Some of my most intimate, vivid and unforgettable memories have come from my dreams. That is sad because in the event of someone arguing that they never happened, I do not have a convincing counterargument. I would like to think that dreams do actually happen but they do so in a different realm---where the laws of natural science do not hold, where we can defy gravity and respiration, and fly to somewhere far away, or teleport back in time---that is, they happen in the head while the reality that we often refer to as, happen outside our tiny heads. But then we can argue whether what we call reality is indeed real, and these questions and musings shall lead to the ultimate question of what is real? When we devour something toothsome---say, a slice of cake---it tastes sweet and flavourful, and it leaves a pleasurable sensation in the mouth as we chew and in the throat as it moves down. This feeling of pleasure and taste leaves us wanting for more and when we see another cake, we imagine ourselves feeling the same pleasurable sensation as before and our mouths begin to water in response to the imagination. One may argue that this feeling, taste and our body's response to it are all real. It happened. It is real. But a terminally ill patient whose senses have waned may not have felt the same sensation. They may imagine and associate a taste or feeling to the cake, and while we can argue that the feeling is an imagination and thus not real, it feels as real to them as the sweetness does to us. What we often term as real is often what we feel or sense through our senses such as seeing something with our eyes (and in this regard, we should not forget that people may hallucinate) or hearing voices through our ears. How do we know for sure that these images, sounds, tastes or smells are real and not made up in the mind? Indeed, without the brain which we possess and which turns the electrical signals sent from the senses into the images that we see, we shall not see these images. In this way then, almost everything we call real are processed in the head first.
For many years now, I have been a night owl. I would read a fascinating book or a mathematics paper or some literature, and I would soon become obsessed with it and get lost in my thoughts and imaginations as my mind wander freely in a realm built upon the description of the world the book is set in, and I would often have trouble falling asleep. This habit of mine has its origins in my early years of college. As a child, I used to sleep early and would never miss the sunrise in the horizon. But now it seems to me that the memory of watching the rise of the sun is a thing of distant past. Some nights, I would still go to bed early but wouldn't fall asleep until very early in the morning. Once I had to see my music teacher in the early morning---this was supposed to be our last meeting before I left for my college, which was very far away from home---so I went to bed early in the hope of falling asleep early. Due to my habit of staying up late in night, I knew it was gonna be difficult. It was a cold night in winter and I had barely enough blankets in my bed to drive away the cold; to add more woes, I had to remove my shirt because it was a special shirt and it belonged to my father, and I had no intention of ruining it by sleeping in it; well I had other shirts and clothing but most of them---as they were dirty---were being washed and hadn't dried yet, and there were some clean ones in my wardrobe but I had no intention of getting them on now for I was already in bed when I removed the shirt and I didn't want to bear the cold again by leaving the bed; besides, it would only delay my falling asleep, so I thought.
As I lay on my bed in an attempt to fall asleep, a multitude of thoughts and things began to intrude on my head; winter, ah the cold, got to pull up the blankets and the harder I tried to sleep, the harder these thoughts that came uninvited would tread on my head, like you tread on some ugly sinister insect and when it resists your foot, you press harder. Was it wind? That sound; ah wind in winter, and now I was beginning to imagine a shower; oh, rain in winter, that should soothe my sleep. As the night became colder, I began to shiver; not enough blankets I had, ah not these old ones and I kept seeing these images and as I closed my eyes harder, these images became more vivid revealing to me a world beyond what my eyes could see; a wonderland, neverland or pastland? A series of snapshots from my past flashed before the very eyes that lay closed; these individual snapshots, like vintage photographs that were never taken, turned into transient scenes, in a way pictures get animated, as colors and voices got episodically added; soon, memories of my past unfolded before me---these memories had been very long forgotten, and I wouldn't have recalled them in normal circumstances, would have I?---and as these memories, moments became alive; the insect you trod on was resurrected now, ah a second coming; and then I began to observe something different and extraordinary, or so I felt. For now I was looking at these moments in the past in hindsight, in retrospect, I began to see, think about things I never thought back then, or did I? For I was reliving them now---the moments I disdained, the moments I thought were ordinary and unimportant---and suddenly these disdainful fragments of memory all looked magnificent and felt charming; I would have never imagined that all these events, scenes, ponds, trees and pathways that looked so unremarkable would someday become priceless, whose value could only be estimated by the mere fact that no amount of gold could get them back even if I wanted to and had the gold; thinking of trees, ah that banyan, yes, under the banyan Mamma was young, there was rain, it was shower, wasn't it? ah these fragments, many of them, came all together in the way an artist put colors on the canvas, every color every sweep of the brush revealing a more connected painting; these fragments ah, attacking me now when I wanted to fall asleep and I couldn't fall asleep this way; I gave in, thought about them, pulled up more fragments and put them together like the artist did, yes, and now everything fell into picture, for now I could see it...
* * *
I recalled an event from my very early days of schooling; I was still a small child---probably around five years old---and I would constantly lose possessions of all sorts---erasers, pencils and food. My father, a tall lean man with the air of kindness all-knowing attitude yes all-knowing like a God so if I lied he would know and which was why I never lied to him for he was God the God figure, would buy me a new eraser and put it in my satchel; in two or three days, I would have no idea where I had left it or whose hands it slid into. I know children always lose things, here and there they leave and they are forgetful but I would have been much more forgetful, more than all these children are. My father would then get me a new one but then I would lose it similarly, give it three days or a few more but I would lose it. One day he came up with an idea---he cut the eraser into tiny but usable pieces, and put only one piece at a time. Oh I remember it now; that smile, laughter in Mamma; she always laughed at my father's jokes and marveled at every idea he had. Then he said,
---You are too tiny to be using this eraser. So I cut them into pieces that match your size. You get one piece at a time.
In a few days, I would lose the piece and he would give me another piece. But now I lose a slice of one eraser at a time. One day, when I was looking at a picture book in my bedroom, I heard him say this to Mamma:
---Your son eats erasers. Are you not feeding him enough food?
---Hmm, since the man of the family doesn't bring in enough food, he is resorting to feeding on erasers, Mamma said.
---I don't eat erasers but I do know somebody's eating them, and I will find out that rascal, I shouted from my bedroom.
Indeed, in a few days, destiny led me to the miser who had been shamelessly looting me. I was in my classroom---ah my classroom up in the hill, that lone hill in the valley, chilly and windy---when this bastard, who was sitting in front of me and he always used to sit there, or so I remember, accidentally dropped a miniature eraser, such a cute little eraser; upon closer look, I saw yes it was one of the pieces of eraser I had lost or had been stolen from me---whichever way you want to think---but now I had found out who the rascal had been all along, taking away my possessions like that. This guy and me; we hadn't talked before for we had no reason to do so and I was shy, hardly never initiated a conversation with a stranger, or so I recalled, but I had known him for a long time. I waited for him to pick it up because I wanted to make sure I was getting the right guy; no sooner had he picked it up than I punched him in the nose; you see, it was a mild punch, or so I thought, and I intended it to land on his fat cheeks but that rascal moved his head too much that his nose had to take the fist; in a short while it started to bleed, ah that was scary, was he gonna die? and everybody stared at me, then at him and then at me. The teacher, who had been quiet this entire time, came running toward us, with that cane the wooden one, horrified to have witnessed the daring deed, and as if I had killed a soul, he angrily looked into my eyes---that was scarier than the bleeding for it stared deep into my soul---and he said to me,
---You rascal, what have you done to him?
---Me? A rascal? No, sir, he is the rascal, I said, pointing my finger, the same finger I used in the punch, to the bleeding rascal.
---Oh what did I do? the bleeding rascal retorted, with his hands on the hanky that covered the nose.
---You have been eating my erasers!
Suddenly everybody started laughing and in the noise, our voices got lost, carried away, removed and reduced to nonexistence; the teacher went mad and in the heat of the situation, he hit his cane on the desk, loud and shaky, and everybody became quiet and I heard the ticks of the wall clock again, and he announced he would hit in the same way, anyone who made a noise again. Then he turned to me and said,
---What you did was very wrong. You can't just punch someone. Nobody ate your eraser. You are making things up. And you have to be punished for what you just did. I shall call the police now!
Being a child as I was, I didn't know what he meant to say. Police? Why did he mention police? Or did I hear it all properly or are these fragments serving me right? Ah yes, I remembered it now, he did say police. I was alarmed, shocked; when I looked out of the window, I saw police cars far away; it's hilarious to think how simple a coincidence such as this can inject in the mind a feeling of ever-lasting terror, horror and awe; the thought of getting caught by the police was so powerful that I couldn't put my mind to anything else after that and the imagination that this could happen without my parents ever knowing anything or finding out what happened to their son was utterly terrifying. My body began to shake, heart beat faster, I began to choke, was it imagination? but I could feel it, the shakes, beats, the very hands that made someone bleed were now shaking as though they had a will of their own and were telling me what I did was sinful.
I somehow got on my school bus wherefrom I could still see the police cars. If I could avoid them, would they search? they wouldn't, I thought that If I could stay in the bus until it took me back home then I would get to meet my parents one last time, yes one last time, for I was getting caught by the police the next day. The entire time my heart was beating quicker than it ever did hitherto; every passing second I felt a inch closer to my home; I felt urges, if I had wings I would have had flown away already and when the driver got in and the bus began to groan, ah that feeling; I had never been grateful for someone's groaning; my heart pounded the fastest as I imagined this was to be the final step toward my goal, and the bus began to move and the police cars were soon out of my sight. Phew.
The entire time I was scared of what was about to happen for I knew I had to go to school again the next day and even if I somehow managed not to, the police would hunt me down. If anything, it was better for them to get me at school rather than in my home in front of my parents for I could not let my parents see me getting caught ruthlessly for a crime as shameful as hitting a fellow classmate; well was it shameful? he stole my eraser, and my father would understand it but ah the fact that I punched someone and police were hunting, no, my parents shouldn't know. I strode feverishly---a breeze blew through or did it? for I hadn't noticed, dry throat, I swallowed down, the pounding, heartless shameful sinful act, dusty smell and my throat had turned into a desert, cracks, very heavy---with the thought of ending up somewhere far, quite far or deep, quite deep beyond the reach of my parents. The thought possessed me, consumed me and haunted me; it shook and began to sweat. Why was it taking too long to reach home? I saw the sun, shining like that, stayed there and just stared at me, he was there at my school when I narrowly escaped the police, he saw everything knew everything. As I reached home, my mother was quick to find out something was way off about me---mothers always do that; they know just by looking at you; I don't know how they do but they do---she took me by the hand and asked me what was troubling me. I wanted to tell her and by telling her everything, I imagined, I might begin to feel lesser pain in the way you feel lesser weight on your head when somebody takes off something from it; as I opened my mouth to speak to her and tell her, my heart pounded faster and I got lost in the imagination of my mother getting dragged into the pit and the thought of bringing her to pain and sorrow struck me like a venom. I had sinned, I thought, and the sinner had to pay the price alone; I should not sin again by bringing my mother into the mess which I had gotten myself into; I had fallen into an abyss from which I had no way out but I had the choice to not drag Mamma or another soul into it; this way I made up my mind.
Then I tried to imagine what my life would be like after the police caught me. Where would they take me to? They had to take me somewhere; I recalled, from one of the bedtime stories my father told me, for he would often read me fairy tales ah Grimms', stories from epics the Ramayana, the Bible and discussions on morality and religion, and that evildoers and sinners were taken to Hell---a place darker than the night where there is no sun, where winds blows all directions all time, where there is no food and you feed on flies, insects and snakes; there are no trees because they are inherently good and you find nothing good down here---and as I imagined myself falling into that pit, some even more sinister thought consumed me: that if my parents committed something foul and reckless out of sorrow or shock when they found out what I did, when they lost their child; I saw them falling into the same pit, the abyss, the gateway to Hell and ending up in the same horrid place as me, or worse, we all got separated, by the sinister all-blowing windstorm, and got lost in the thunderstorm, in that forever dark and doomed eternal Hell.
Around dusk, Mamma and I took a stroll. I can't recall what I wore but I felt quite uncomfortable and out of place in whatever I forgot I wore; I can't recall what I ate, because I usually ate after school usually a light meal which usually tasted all good and fine, but that day, as I recalled now, tasted horrid and distasteful. The sky was dark, dull and gloomy---like my impending life ahead as I imagined to be---the dogs barked at us, well they barked at everybody everyday but now, as it seemed to me, they barked in a way they hated me for I sinned; the cats ran away, well they ran away from everybody everyday but now, as it seemed to me, they were running away from evil, a sinner; the birds flew away and I grew tired and weary for now, it looked as though the whole world were against me, disdained me and longed to see me rot in the abyss; these thoughts and images made me restless and unable to think of anything good and pleasurable, and it gave me physical pain; each breathe took longer to complete, it became harder and more painful to swallow and I began to choke, or so I imagined; the clothes felt tight, were trying to squeeze me to death; the sole source of comfort came from my Mamma's warm hands that held mine and it soothed me like an endless flow of music or gentle blow of breeze, and this gave transient happiness but this source of happiness was short-lived as the thought of walking with Mamma and holding her hands for the last time took over. But I loved her too much so I said to her,
---Mamma, if anything happens to me tomorrow, if I do not come back from school, do not come after me.
Ah, that look on her face when I uttered those words to her! It is impossible to pen down the feelings and images I saw in her face; in such an intimate scene the beholder could only sense and feel what they saw but not put them into words and any such attempt to reconstruct that sensation or feeling in the way of words would be, at best, an inaccurate description of the moment and at worst, destroy the whole profoundness of the moment, as though the purest moments in life are supposed to be lived and experienced only once. I don't know how long but after a while, she broke into laughter, or so I recalled---perhaps at the false seriousness of the situation I had created and gotten ourselves into---but then she turned serious and said,
---Did you get into a fight at school or did someone threaten you?
Mothers have a way of getting around things and when you conceal the truth from them, they know you are hiding something. The gloominess turned into shower. It started to rain. We had no umbrella, so we sought shelter under a giant banyan tree---it looked old and dusty, like grandma, but old people had interesting stories and this banyan probably had a story to tell us, or it was feeling the pain of growing old and death staring right at it---as the nearest house was still quite far away. I hugged Mamma and asked,
---Where do the police keep the people they catch?
---Prison...the crooked and the criminals are kept there, Mamma said.
---Will they ever return home?
---Yes, when their time is done they return home.
---Do they get to see other people? Do their parents visit them? And how long do they stay in prison? I asked curiously.
---Yes, they do and their parents and children would see go see them. Some stay in prison for a short period of time and some stay for almost all life.
By the time the rain stopped, it had gotten dark; we returned back. Days went by and there was no sight of police, or so I recalled.