Friday, April 22, 2011

The girl with infectious dreams

She was three and a half year old when they discovered it. Her mother had started suspecting a little earlier but dismissed the thought as a figment of imagination. How could someone’s dreams be infectious? It can happen only metaphorically. No two people, no matter how close they are, can dream exactly same dreams. Even if they do, this is an extremely rare occurrence. But now it was confirmed. Her dreams were infectious. Whoever slept next to her dreamt the same dreams as her. What was the meaning of this? Was she a witch? A bad omen for the family? They could not tell as nothing considerably bad had happened to them since her birth. 

She looked at them discussing all this with her deep, dark eyes. She understood some of it. Most importantly, she understood that from that day on she would never get to sleep with her mother. She would have to sleep alone. She would not have her mother to cling on to when she had a nightmare. She would have to deal with the fear of lizards crawling on her bed or some dark eyes staring from behind the curtains on her own. She did not protest because though she was very young she had understood that nothing would make them change their plans. They gave her the pink colored teddy for comfort.

Soon they realized that despite sleeping in different rooms, her dreams were as infectious as before. They hadn’t dreamt a personal dream since long. They were getting increasingly desperate for dreaming their own dreams. Dreams are an intensely personal experience. They could not keep dreaming someone else’s dreams forever. What would happen to their individuality? How would they vent out their emotions via dreams? Dreams also help you know yourself better but they longer had this option available. Their life was in a limbo especially after this discovery because earlier they were ignorant about the truth that was insidiously eating away their self without them realizing it, just like an undetected cancer. It is only when the cancer is detected that people’s lives change. Similarly, this discovery had put up an existential question in front of them.

Her dreams probably slipped out from the opened windows, or from the slit beneath the doors. So, they built a soundproof room for her with no openings whatsoever. She was to sleep in that for as long as she lived there. They were determined to get their dreams back and wanted to leave no stone unturned. She silently saw all that with those dark, deep eyes. No expression could be read in those eyes except for a blank resignation.

I first met her when she was six. I was a distant relative of her father. When her parents learnt that I was into analysis of dreams, they invited me over. Many researchers and other curious kinds had contacted them for letting them conduct research on their daughter but they refused. They could not let her become a lab specimen. Now that their dreams had become their own (the idea of a sound-proof room had worked), they did feel guilty about making their young daughter sleep alone in such a room.   However, the greed of having personal dreams was far too strong to let her sleep with them.

When I first saw her, she was sitting in her room reading a book. Long curly locks covered her face. A beautiful face!  She looked up from her book when she detected my silent presence. The very first look told me that she was unlike other kids. Her eyes were not like that of a 6-year old. They were deep and stable. They did not seem to belong to the rest of her body. They looked aged, with not even a hint of childishness. It was hard to maintain my gaze while looking at those eyes. But I did manage to do that with considerable effort. I saw a small vortex in the middle of her eyes, not at the surface of her eyes but somewhere deep inside. It was too small to be noticed but no discerning eye could escape it. I wondered why her parents never mentioned that to me. They probably never noticed it. So I decided against speaking about it to them. The vortex was moving with considerable speed but not fast enough to create any alarm. I suppose the presence of the vortex in the depth of her eyes gave semblance of stability to her gaze which I had found striking at first.

So was it the presence of this vortex that was responsible for those infectious dreams? It probably engulfed all the dreams inside it and then spread her dreams around. This was only a hypothesis and there was no way to confirm it. In any case, I needed to know if her dreams were really infectious. So I decided to sleep in the same room with her. When her parents told her so, they thought she would be happy as she had been sleeping alone all these years and finally would have a company. But she did not seem particularly happy though she did look slightly surprised at this announcement. She merely nodded and accepted the decision that her parents had made for her. I tried to find out the reason behind such a cold response. From what her parents told me, she was not totally expressionless. Though not bursting with emotions like children of her age, she did show normal expressions. Probably she was more comfortable sleeping alone and saw me as an intruder. Or probably she knew that I was not going to be there forever and when I would leave, she would again have to sleep alone.

We spoke about mundane things for couple of hours before we went to bed so that she gets more comfortable sleeping in the same room with me. I had difficulty sleeping initially. It seemed like my mind was resisting any kind of encroachment into its territory. But it finally gave up and I started dreaming. It was amazing how the next morning I clearly remembered all my dreams. None of them belonged to me. The symbols, the people, all were alien to me. I did figure in one of them but was just present in the background. I did not have to confirm with her but I anyways did. As I had expected, her dreams had infiltrated my mind. For all the days I stayed with her, I had stopped dreaming my own dreams. I was controlled by her dreams.

I decided to visit her again next year to carry on with my research. But more than the research, it was my curiosity that brought me back to her. I wanted to know what shape were her dreams taking and if they had the same power. I got my answer as soon as I met her. The vortex in her eyes was speedier than before. It did not look menacing just now but had acquired greater speed than before and her eyes were even more stable. I knew that this time, my experience would be more intense than the last time. I was proved right in the very first night. Her dreams had started affecting me even when I was awake. I was losing myself to her dreams. It was becoming increasingly difficult to sustain myself in this de-personalizing situation. I was no longer me. The week that I spent there saw me turning into a zombie-like creature. It totally shook me to the core.

I did not have the courage to see her again. I lost touch with her parents too. But after couple of years I heard from them again. I inquired about her. They told me that her dreams had started penetrating the walls of her sound proof room. Even their neighbours were getting infected with her dreams that were getting increasingly bizarre. They had stopped living their own lives. They wanted me to come to their place for one last time. ‘One last time’? Why would they say so? Probably they did not want to trouble me any further. I tried to look for excuses but could not come up with any. So I decided to visit her. The house looked a little menacing. Things looked out of place and the air was a little too stifling. She had just woken up. From what her parents told me, she spent most of her day sleeping. She looked at me. The vortex had now become faster than ever before. It had to be stopped before it destroyed everything around it. It was already on its way. Her parents looked ghostly. They tried to stay awake as much as possible and tried to sleep when she was awake. But now that she spent most of her time sleeping, they had little choice but to dream the dreams that she would conjure for them.

Her parents said that they called me because she wanted to meet me for the one last time. I smiled at her and said that this was not the last time I was seeing her. I will definitely come again. But that got no response from anyone. She had apparently become really attached to me in my earlier visits to her. She would inquire about me often but her parents told her that they could not trace me. I understood that the real reason was that they realized that I was probably too scared to come visit them again. But why now I thought to myself. She told me she knew that her dreams were infectious. She had heard about it from her parents but she herself did not realize that. She felt deeply sorry about it but did not know how to stop it. The situation had worsened as she could hardly stay up for more than 3-4 hours at a stretch these days no matter how hard she tried. But that day she stayed up talking to me for several hours. We had dinner together. Her parents had told me earlier that they had booked a hotel for me to stay overnight.

I went to the hotel room and thought over the conversation we had. I realized that the person I was talking to was not the person to whom those eyes belonged. It was almost like two people were living in one body. While she was expressing her grief for causing so much pain to her parents, her entire body agreed with her. But not those eyes. The vortex had its same menacing speed and looked ready to gulp everything down. I felt sorry for her as those eyes were not hers. They would not listen to her. They belonged to the other invisible person inside her. She was being controlled by that person, just like her dreams were controlling everyone else around her.

Next morning the weather suddenly turned sour. It was terribly windy. Several trees had fallen down and many houses were damaged. My flight was postponed. I was supposed to have my breakfast with them before leaving but could not leave the hotel room. I tried calling them several times before her father answered the call. His voice was unsure. The way he said ‘hello’ told me something was wrong. She died last night, he said. The receiver almost fell off my hands. Now I knew the meaning of ‘one last time’. They had put her to sleep forever. I knew it. They said that it was probably food poisoning but I know there was no food involved in the poisoning. I was silent for couple of seconds before asking him to close her eyes if they were open. He was surprised and said they were open indeed. She had died with her eyes open. The eyes did not want to give up so soon I thought to myself. Since she died that way, they did not want to disturb it. I requested them to do so without further delay. Hesitatingly he closed them. In some time the weather became normal again. I decided against visiting her house.

I changed my phone number and moved to some other place. I never visited that city again. I had a strange mix of guilt and relief inside me. I remembered those lips and her last words kept ringing in my ears. I knew I could not have done anything to save her, but I was there when she died and that was enough to fill me with guilt. However, I also felt relieved as I could see a calamity unfolding. The vortex in her eyes had to be stopped. There was no other way than this. She had to be put to sleep forever. I could understand the pain of her parents but they had no other option left. Their daughter was no longer theirs. In fact she was never theirs. She belonged to those eyes that controlled her existence ever since she was born. I knew that they did not kill her for themselves. If this was the case, they would have done this long time back. They killed her because her dreams had started infecting others. It was taking the shape of an epidemic. The neighbours had already started complaining. They wanted to put an end to it before it threw the entire place off balance.

Some time back I heard from a relative that her parents died soon after their daughter died when their car was caught in a blizzard and the engine caught fire. Their bodies were charred beyond recognition. Strange way to die, that relative said. But I knew that it was the last act of revenge by those eyes. 

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

A tolerably hot summer afternoon and the guy with a spade


I was standing outside an auditorium in a dusty corridor on a summer afternoon.  Obviously, the place had not been cleaned since several days. The dust had now become a part of the floor and the walls. It seemed that removing the dust now would rob the place of its essence. I suppose this very thought forbade the cleaners to broom the floor. It was tolerably hot that day. I understand that the expression “tolerably hot” does not convey much meaning as what may be unbearably hot for one may not be so for another. I have seen people working under sun barefooted when it is 42 degrees outside while I would be endlessly complaining about the heat sitting inside my air conditioned car sipping my cold drink usually falling sick if I would have to stand out in the sun. Not that I was always this way. There was a time when I would spend several hours out in the sun during the hottest hours of the day. But now my tolerance has gone down. So, it was a tolerably hot day for me while I was standing outside the auditorium.

What exactly was I doing there standing alone in that dusty corridor? Not much of fun there for sure. I had accompanied my sister to this place who was practicing in the auditorium infested with pigeons and their droppings. She thought that I had nothing to do at home and would be better off seeing her practice songs for an upcoming event. I protested initially saying that I had to finish off a book by Murakami but she still thought I had nothing to do. I gave in. We reached this pigeon hole. I wondered how could someone practice in such a place. But according to my sister this was the only place available for practice. I tried to listen to their music for sometime amidst the cooing of the pigeons who were loudly protesting against the human encroachment of their home.

After a while I thought it would be better if I take a whiff of fresh air before my breath starts smelling of pigeons. And that was when I found myself standing in that dusty corridor with ancient dust all around. At a distance of 50 meters I saw a boy of around 15-16 years of age digging the cemented road. I could not see why would someone employ him for such a task but there he was digging. His movements were rather slow and he looked bored but he continued digging the cemented road.

Just as I was watching him I suddenly felt a pain. It rose from my stomach and ended in my throat and stayed there for long. I was not alarmed by this sudden excitement in my viscera. I have experienced this pain several times. I knew what it was.  It was the pain of loneliness. It has vicarious origins, never personal. It is not like I experience this pain whenever I see someone alone. Far from it! I have had it even when I see someone in the midst of a myriad of people. It is the loneliness of the soul. The soul can feel lonely even when amongst several people. Similarly, a person sitting alone in his room can be perfectly happy with his soul not feeling the slightest agony of loneliness. It is usually the eyes that give away the secrets of the soul but not always so. Sometimes it is the way the lips quiver that squeal on the soul, sometimes it is the unsure hands.

In this particular case, the boy’s soul was withering in its lonely existence. There was certain forlornness in his movements that conveyed the loneliness pretty clearly. I seldom fail to notice such lonely souls. It is almost like my eyes are always looking for them. And I am almost never wrong. I am not a person whom you can call talented. In fact, people usually cite me as an example when talking of a totally talentless individual. But I think otherwise. I think everyone has at least one talent. In my case, it is the ability to discover lonely souls. Not that this talent is especially useful. On the contrary, it fills me with sadness to see these lonely souls as their loneliness radiates special kind of pathos that engulfs me from all around and it requires great efforts to come out of the grief.

But despite being the discoverer of loneliness in others, I have never felt lonely. I enjoy my solitude. I do not have too many friends and I hardly go out. People think that because of this I must be gripped in lonely gloominess. Someone once called me a recluse. But I am not a recluse. It is just that I enjoy my company over the company of many others whom I find rather shallow and two-dimensional. Unfortunately, that excludes more than half of the people I know so I have limited choice. But loneliness has never managed to make me its prey though it has tried to do so several times. I am sure it has special hatred against me for detecting its insidious presence in others when they themselves remain oblivious to its presence inside them many times. It usually whisks past me, but that is about it. Never has there been an encounter between it and my soul. They still remain strangers to each other. All it can do is to make me sad about its presence in others. Just like the pain I felt when I saw the guy with a spade on that summer afternoon. I realized that I could not take away his deep seated loneliness.

I just stood there looking at him as I was rendered motionless by the intensity of the loneliness of his soul. I suppose my gaze was very strong as he lifted his head suddenly to look at me. I gave him a smile, trying to put up a small fight for him against his loneliness. He looked around himself to confirm if I was actually smiling at him. He did not want to take a chance by smiling back at me in case my smile was for someone else. It seemed it had been quite some time since someone smiled at him and also since he had smiled because his smile looked a little rusted due to disuse. He had difficulty working those muscles that had not been used since long. Finally a confused smile did manage to creep on his dry lips. My smile was becoming a little too heavy for me to carry it on for long. I decided to go inside before he noticed my uneasiness. I turned back to walk towards the auditorium where someone was singing Bryan Adams’ “Please Forgive Me”. I turned to look at the boy one last time with this song playing in my head. He had gone back to his digging and was no longer looking at me.

Saturday, April 02, 2011

Clockwork women

It was a strange morning! The colours seemed to have lost their essence. The reds, the oranges, the blues, the violets, all looked subdued and frightened. It seemed as if someone had reprimanded them for revealing their true bright selves and therefore they had to wear a veil to not let their brilliance show.

I was in a hurry to reach my classes on time, yet I didn’t fail to notice the change. Though the colours were pale, I felt as if the happenings of the world were clearer to me than ever before. While I was walking towards the bus stop, I saw several women walking around. They seemed normal until I saw their backs. Each had a key behind! They were clockwork women! I saw faces that resembled my friends, cousins, aunts, and neighbours. Was I in a toy land? I couldn’t tell! Everything seemed so real. I heard them laugh and talk amongst each other like always. The only thing different about them was the key on their backs. Was it always there and it was only now that I noticed it? Was it because of lack of sleep that I was seeing things? I had no way to find out. I was too late for my class to stop and ask them.

I couldn’t find a bus so had to walk to my class. I would be extremely late but that was no excuse to not attend it. As I was walking a sudden realization added absurdity to that day which had already been far too surreal. I could see and hear things through the walls. I could hear the silent murmurs coming from women around. I could see the keys of the clockwork women being wound up by the men of the house, sometimes father, sometimes brother, sometimes husband. Strangely, all these men had a tail coming out which made them look like some strange animal. The world was becoming increasingly bizarre.

These clockwork women could move only as much as they were wound up by their men. They were programmed to act in a particular way. They were not supposed to speak but listen. When their winding would end, they would stand in a corner with a plastic smile on their faces. When needed someone would wind them up again and they would perform their routine tasks. They were required to be dolled up all the time like a perfectly manicured garden which is a source of nighbour’s envy and owner’s pride. Soft and smooth skin, not a millimeter of body hair for which they would have to undergo long grueling sessions once in every two weeks and once a week for the more rebellious ones.

The clockwork women could not express their desires and opinions. They were either not programmed to do so or their winding ran out when they tried to do so. They were kicked when they deviated from their expected behavior and were not supposed to retaliate to the abuses. They had to bear it all with a silent smile. But I could see that their smiles never reached their eyes. I wondered if they had the energy inside to let go of the key and function on their own. I wanted to ask them these questions but I was getting late. They worked the entire day but were required to be properly dressed in their sarees and skirts. Some of them wore jeans too. Whatever be their dressing, they all wore the same sad smile.

Though I was late, my curiosity was intact. I tried to listen to the conversations between these women. Some of them talked about their men, some about their children. There were some who talked softly about the need to have a key. Some girls who had recently discovered that they had keys on their backs were being explained its importance by their clockwork mothers. Some were already planning to pull it and throw it away no matter how much it hurt. But they were scared as there were all kinds of stories circulating about women who threw away their keys and ended up paying for it by their blood. There was a general feeling of learned helplessness in the air which was stifling.

I discovered that I was perspiring profusely. Was it the walking or the strange happenings in my surrounding that soaked me in my sweat? I couldn’t answer that question too, just like I was unable to answer the reason behind the bizarreness around me. The perspiration had increased to the extent that it was forming poodles of sweat around me. I was going to drown in my own sweat. I ran as fast as I could but my clothes were heavy and offered resistance. I was drowning. Sweaty water reached to my neck. I could hardly breathe.

I opened my eyes and found myself in my room lying on my bed. I probably fell unconscious and someone brought me back. Or was I dreaming? I don’t know. But my body was still wet with sweat. It was a hot summer night and the air conditioning was not working. One of those frequent power cuts. I still didn’t know if it was a dream or was I saved from drowning and brought to my house by a noble soul. May be I slept through out and was woken up by the indomitable heat. I knew I had tumbled upon a truth which no one spoke about. It was almost an epiphany! Instinctively I touched my back to check if there was a key there. “Not as yet!” I thought. With that the air conditioner started working again and the room became cool enough to lull me into a deep sleep in the darkest hour of the night.