Eyes wide shut, broad tales
Do you watch dreams? Wait. A better question would be, do you remember dreams? Turns out almost all of us watch dreams because dreaming is an extension of being asleep. Your body, theoritically, shuts down but your mind stays alert. It keeps coming up with thoughts and ideas and expressions. They are less about visuals and more about consciousness. Feelings. And some of them get channelized into low-budget exclusive film productions: written, directed, produced, edited and watched by you. So, yes, in a way, dreams don’t matter. Just another vain exercise conducted by our brain to kill time. However, if you remember your dreams, they are quite brilliant. A weird game played by you on yourself.
On that note, let me share some of my recent award-winning dreams with you.
I was in the chawl playing cricket on the road with the kids I grew up playing cricket with and there was a turtle struggling in the gutter. I picked it up from the gutter and it had a greenish shell. I was wondering how did it end up down there. There is no way our neighbourhood would have a turtle as a pet. Some fisherman from the jetty must have caught it in his net by mistake and it somehow crawled up the drain, hoping to meet civilization.
We were in a cab and we were arguing about the colour of some domestic stuff (furniture, kitchenware, etc.) and the cab driver kept peeking behind to keep us in check. After a point, I glanced out of the window and at that point, you went silent. I turned my head to see you and you weren’t there next to me. That’s how I woke up. Even in my dreams, the fear and the realization of your absence hurt.
Your wife had delivered a beautiful little girl and we were all excited to see her in the hospital. But the nurse said we weren't allowed in because according to new COVID rules, only parents and immediate family were allowed. So I messaged you to send her pic and you said you can't because it's not a good omen to share baby's pic. We were waiting outside not knowing what to do next. Video call, maybe? The whole dream was spent on seeing her.
We were both little and were in a classroom where your maa was the teacher and our uniforms were a mix of navy blue and white. You were seated in the middle row whereas I was seated next to the window. The entire dream was me trying to send you a message through a chit. Don’t think the message reached you as you were being an attentive student and I was only looking at you. My best guess is that that message reached your mother.
We were in some park with lots and lots of green around. You were laughing about something and I asked you to explain the joke. And you kept laughing. The whole dream was me waiting for you to end your laughter and for you to keep laughing till the end of time. I think you succeeded.
Marlon Brando was a taxi driver and he was telling me stories about Hollywood in Hindi. We then went to meet pappa and he didn’t recognize Brando so I scratched my face and imitated the “I am going to make you an offer you can’t refuse” dialogue – I must have done it in my sleep too for sure – to remind him of the iconic scene in The Godfather (1972). But pappa didn’t recognize him. That was damn embarrassing.
You and I were in a tiny boat in the middle of a lake (or a river) and you were wearing a pink salwar-kameez with yellow dupatta and kept looking at the ripples created by the paddle. Throughout the trip, you didn't look at me even once. I kept looking at you and was thinking to myself that you are beautiful.
I was teaching him how to play chess. This, despite the fact that I knew that it’s quite impossible to teach him. He is a fucking dog, after all. Dogs aren’t interested in chess. They are not interested in anything remotely technical. In my mind, I was still wondering whether Ranga can see the squares on the board at least. After all, aren’t dogs supposed to see things in black and white?
I was driving a metallic blue car with you seated next to me. Some instrumental music playing on then suddenly, somebody say from the backseat “bakwas music…” with a strong accent. Was so shocked to hear a sound that I applied brakes and the car moved off the track. We both looked back and saw my dad seated there looking at us. I didn’t know what to say so I looked at you and you looked at me and then you asked him “kaise ho?” and he smiled back. I pretended everything is cool and restarted the car and kept driving.
I was riding a bike and you were pillion, with your white dupatta constantly flying onto my face. It was frustrating (not because of the dupatta) but because you were telling me something but I couldn’t hear and kept asking “kya?” – but it was a long stretch of tree-covered road so it was nice overall. It often happens in my dream that we never have a proper conversation. Either you are saying something that I don’t listen to or I am saying something that you don’t listen to.
You were going for a haircut and I spent the entire dream pleading you not to. Ek point mein argument ho gaya. This is our first argument in a dream. Weird because although I love long hair, I wouldn’t disagree to its chop-off. Woke up disturbed and went for a haircut myself.
You were at a house somewhere and there was a tiger inside another room. So, the whole time, we were simply deciding—as if it was our decision—what to do with the tiger. You said we should call the police. I said they are busy with the riots. In the end, we decided to let the tiger be because it’s our national animal and it has every right to sleep wherever it feels like sleeping for the night.
There was a big house in front of us. And it apparently belonged to a childhood friend who played cricket with us in the ‘90s. We were allowed in—all four of us—and then as we were walking towards the main door, the security guard comes running at us. He points me out and tells me that I can’t go in. I asked why and he says that I am not wearing any trousers. I look down and there are no trousers. How the hell did I show up there without anything down? More importantly, why didn’t any of the other three ‘childhood’ friends inform me this before?
In the middle of a dream, I woke up and found myself in another dream. Now I don’t know whether I was asleep or awake the whole time. But I know for a fact that I did take a pee break in between as usual. Whatever the dream, whichever the reality.