Do you dream?– at night, or like during the class that bores you to the core of your existence, or when you look out the window and the raindrops kiss your face? Mostly, when you enjoy a movie and sleep right after it, an amended version of it plays and makes you the protagonist & you wake up believing you’re the director ,but the script was never yours.
The world is a void without dreams, for it’s the only driving force that pulls one to rummage for the edge of futurity, in the land of the present clock. Some of those cradle you to sleep, others wrench you from it, and then there are those that blur the boundaries of the present- ‘daydreaming’ is what it’s called.
For what may have been a year, or perhaps longer in ways the mind forgets, a certain flock of birds began appearing in my dreams with quiet regularity. Their arrival was serene, as though they had flown in not from the sky but from the buried desires of the heart.
Each night, I found myself in a forest unmarked by maps, a terrain rich with flora and fauna, where life breathed in slow, deliberate rhythm. It was not a wilderness in the common sense, but a living sanctuary, a setting untouched by urgency, governed by its own ancient calmness. Light filtered through thick canopies like shards of gold, and time seemed to fold inward, giving space for things that could not exist elsewhere- an almost idyllic state.
The birds would arrive in that suspended world, neither belonging to it nor foreign to it. They were of many colours, none quite familiar, their eyes alert but unthreatening, as if they knew more than I was ready to hear. I watched them perch, take flight, encircle the canopy, vanish, and return again. I began to believe they lived there. That the forest was theirs, and that I, too, could belong to it, if I stayed long enough.
It was only much later that I learned what they were: migratory birds. They do not root. They carry no home. They inhabit no place for long. I thought they were symbols of rest, but they were motion.
I think we all own a pocket-sized world in our heads, which belongs to those notions of us that feel too vulnerable to be presented in front of the verity, or those that had valour but an alien power shook their foundation. Nonetheless, they are dear to us, in fact, the dearest, for those are the ones that give you a space to stay during a social apocalypse.
Of late, I see those jungles cut down, the flora and fauna eroded. New buildings are made, a new city has been established,and polished roads are made, totally neat and clean. But the flock has fled off, where has it drifted to? Will anyone help me find it? My dream- will anyone let me see it?
Sometimes when you dream of something, and yonder it seems feasible, even if it doesn’t and you feel your heart wants it, you work for it and people call it ambition. Sometimes the ambition might work out, you might be inches away from gripping it by your own hands, but then you see you woke up, and the world reminds you of its laws- that you can dream but can’t live it without societal accord. That’s when you daydream- of all the things you could have been, could have done, and you realise that you are but a lost cause. And you have this last conversation with that flock of birds,
“Tere rukh se apna raasta mod ke chala,
Chandan hoon main-
Apni khushboo chod ke chala,
mann ki maaya rakh ke
Tere takiye tale
Bairagi, bairagi ka sooti chaula
Odh ke chalaa” (Channa Mereya- Arijit Singh)
I didn’t find the birds anymore, so I settled in the polished city they built for me. Dreams didn’t stop coming to me; perhaps the soil of comfort has shifted, perhaps longing wears a newer skin. So tell me, do you dream?
Let us know your thoughts. If you have burning thoughts or opinions to express, please feel free to reach out to us at larra@globalindiannetwork.com.
