22nd Jan 2014, Morning.

The day was cloudy and windy and the waves were wild. I was standing at the deck of a ship with my parents and my sister, among other tourists who had set sail on that ship with us. I never got to see our cabin  because all this time we were roaming on the deck and inside the ship and exploring the ship. This was the first time either of us had set foot on a ship and we were all every excited. My sister seemed a bit cautious of this new place so was rather silent but I think she was slowly soaking it all in.
I remember peeping into the insides of a big restaurant through the crystal glass panes of the thick wooden doors while we were at the deck. I could feel the ship moving under my feet, that slow wobbly motion of the vessel that gives some people sea sickness. However I seemed to enjoy it.
Next day the weather was brighter and the sea was calm. It felt like post-breakfast hour when we were once again standing on the deck and that faint sunshine was quite beautiful. It was almost noon when someone approached us and told my father about the new sea activity that came within the package we had booked. It involved two people who could take a ride on the sea in a new compact well streamlined model of a water scooter which was even covered at the top so that if it topples, it can be made to turn back to its normal position again. He shared the pictures of this new model and then, since we had nothing else to do, we went to check out this in action.
They were slowly suspending these from the ropes, like they do with lifeboats (and these would make great lifeboats, btw), and I saw a couple get into one of these 'pods' as they looked like. The wife seemed quite thrilled (read: scared) and the husband tried to smile at the camera. Apparently they were the first ones to try these out. The steering wheel caught my attention, it was so thin! I saw the husband hold it and it bent under his grip. I saw the next pod closely and saw the steering, the seats etc. My father was almost ready to send me and my sister down in the open sea. I looked at my sister and she was also looking at the pod, and I realized she had no idea the dangers at the sea. It was like walking on the treetops, what lay beneath was beyond our comprehension. Besides, we've all seen what sharks can do, in the movies and Discovery channels. They assured that this part of the sea was least inhabited and so didn't have any sharks or other sea predators but I didn't want to take any chances.
Very few people get to see a real shark in action before they die but I wasn't going to be one of them! So I refused, my fear evident in my face and voice, so my sister also had to miss out on the fun. She did look disappointed and gave one last look to that empty pod which was then occupied by another newly married couple.

16th Jan 2014, Morning

I saw myself in a classroom with lots of other people of my age, sitting scattered across the room on their classroom wooden desks (a chair with a fold-able table like surface). It looked like post-sunset as the old asbestos roof classroom was dimly lit by a couple of light bulbs and the mood in the room was lethargic, as if this was a night class of some sort.
So while everybody sat there scribbling down, some with gusto, some with pride while a few with pleasant delight, I just sat there trying to recall all that I had done in the last few years ever since I started working. Apparently our teacher had asked us to write down about our job, what we currently do, what are our roles and responsibilities etc. and I was not just at a loss of words but also at a loss of thoughts!
So I decided to sneak peek into someone else's "essay" which is what it looked like everyone was writing since they all seemed engrossed in thinking, and scribbling, and thinking again. I saw one guy had "designed" a template in that one page space so as to fit as much information as possible and at the same time keeping everything as visible as possible. I liked it! And I slid it from below his hand, to his utter amazement of course.
"Make another one." I said with a straight face, then added, "I really appreciate your help, thanks."
Few minutes later the teacher started looking into everybody's paper while they still continued to scribble. I say scribble because that's what it sounded to me like. She looked into my paper and somehow identified that it wasn't my work. Perhaps she saw the difference in the two handwriting. Without telling me, she pulled the paper from below my hands while my pen wasn't touching the paper, and looked at it closely. I looked up at her, hoping that she'd just return it and get back to looking into others' papers.
"This is not your work, whose work is this?" She said loudly enough for everyone to hear.
The guy sitting beside me raised his hand hesitatingly while looking at me as if for my permission.
She returned it to him and gave me a new fresh plain sheet of white paper and asked me to start all over again. I was scared, angry and hurt.
"Look at his work." She said, pointing to Kautuk, who suddenly looked up when he realized that everyone was looking at him. I did look and yes, it was very well done, or very well written, same thing I guess. He had his own template and the teacher later left the remark, 'stylish' in red near the top right corner, where she found some space to scribble.
Next I saw myself walking into that classroom but from the other door, not the main door. Perhaps I had gone out for fresh air, or this was the next day and I had taken another route to this place so used the other door to enter. That blank sheet of paper was still in my hand while I looked around for vacant chair to sit. I asked someone sitting in the first row if the seat beside her was vacant. She replied in an affirmative, looking in the direction of the projector screen, waiting for it to come to life.

15th Oct 2013, Evening

I saw myself with a very big family, many strangers who seemed to be my relatives, including many little children. We were at some place where the corridor looked like the terrace of my Mall road's house. Some kids were complaining about wasps. My mom and I went out with them to the terrace and I saw some wasps even though it was after dusk and dark bluish lighting in the environment. Some kid pointed out the wasps nest and we saw them flying out of it. We rushed the kids inside, and we followed. When indoors, I saw that the wasp had bit me in my left arm. I showed my mom the swelling which was very BIG. I found its sting floating in the brownish puss. I took it and threw it away, and cleaned up the puss. Then I went out in anger and destroyed their nests.
Next I saw three couples, all hero-heroines from 70s, like Amitabh Bachchan, Shashi Kapoor, Hema Malini and all in a boat at that twilight time going from somewhere towards a temple area which looked like Varanasi or Kashi's dham. I saw myself asking this heroine sitting in the boat few questions on relationships, it felt like an interview. Actually they were also keeping weapons in case they were attacked.

11th March 2013, Morning

I saw myself in some fort. I was learning song writing by a renowned expert! I had promised my friend that I'd get better at it and will write more and better lyrics for him. We were a great team. One day I wrote something really good and wanted to show it to my teacher before anyone else could see it or use it. I didn't want to go through the regular stairs leading up to his chamber at the top most floor. I decided to go from outside the fort. I took the stairs circumventing the outer periphery. After a flight of stairs there was steep slope. The fort was made of stone and so wasn't slippery, my shoes could get a good grip and my bare feet better grip but I was standing on the edge. Suddenly the supporting barrier that one often has in terraces to prevent someone from falling, the stone made barrier just moved behind me, got dislocated I think, and fell, leaving me open to fall. I looked up at the slopy path, the stairs above and the steep wall that I would need to climb after that to reach my teacher. With scroll in which I had written the song in my right hand and fear in my legs, I stood there wondering was this ever a good idea.

23rd August 2013, Morning

I see myself in a train with my family. I am planning the trip with my father, to Pune, then Mumbai, then few other places that we planned to visit within next 10 days. We reach Pune and visit my uncle's house. From there my father, I and my uncle leave for Mumbai in a local train. My uncle insisted on coming along to meet our relatives.
The local train had interesting arrangement of seats. There was two columns of two seater benches one behind the other and on the periphery were single chairs rows with the back towards the glass upper half of the wall. I was looking outside at the skyscrapers of Mumbai through the droplets covered glass interface of the wall. Just then my uncle got a call and we learned we couldn't meet the relatives so there was nothing else to do and we had to head back. On reaching Mumbai, I got down to see if we could get earliest ticket back to Pune. Since I had come to Mumbai after many years, I had lost touch and it took me some time to run around and figure out what was where. What perturbed me was that my uncle and father were comfortably relaxed, sitting in the same bogie. I was shocked to see this when I returned to bogie to ask them for help! My uncle, in a surprised tone asked me, 'Where did you go all of a sudden? You got something to eat for us?'
'I went to get the tickets for our return journey. Shouldn't we get the tickets asap so that we could reach home before night?' I saw that my uncle looked amused.
That moment I felt the train move and I saw outside, the train was moving in the opposite direction, retracing its path.
Rest of the journey, I sat on the periphery seat and looked outside through the glass interface. Once we had left the platform, it started drizzling again. Through the droplets covered glass, I looked at the skyscrapers and the city bathed in water and grey. I heard some college kids arguing about something and I responded, 'Koi bhi kaam badaa ya chota nahi hota, bas chutiyapa ya dilchasp hota hai' (no work is big or small, just boring or interesting). The guys readily seemed to agree to me but the girls kept arguing so they went back to argument.
I turned and looked at the grey city again. While watching a drop slide across the glass, I got an epiphany that tried to explain my life and other's life who complain that 'life isn't fair'. It just occurred to me that maybe life isn't fair, or maybe life is just playing a game or writing a story, placing its players or characters in various situations and when the buildup is done, when the right time comes, the final move is made and the end game commences. We all have a role to play in the game of life.

18th Sept 2013, Late Morning

I saw myself standing at the center of some small town area, under the archaic looking streetlamp which never worked. It was reasonably dark but the street ahead and the shops on it were visible, so was the board on this streetlamp post, advertising a very famous coaching center for cracking CAT and other B-school entrance exams.
I stood there with my manager and a couple of other people and we were looking for a free room on that street, to hold our meeting. Most of the rooms there were classrooms where when we peeped in, saw students sitting and learning. It reminded me of those days when I attended coaching for cracking CAT. I had enjoyed the classes but wasn't really interested in the management program admission.
Later I saw this young girl, college student I guess, standing behind my manager who suddenly realized that and turned and they laughed at the same time. He asked her not to sneak up on him like that, he gets quite scared! She was his daughter who was taking coaching there. After their brief conversation and our realization that we won't get any free room today, we were ready to leave. All of a sudden this girl asked her father if I could walk her to her classroom. That was weird! But her father, being a cool guy, waved his left hand in the gesture asking me to leave and escort her.
Being in a situation I have never been before, I did what I do best, kept quiet! Once we reached her classroom, I think she invited me in and the room was empty because next thing I remember sitting on some desk, one of the many desks which had schoolbags and books on them, and chatting with her, smiling and laughing. I don't remember how many hours we spent talking but it was fun, refreshing.

30th June 2013, Late Morning

I saw myself in a big hall where they'd kept us. They seemed to be waiting for the night to pass. I was sitting with some of my friends, scared. They said we were under attack. My mother said to me that all my father wanted for us was to see this part of the country but he had never anticipated this would happen. I said, I
understand, but where is he? He was nowhere to be seen.
My little sister along with other young kids were made to run errands with the understanding that they won't shoot kids. I saw her through the water drops covered glass window, carrying something onto our side. Next scene we were still there, but now we were not under protection but as hostages. This time my mother was not there beside me, only my friends were there. One of my friends felt something was nudging against his lower back, on retrieving it was found out to be a video camera, the big ones journalists are shown to use. The terrorist thought that we had weapon so pointed his machine gun, closely strapped to his shoulder, at us. Ironical it was, a helmet wearing soldier in uniform replaced by a face covering terrorist, although both had same kind of gun strapped closely to their body and same stance of attack.
The terrorist looked rather excited, I could see it in his eyes. He took the video camera from us, fondly looked at it and started fidgeting with its buttons. He showed us the video of this conquest and said they had recorded many such conquests. He told us it was his friend who enjoyed doing all this, who was gunned down by the military commandos, but his camera had survived.
Meanwhile on TV at one corner of our hostage hall, I saw one of my friends getting a prestigious award, it was Oscar I guess but it didn't look like one. It was broader and thinner and wooden. Somehow while giving her the award, the trophy broke from the center into two equal halves being held strongly by its wooden stand. She got angry, really angry and started criticizing how callous the organizers had been for it was no local affair but an international event covered by media all across the world, all into the mike for everyone to hear and know. Within 5 minutes, a new trophy was presented, and to the organizers relief, this one didn't break.
I saw myself looking at my father on one chair and some other guy on the other side, talking to his comrades regarding implanting some I.C. chip, some tiny device in my father's skin as part of their mission. This they did perhaps because my father is an army officer. Later they left, freeing all of us? I was really concerned regarding that device and its effects. I was told by some expert that it only leads to mild amnesia but I still wonder what's the purpose? I visited some remote village to find the twin of the terrorist who did this. This other guy looked like a total wreck, selling chickens to earn enough to live, face covered with beard, red eyes devoid of sleep but full of intoxication.