waist ‘John Lewis’ soft flare pants and the high heels were hard to ignore. She came next to me, bent over, placed the papers on my desk, took out the pen and pointed where I had to sign. As I bent over to sign, I could see her cute little beetle pendent that hung on her necklace, swaying to and fro. I just couldn’t ignore it. She came a bit closer and just when she was about to make the next move, the alarm rang. It was Sunday morning 8 AM!
I got up, finished my bathroom chores, saw that Sanjay and Sam were still sleeping and started to prepare tea for us. Meantime, they had woken up and we were having tea by the balcony. They were quite surprised to see me awake without any mishaps and for a change, in good mood. Sanjay asked me, “So, how does today’s bad dream story go like?” I chuckled and said, “It wasn't bad after all. Just that don’t forget to take your alarm into your room tonight and don’t wake me up tomorrow. I want to sleep just a bit longer!”
PS: Sogni in Italian means Dreams.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Suni, Super aagide ... the flow , the twists and turns u give its just amazing.. U shud really start working on this hobby seriously and turn it into a profession(so that i get more pocket money)heheheh..
Proud of my dear hubby..

Chaitra Chidanand said...

Hahaha yenolo kapi! Abba! Kate bari andre total Indiana Jones style bardiddane :D
Its pretty good :D
What I still am not sure about is how much of this is a figment of your imagination, how much is fact..in both stories?
But I agree with Sam..keep writing!! :)

jyeshta said...

need copyrights and screenplay for my movie making list.... :)
maja banthu...
"Aa Kanasugalu".......
neene dodda anaconda...ninge inondu anaconda bere beka...
Keep going dude.
I liked the statting scene and the climax scene very much....

kusuma said...

interestig!DREAMS ARE always mysterious. don't know why we get such dreams. itoo had such dreams where i could not move my legs when I was in trouble and wanted to escape. you have beautifully connected dreams and reality. ex. anakonda and bed sheets. you also seem to show that nafter series of difficulty you may also expect good things to happen in life .fine.it has suspense,and finally humour. continue writing .all the best. for my information what is your next subject? ha ha ha

Sunil said...

Hi jeejz....nice story wid all twists n turns.....agree wid som...consider making this a profession.... :)

Shalini said...

A superb one ya... The part I liked the most was the way your friends woke you up.. Hehe. ;)

But that was an awesome piece of writing.. :)