Wednesday, June 24, 2009 4:57 IST

Dear Reader,

What follows is a diary entry I wrote in July last year, a few days after I came to Bombay. I was too scared to publish this then!

I am still scared but I guess haven't shown you my face for so long that my sense of shame overrides my fear. Now, if I am dead or kidnapped tomorrow, please let them know I did this for you (and for me).

--

July 8, 2008

Last night Raj Thackeray came in my dream. I hadn't invited him (with fervent prayers and messages in empty bottles) but now that I have relocated to Mumbai I don't think he needs my invitation anymore.

Initially, I must confess, I was very suspicious. Raj Thackeray had come walking into my dream. I found this most mysterious.

Why did a national (laugh out loud) leader like Mr. Thackeray have to walk into my dream? He could have easily summoned me into his. Maybe this was going to be a revelation, I thought, or, maybe this gentleman wearing a white kurta pyjama slowly rising in my dream landscape wasn't Raj Thackeray after all!

Anything was possible from my visual position in the dream.

I could see the figure walking in my direction; yet it did not seem to move an inch forward in space. It was right there ascending in my visual field: walking briskly, appearing blurred and forever looking like Raj Thackeray.Like the queen in Alice's wonderland, this Raj-like figure seemed in a hurry: It was walking briskly to be in the same place.

Right then, I was overcome by a thought: The dream was stuck. It would not budge till I recognized the figure. And I would never be able to recognize the figure because I wasn't wearing my glasses. For a moment, I almost lost my cool and chided myself for not going to bed with my glasses. I often have blurred dreams and sleeping with my glasses on helps.

Suddenly I saw something move in my blurred field of vision. The man in the white kurta pyjama had taken off his glasses and had folded them and was now throwing the pair at me. The glasses fell right into my hands, and in complete harmony with dream laws, granted me perfect vision. Indeed this was a revelation: a meaningful dream that gets stuck, a dream that is rescued by first restoring its vision.

Doubtless, the figure was Raj Thackeray. Perhaps my doubt was structured in the dream itself. Wasn't it linked to a lack of vision? After all I would have had no doubts had I been wearing my glasses in the dream.

Now that I knew Raj Thackeray had walked into my dream and was continuing to walk at a spot, I wondered if he would talk to me. I tried to call out to him a couple of times but he did not respond. I got the feeling that he could hear me but did not want to talk to me. On his part he kept walking but never tried to communicate. No hand gestures, no spoken words and absolutely no telepathy.

Maybe I should get a little close and try to talk, I thought. After all this was my dream and I was well within my rights to hunt for some extra meaning. I wasn't surprised when I was moving at the speed of thought towards him. I moved a little closer to him each time I thought I should move a little closer to him till there was no more room left for me to move and we stood facing each other.

As I grasped the contours of his face, his eyes struck me. Without his glasses he seemed like a different man; a benign soul released from a bi-focal cage.

The next moment, everything around us vaporized; curtains were drawn and pulled at the same time and the landscape revealed itself to be the beautiful marine drive at the most beautiful hour of the day: 4 am. The two of us were no longer facing each other; the settings of the dream had suddenly changed. We were now walking on the marine drive pavement, extremely tired.

My energy levels were dipping and the dream was getting to a stage where emotional fatigue threatened to destroy it and wake me up. But there was so much to do. Before I woke up I wanted to know why was he here. Maybe he was a source in the guise of Raj Thackeray who wanted to share some classified documents with a reporter.

I was scared and tired and soon got very angry. I realized that this was a lousy dream and it wasn't getting anywhere. But I wasn't getting up without knowing why was this the way this was.

I mustered some courage and asked Mr Thackeray why had he come in such a lousy dream. Why did he have to first walk in, and then keep walking at the same place?And why did he have to make me walk? One doesn't get to meet great men in dreams every other night; such rare occasions come in a lifetime. And when they do, a young man can certainly hope for something more fruitful and revealing than a walk on Marine drive at 4 am in the morning; surely there is more to dreams than walks.

He did not respond and kept walking. I watched him for a bit and then turned around to walk in the opposite direction. As I turned around I saw the same figure walking in front with its back to me. I turned around again; he was still where I had left him relatively speaking; having walked some distance in the meantime.

I turned my head a few more times and nothing changed. Whichever way I looked, Mr. Raj Thackeray was walking with his back towards me. I wanted to return his glasses but did not know which side to call. Once more I was angry and frustrated. Then I think I woke up.

Before getting to work today I stopped by at a bookshop to browse through some literature on dream interpretation. I could find nothing that interpreted the entire sequence but according to some books people who are visited by world famous personalities in their dreams are megalomaniacs who have a heart full of undelivered communication and unfulfilled expectations. A good doctor was recommended in case the dreams got violent.

I had wanted to rescue my dream somehow but pop psychology broke my heart. I did not take the loose generic interpretation to heart, but somewhere in the deep recesses of my psyche, I think I must have felt cheated. Even if I was a megalomaniac, surely there could have been shorter and less emotionally draining dream sequences (starring extraordinary gentlemen) to drive the point home. I had no one but myself to blame for the emotional mess I found myself in.

I hailed a cab, blurted out the office address and drowned myself deep into the back seat. At the Mahalaxmi racecourse signal, I had an idea.

None of the authors who wrote those heavy books laced with pseudo scientific Jungian jargon knew my dream as intimately as I did. I could take their word for it, but then did I have to?

Feeling helpless and annoyed with myself I unconsciously started rummaging through my bag and as if I was still in a dream I discovered a copy of the Bhagwat Gita that a very dear and very insane 53-year-old friend had passed on to me before I left Delhi. I got an idea. What would Arjuna have done in my situation? Simple, I thought. He would have asked his chariot driver, Krishna.

Maybe I should ask the cab driver and see what he thinks of it, I thought.

The driver was hooked. He heard the entire sequence and thought for a moment. "Where are you from?" he asked me.

"Delhi," I replied with the hint of a customer's irritation in my voice. "How does that matter here anyway? What do you think of the dream," I probed him.

"Simple. Learn Marathi. And never lose your vision."

"How do you know?" I asked him.

"I met a customer 30 years ago who had had the same dream."

"How can two people separated by three decades have the same dream? "

"It was same more or less," he began explaining. "Those days Mumbai was still Bombay. In my customer's dream Bal Thackeray had come calling."

--

Please let me know what you think.

Rave on,

Sincerely,

Mayank

PS: I made up the ending. Laugh out loud (lol).

20 comments

well as expected from you northies.... be mature guys!

The last sentence by the taxi driver is too good. You write very well.

Feel free to write and publish whatever you like. This is not your dilwalon ki Delhi where thousands of Sikhs were set upon and mercilessly butchered by their fellow north indians in an orgy of violence in 1984. And by the way it might interest you to know that Balasaheb did not allow even a single sikh in Mumbai or Maharashtra to be harmed in any way at that time. So what is wrong if we don't want our Mumbai to go the Delhi way with increasing imports from the north. Now will you publish this comment?

The comment is published. I stand vindicated.

My dear friend, please try to understand Raj’s different points and agenda before writing your next article.

The points, which he has taken up to the next level, were required to be made.

People will say Mumbai is the financial capital of India, but let me remind you that before being called the financial capital, it was a part of Maharashtra and it will remain so.

An example: You must have seen the article from a reputed newspaper about the English government’s stand on the same topic, where the problem was about the same.

Many people said, Mumbai has grown because people from across India come, work, and take it to the next level. Do you really think so?

I don’t think so.

If you think the answer is yes, I would request you to please go and stay in Bihar and take it up to the next level. People who stay there will give you many blessings. They require it.

If Bihar grows as Mumbai did, then, finally, we will get the answer of the question.

A true Indian (like you). A Maharashtrian as well.

Mayank,

Expectations and deliverance, two of the greatest possessions that i have learnt from you.

Good piece of work!

Cheers!

Mayank, gr8 article! You have made a very meaningful point here. Carry on, happy writing.

Hey, that's quite funny now! Damn funny! Losing control to laugh!

Thanks! rave on!

I wasted my precious time reading this stupid, bogus blog. It's meant for people who don't have any work to do and are idle.

It was good, really good. But don't fear anyone. This is India and everyone can stay anywhere. Enjoy life in Bombay.

Back on track, Mayank! Much better than the last one.

Prashant: Thanks for coming back. Rave on!

Good article. Could have been better. It is complete. Maybe a full circle has been drawn, it was the best part. Do one thing. Meet Raj Thakare once, you will understand that man better, and narrate this to him. You will get your answers or more questions.

You have no right to make fun of Raj, being an outsider. Please refrain from such stupid articles.

What a faltoo blog! I guess this is the very reason DNA has flopped everywhere.
It's high time DNA throws away amateur odds like this Mayank who have really disgraced your newspaper by his foolish ramblings.

Good one mate! I enjoyed reading it.

Kya beta Mumbai se mann uth gaya kya?

Hah hah... very funny... but did the dream force you into becoming a Marathi manoos... or even pretend to be one?

Blabber. Lol.

I think the exact meaning of your dream is crystal clear. All the people who have made their opinions about Raj and his stand about Marathi-Maharashtra only on the basis of Hindi-English (biased, prejudiced) media need to take extra efforts and see and think what exactly Raj wants to say. Then I am pretty much confident that everybody will understand and support Raj.

One thing I want to mention here: "Not when you praise somebody but it is very essential when you criticize somebody, you have to take extra efforts to know about that person or situation."

will keep that in mind the next time around. many thanks. rave on.

:D.... m still laughing. Mayank, this is truly one of the best blogs I have ever read. Thanks to my friend for forwarding the link. Keep up the good work!

Very true... Raj is on way to become Bal Thackeray. But the way you matched them with their 'visions' staking your own is indeed dreamy... great work.