DreamTheatre 02

Disclaimer: The following chronicles are accounts of dreams. They might not make any sense whatsoever, but I find it imperative to record them. So there go the chronicles of a million contradictions and random, involuntary thoughts. Although I am tempted to include them, no interpretation, no separate facts, no representation of real life or real things is intentionally added here. There is no theory subscribed to. All coincidences are purely imaginary, and bear who-knows-what resemblance to anything living or dead.

We're at some kind of gigantic secret medical research facility, complete with ineffective tube-lights, a few bright lamps, seepage, huge mortuaries with no sign of life or death, randomly spilt blood-stains and the familiar odour of chloroform. By 'we', I mean a set of people with some known faces. We roam about aimlessly in the facility, until we're given a small, but heavy box that must be transported to another place. And this must be done with the help of the dilapidated truck that I am to drive. I don't seem to have the slightest idea about driving that god-forsaken machine, but I'm doing it anyway. I'm leaning outside, steering with one hand, clutching with one foot and when I have to shift, I lean inside and reach for the gears. I rarely go beyond the first gear. The gears are awful. With the other hand, I'm waving, almost routinely, at pedestrians, Shanghai-style rickshaws, kids playing on the road and hawkers to move the hell out of my way. I'm going at nothing more than about ten kilometers per hour. The road seems very similar to Lakeside, I think to myself. On the left side, though, exists a vast expanse of barren wasteland and on the right, buildings very similar to those at the IIT Bombay campus.

Once we reach the destination, I transform into a little boy. The place looks like a Vietnamese war camp. The infiniteness of inundated mud, guns and explosives detonating in the distance make up the faint view of the stretch between my feet and the horizon. I'm not bothered. I find myself playing around with three other kids. One of them is a girl, and she's the eldest among us. Of the other two boys, one is barely an infant. We decide to go into one of the temporary tents. There is a black and white television there, playing a video. The video has the four of us being molested by a middle-aged man. I shall forbear describing the excesses of this scene but to say the least, it isn't pretty according to either classical or contemporary ethics. We purposefully watch the entire video, and laugh wildly about it soon after. We rush outside into the dirt and grime ourselves filthy in the mud, none of us wearing anything below the waist. We jokingly fight, trying to reach a consensus as to which one of us screamed the loudest on the video.

Four women notice and stop beside us. One of them immediately relates to what transpires. They take us to the small, heavy box and open it. Within lies one photograph and she asks if that was him. Yes, it was.

DreamTheatre 01

Disclaimer : The following chronicles are accounts of dreams. They might not make any sense whatsoever, but I somehow find it imperative to record them. So there go the chronicles of a million contradictions and random, involuntary thoughts. Although I am tempted to include them, no interpretation, no separate facts, no representation of real life or real things is intentionally added here. There is no theory subscribed to. All coincidences are purely imaginary, and bear who-knows-what resemblance to anything living or dead or trying to be alive.

The night of May the 24th, 2007.

I am a prince, the would-be 18th king*, of the Rajputana clan. My father is the present emperor, ever since my grand-father had decided to hand over the helm of worldly activity to him. My grand-father looks forlorn, and my father, determined - all, including me, dressed simplistically, but with vibrant colours. However, there is immense tension in the household as there is an argument regarding who will climb down the hill first. On the top of this hill is none other than the Rajputana palace. Through the torrential rain, I was one of the last to climb down, followed by servants clad in white. We reach down to a barren, red land, where we continue the argument.

There is a blank**.

My little cousins and I are all aboard a super-fast train, extremely smooth and complete with fibre-glass window-panes and automatic doors. This time, all of us clad in white. All my cousins are wearing a transparent white traditional Muslim head-cover, but I am not. There are no seats; we are all sitting on the ground. Suddenly, a Muslim fundamentalist enters the train from infinity, with an automatic black rifle. He sports a white kurta-pyjama, has a young black beard and has the appropriate head-cover. He shoots and kills each person without the headgear. Nobody gets up in panic, all sit and wait; and so do I. When he reaches me, he pumps in six bullets straight into my head. Immediately afterwards, his attire turns blue. I feel heavy, but I get up and grab him by the collar, and shove his head out of the running train door. His head is severed, yet no blood is spilt. He is lifeless and I leave him on the floor, only to return to my seat on the ground.

* From what I remember, there was a papyrus script, engulfed in smoke, and on it was written in English with red ink the successive kings, I assume. And the last on the list, number 18, was my real name. It seems I tried to turn back the pages to 'visit' my ancestors, but there were no names against the previous numbers, starting, of course with 1.

** Let me term a sequence of events I cannot recall as a blank.