The Dream

To talk about dreams is getting into the realm of the games mind plays when awake and when at rest. It is in fact a highly professional and erudite arena of the Freud’s.. But lay beings like most of us do have ample instances of dreams and night mares that kindle the past and sometimes comes from the past to haunt. It raises questions about the morrow- and at times people claim can be a premonition or harbinger of things to come. But I do not know if human mind through dreams is capable of  prophesying the future with accuracy apart from lamenting  our disappointments from the past, and fantasizing our hopes and fears about the future.

Leaving that aside, I had a dream few days ago that was not a twenty- twenty genre; like hit run and out. But a steady one at that and must have stayed in the dream land for quite a while in my sleep at night. Certainly the longest dream I ever had.

It was thirty and more years ago that I last saw him (live).And though thoughts have remained in and out as often it normally is, and have also had quite a handful dreams about him. But they all were brief and like a whiff of air that pass over you.

He came in from no where and got into conversation with me. I knew we were meeting after a long, long time, but did not gather the courage to ask him where he was all the while. He, I remember looked little older than I’m now, but certainly not like what he looked when I saw him last. His hair was not grey but with even mixture of salt and pepper.It was lush and combed back as he used to.And the thick Hitler mush was in place. We walked together a long way. I do not remember where and when the walk took place. But it was fairly long walk and a long talk at that. I noticed that he was taller than I, by may be 4 inches and more. I was up to may be his ear lobe. That would make him 6 feet 4’..I remember being conscious about how tall I stood up to him. He stood broad at the shoulder and age,( I calculated, eighty seven) did not show on him a wee bit. He had the Pananama cigarette pack in his shirt pocket and also a pack of  I presume "kaja beedis" up his shirt sleeves. I do not recall the conversation bit by bit, but I feel that it was substantial and was more surrounding my life. I vividly remember him enquiring about Ara. He sounded quite odd as to why Ara chose Visual communication for his graduation. I told him that the fellow fancies life in the movies .He was not quite approving of that. There was also discussion on R and as to how she is with her studies? I remember him suggesting that she be directed into a profession more conservative. I guess the conversation went into somewhere relating to my profession. And I recall the approval was not so comforting from his part. There was a comment that I have been direction less from the beginning. He enquired if I heeded his advise of daily going through the “Editorial” of The Hindu, with  the Oxford English dictionary  at hand. And if I spent more time batting solitary throwing the tennis ball on the wall and practicing. He reminded me that was what Len Hutton and Don Bradman used to do at home when they were little. There was a sort of anachronistic comment It was  on a topic that was from the past,though in the dream I was very much in the present. He asked me to remind him at 10 pm in the night to switch on the radio as there will be a broadcast of a speech by Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan. And he is back in India after meeting Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Yahya Khan in Lahore.

He told me that he will be staying on here and may not go back to where he was,and would also like to see Mom. I remember walking him to our old house in Vanchiyoor Thiruvanathapuram. I saw him go in through the gate.

 I woke up with slight alarm. That was my father visiting after almost three and one half decades.