The number 27 is quite close to my heart. I was born on the 27th of April, my mother on the 27th of March and my father on the 27th of June. Quite a rare co-incidence of birthdates!!
Easy to remember as well for everyone who knows us!
I keep calling my parents 'very good planners' in this regard , at least!
Not too surprising then, that even though I messed up my birthdate in my dream, I messed up only the month, I stuck to the date!!
My Dream..
This one starts in my house, in my drawing room. Its quite late into the night, November the 26th. I am seated lazily on the couch, watching TV and reading newpapers , whilst my uncle and aunt (who live in Bombay as of now, but I wonder why they are recurring characters in my dreams! ) are seated in front of me, making petty conversation.
Its around 11 :55 pm in the night , when my mobile rings. I am quite irritated at first, not wanting to be disturbed from my pursuit of laziness. When it comes to lazing around, I am not quite a big fan of Newtpn's second law of motion ! I get up rather clumsily and check who it is... and am even more irritated to see the number flashing on the touch screen. Its a number I instantly recognize... Infosys , Pune. When I was working with Infosys, I received so many calls from friends/ collegues from the office phones... the number that always flashed was 020 22932800... I never saved it in my contacts list.. so this number was almost printed on my mind !
I am amazed... who could it be at this late hour, I wonder. I pick it up and the voice at the other end says in Hindi ... 'Happy birthday Arvind! ' .. 'Did you recognize me?'... 'Its Mr. S here!!' ( I refrain from using actual names in my blogs to avoid any misunderstandings with people.... sorry about that, I am a bit of a coward I guess !) ... Now this guy is not really someone I expect to call me... he' was one of my collegues in Infosys , who was more an acquaintance, than a friend.... but he is the friend of a very close friend of mine...
'Happy birthday' ??? Where did that come from? I am perplexed , even as I explain to this guy that he's made some kind of a mistake. That's when he insists he didn't , as this is the date that there is on the 'shared XL sheet' on the office file server!! ( So much for working all day with shared XL sheets I guess.... it had to pop up in my dreams some day!! ) . That's when it strikes me, that I'd apparently made a mistake in entering my birthdate as 'November 27th' instead of 'April 27th' ... I have no clue how this could have happened!
Even as I am about to laugh off this call, the phone rings again.. This time, its another number I instantly recognize.. 020 25661992 ... the phone number of my current workplace.. Sigma software solutions in Pune. I almost want to not take the call, but I end up doing just the opposite... 'Its G n G here' !! .... says the synchronized voice of a male and a female at the other end .... I am totally flummoxed! ... Its some of my collegues from office .. I don't really have a nice thing going for these guys (why do people I like a lot don't appear much in my dreams ?!! ) ... and are the last ones I'd expect to call me. But call they did... and off went the wishes again ... 'Happy birthday!' ..they sing in unison ! I love the way things connect in my dreams.. this XL sheet was apparently 'shared' between both these companies.. crazy !!
I finally decide I have had enough and that before any other unwelcome acquaintance calls me, I better log on to my office VPN and set the date right in the bloody XL sheet! I just got a VPN connection from the office admin guys.. .so that explains why this fact popped up here!
That's the end of that ...Scene one.. birthday wishes gone wrong and hearing from all the people I don't want to hear from !!
The scene suddenly shifts to a classroom, which looks like the class Xth A ( or is it some other one?) of the school I studied in (Sarawati Vidyalaya in Pune) . I recognize it instantly due to way the corridor looks outside the class, the layout of benches and the teacher's room next door. On the blackboard (which is actually green in color, for some weird reason) is written neatly.. 'Unit test examinations' ... apparently an exam is about to commence and I am the only student who's reached on time! In the dream , I am my present adult avatar, but yet somehow, I am the student here.. I am not wearing any uniforms to suggest this , but I do know that I am in this scene as a student! The benches are neatly arranged and on each bench, is a packet of Marie biscuits and a glass of orange juice. A distinguished looking lady walks in ... 'Must be the teacher' , I think aloud in my dream! 'How many gold members are there in this class???' !! , she asks!! I really take a long while to try and understand this, and looking at my confused expressions, the teacher offers to explain .. 'How many students who have ranked 1st and 2nd in the last exams are going to be seated here?!!' ... Waking up .. this particular line felt so funny, as I was recollecting the sequence of events in my dream.. I don't answer anything .. and she says something more and leaves... 'Anyone suffering from a stomach ache in this class? I will remove the orange juice glasses from those benches' !! How weird can it get!!
Scene two ends here... the sudden shifts in situations and locations and people and stories in my dreams would be something an award winning editor would be proud of ! ( am I being too pompous here! Pardon me! )
Scene three..
I am seated in a very large room... spacious, but not really elegantly done. Chairs and couches and beds are strewn all over, like brushstrokes from a piece of modern art! I am seated in a particularly over-sized chair, sipping on cold coffee and munching on chips. In real life, an ideal set up for a movie marathon on DVD , I'd say ! How ironical then, that in my dream , it turns out to be something far more real !
Suddenly, a group of performing artistes appear from behind the curtains and start singing and dancing and making merry in front of me!! I am thrilled and I thoroughly enjoy it! They're done in ten minutes and then, group after group of artistes pop up and perform short skits, plays, scenes from popular movies, poetry recitals and what not .... each act in the span of ten to twenty minutes! I kept track of time since there was a nice big clock on the wall in front of me.
I don't remember much about this part of my dream, except one very nice fact. One of the persons involved in one of the acts turns out to be Sonali Bendre, a popular and very beautiful indian actress.... not so strange this one.. I really started to love her all over again after she appeared in one of the reality shows being aired currently on TV!
Hmm.... the dream ends abruptly , or perhaps I don't remember anything apart from the stuff written here!! Better luck next time!
No comments:
Post a Comment