Agni pareeksha
The hero of the story you’re about to read was tight asleep on a jolly fine morning. It was weekend and there was no worry of assaulting…
The hero of the story you’re about to read was tight asleep on a jolly fine morning. It was weekend and there was no worry of assaulting the alarm clock. There are innumerable downsides in being a single young man living on his own but it comes with its exclusive perks too. One of them includes the freedom of not having to plan anything. No plans for lunch. No plans for dinner. Breakfast? What’s that? Just dozing off till there’s no doze left in the body before picking oneself up from the bed towards the bathroom.
Blissful, isn’t it?
Although there were no plans as such, the usual Sunday roster was about to unfold. Getting up-getting fresh-getting something to eat-getting netflix-etc. His friends were supposed to show up at his place in the evening. In other words, he had nothing in particular to accomplish in the meantime. Had he slept till sunset, absolutely nothing would have changed in the grander scheme of things. The world outside would have functioned perfectly well without his assistance. “Too much excitement in life,” an observant might add wryly.
What he was apparently missing was unraveling behind his eyelids. An action-packed drama, nonetheless. It so happened that our man was having a weird dream wherein he could see his air-conditioner setting itself on fire; as ironic as it sounds. Half of it was almost melting down and the other half was busy embracing the goodness of fire. A thought ran through this head—“What does this dream mean?” — making him wonder whether it was a modernist sign for a bad news to occur? Or was it a cue for the way he was leading his life; too cool to be hurt by the realities of the world but eventually ending up all burnt? Or, maybe, was it an artistic representation of the relationship he has with his job; he’s bound to consume or be consumed by it?
In other news, the fire was getting yellower, only to be overshadowed by the dark smoke emanating from the AC. Meanwhile, our hero’s head was invaded by questions about the dream he was watching. The kind of dream where you know you’re in a dream so you assure yourself sub-subconsciously like Ravi Shastri does with his commentary.
“What the fuck?” he screamed. With his eyes open, that is.
Plot twist: They were open for quite some time now. If not minutes, then at least a couple of seconds.
He rose from his bed on account of the hot sensation he felt in his toes. Turns out he wasn’t dreaming at all and his AC has indeed caught fire. The molten plastic was crawling down the wall awkwardly and on to his bed, persuading the bed-sheet to join in on the bonfire.
Our hero lost track of time. He doesn’t know how much time he wasted in assuming that he was watching a dream instead of a live action coverage inside his own room. Regardless, he got up, switched off the AC button, pushed the bed away from the wall, opened the windows and ran out of the door howling for help.
Long story short, his dream did come true that morning.