It was one of those days where one feels euphoric not for any particular reason and everything appears picture perfect and I get particularly religious in these circumstances thanking almighty for bestowing the best of best on me. I woke from my cat nap in the mid afternoon and switched on my laptop for checking my mails as one has to keep in pace to avoid getting thrown out of this frenzy world. Skimming through regular remainders from boss and sweet non-senses of my girlfriend, I hit upon a mildly interesting mail. It was from father of my ex-colleague and it ran as follows.
Friday 13th October ,India
Dear son,
I am penning this letter under livid circumstances. My son hasn’t called up the whole of past week and all of my attempts to contact him turned futile. I am deeply worried and it would be an immense favor if you could check on him and return asap with illuminating results.
As a worried father,
Hariharasudan.
Now, parents from India contacting friends of their children who have come to make a living in this goddamned country called the U.S is not unheard of. But what is unusual about the letter is that his son and I who were colleagues in a law firm a couple of years ago and were quite out of contact for sometime time now. Nevertheless a duty is a duty and one has to comply regardless of the toil it puts forth. I called the office which I knew he last worked for and to my dismay found he had moved and after a series of calls and enquiries found where he stayed presently. It was at San Francisco a rough five hour drive from where I lived.
Having got my backpack stuffed with the necessary requisites for a typical country drive, I pulled my BMW out of the dingy parking lot of my apartment and set out to drive. The country I drove by was pleasant studded with picturesque buildings and with fairly warm climate. Pulling my top down, dude I meant the convertible’s not mine, the pleasant wind blowing across my face brought the memories of Ramesh’s early life to me( by the way he is colleague who father had written to me).
Ramesh was a typical south-Indian who grew up in a traditional brahmin family in a agraharam. Everyone expected him to be doctor or engineer, so was the case with most South-Indians and Ramesh was no exception. But fate has his hand in his life. When Ramesh was in his tenth grade, he started having dreams. Dreams was something each of us have, but his was special and repeated . I still remember hearing it from the horses mouth when we were at a restaurant.
He said,” It was a splendid evening of spring and I am sitting in the benches of a park which is with myriad of flowers and beholds beauty to no bounds. The sky is orange and the breeze couldn’t be more pleasant. Of a sudden, An old man with a flowing white beard and twinkling eyes comes to me. He instructs me to listen to him, which shall sky rocket my life and make me wealthier and famous than the mightiest of the kings. He told me that I would meet a girl, my girl, who would make this possible and then he proceeded to give the details of my girl, the name, appearance and everything.”
It was a recurrent dream and what was so disturbing about it was he remembered everything everyday except the descriptions of his girl. He tried very hard and in the process his grades plummeted to the rock bottom. Result was that he had to join a B.A and succumb to the rigorousness of daily life till the day he came across the ad for a dream recording machine. This machine was capable of sensing of rapid eye movements which occur during dreams and alert the person with a mild alarm so that the person becomes awake and instantly remembers the dream, he or she had.
He very eagerly purchased it and tried it for the first day. Of the excitement that he is gonna get the details, he actually never slept that night. This prolonged for night after night and the mighty machine for helping him instead turned him into an insomniac. This was one way helpful to him. Instead of just lying and staring at the ceiling, he started to read books. Books of all sorts, genres and styles. Reading books became an obsession for him and he started doing it during the day too. He spent many hours at the library and soon became a scholar. He wished to undergo law training and came out of his B.L course with flying colors.
He had an offer from a law firm at the U.S and a paid post graduate course at law here. He readily accepted and traveled to join me after a two year course at Harvard Law School. Since then he had become one of my close acquaintances and we even shared a flat for some days. Later he got a better offer from firm at San Francisco and he left chasing the dollars.
A few months later, I got a letter from him which put me in a mild shock. It read as given below.
Monday 22nd May, San Francisco
Dear friend,
It has been very long since I posted you and I hope you are getting on in good health. Things are turning up pleasant here and I am satisfied to the brim with working conditions over here which is so unlike and hell a lot better than the one you and I were once used to.
However, I wrote the letter to inform you a matter of greater interest and not to speak of subtle things in life. Last night, rarely so ever and after a lot of guidance from a psychiatrist I had a chance to sleep and among all other things that I could dream of, the same dream which virtually spoiled and then uplifted my life occurred again. But what is more interesting is that I could still remember all the details of my girl, of whom the wise old man spoke of and I hope I meet her soon.
Ever in need of your friendship,
Ramesh.
I had received this letter a couple of weeks ago and now I am confronted with a helpless father and a non responding son. It was late in the evening I pulled in front of Ramesh’s driveway and found his villa locked. With furtive glances for any suicidal activity and finding none, I had to resolve in enquiring the neighbors. I found that he had been taken in at the nearby hospital for serious illness a week ago.
Cursing my fate, I drove to the hospital. After asking the receptionist for directions, I walked into the ICU to find my friend unconscious. Standing beside him was a young female in doctors robes. I noticed she was an Indian too. She smiled at me and led me out.
She said,” Are you a friend of Mr.Ramesh?”.
“Yes.”
“He came here a week ago seriously ill and barely able to speak. He collapsed before he reached here but I found a piece of paper he was holding tight in his hands. Would you like to have a look?”
I said yes and took the paper. It read
Name : Kamalini
Age : 24
Height : 5’ 11”
Native : Indian
Zodiac Sign : Virgo
Dead mother, Living with father, still single.
I immediately realized it were the details of his dream girl and was in shock when the doc cut of me.
She said,” What is so surprising is that, those details in that paper refer to me and I don’t remember meeting him anywhere before but still he has got every detail correct.”
I was lost in the heavenly acts of the God, of whom no one can fathom.
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So do people say!!