I was sitting in my class, trying to concentrate, and understand what the professor was teaching. Someone nudged me from behind. I turned and saw one of my batchmates wanted to ask me about something she'd written in her notebook. I told her that it could be discussed after the class and that I was trying to concentrate and understand the topic professor was teaching. After the class, we stood at the edge of the corridor in front of the class, facing the ground below and sky above (our class was on the first floor, in the same room which was the library of my school, APS Dhrangadhra when I was in 9th class), discussing some course topic she was facing trouble with. Many of my batchmates were hooting, shouting and chatting loudly that I couldn't concentrate though I could barely hear the noise! She asked me if I could tell answer her query.
ALARM WENT OFF !!!
I shut the alarm of my mobile, saw the time, 7 o'clock, and decided that it was too early to wake up since today was a holiday, so I slept again.
I saw myself travelling to a lot of places, like a tourist, a lone one though. I visited temples, walked on city streets like 'fashion street', even school functions like sports day/annual function (I saw myself attending my school's sports day!) and at night would return to my room. I also remember travelling by train, sitting alone at the window seat. I visited a temple which was a little below the ground level and when I saw the temple from the main entrance, I could see the whole temple and it looked majestic and splendid, artistic creation. It reminded me of the Shiv temple in Ellora Caves. But this temple was also huge in size and spread over large area.
I realized something during all these days of traveling that I never felt alone during daytime when I was travelling but at night when I returned to my room, I felt lonely. The dim faded yellow light of my room made me feel more lonely.
When I went back home in Pune, I saw everyone in a jolly, festive mood. The house was getting decorated for something (diwali, probably). I saw my father dressed in a suit, adjusting his tie in front of the mirror of the dressing table. I saw my mother dressed in a beautiful saree and my sister wearing some nice dress. My father asked me to pick up one of the boxes of sweets kept in fridge while leaving for someone's place. We went to some place and I saw my father's colleagues and my mother's friends and my sister's friends... everyone was there. My father very fondly was giving sweets to everyone. It was strange that I seem to know no one. Everyone was a stranger to me out there and I somehow didn't feel comfortable there. Amongst the talks between my father and the other officers, one of the officers said something (not directed to me) and I heard it while not directly being a part of the conversation but standing some distance apart. It made me feel the regret and guilt that I was never an achiever in my school days and things hadn't changed till now. I recalled that I never had/have the skills to organize events or people and get your work done by others, work that is important and for which the organizer
is responsible. I could never handle responsibilities and that man forced me to recall this painful truth about myself. I felt more uncomfortable and as I saw other kids in that room, full of vibrant energy and enthusiasm and felt that these kids would do anything better than me.
Suddenly, I saw myself standing on a road and saw a car/truck on fire. Two men were fighting in front of the car/truck on fire. It took me no time to recall that the two men were present in the party that night. I could only watch them and do nothing about it. They hit each other very badly. The elder man dominated the fight and in one final blow, knocked the younger man (he was wearing spectacles and a cloth mask on his eyes which he took off before falling) to the road. Perhaps he died.
When I started to run for help, the whole scene around me changed and I saw myself standing on a calm road, with a few two wheelers moving on both sides of the road. The two men had vanished, so had the burning car. I asked a rickshaw puller if he had seen something of that sort and he said that he had been standing on that road since early morning that day. He said such things never happened and that I must be hallucinating/dreaming. He asked me if I needed a
ride. I said if he could leave me till the central railway station.
The rickshaw puller on our way told me that companies don't reveal their secrets of how they work, their strategies, their plans. Everything is a black box which a user can use. The black box may be free or it may cost something. (I was surprised at the amount of information that rickshaw puller had!) He said that one of the companies actually receives it's visitors at the airport and takes them in a black car, with black windows and the visitor can't see the
route by which he/she is taken to that company. (He said that such was the idea of Larry Page and Sergey Brin, but of course it was my brain churning strange thoughts! :D )
I reached the central station and looked at it from outside for a few seconds. This was the last I saw before I woke up.
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