But it is not this divine music that I am writing about but the stuff of which assumedly, dreams are made – about which very little is known even today. We all dream, some more frequently than others and most of our dreams are jumbled up strings of incidents, some related others totally random, some making sense, others hidden under layers of sub texts and obscure meanings. It is also strange that some people come and go in your dreams almost effortlessly and some never ever come at all. People complain whenever they are not talking about the latest scandal in Pakistan, that they don’t ‘see’ the people they really want to see and pine for a ‘contact’ even if it is as fragile as a tendril of a girl’s hair on a breezy summer day in the mountains. There are people who interpret dreams, provide you with answers and explanations and these are like clutching at waving straws. Most of us are no dream analysts – hardly but even novices like me have learnt to identify dreams that recur in the fitful hours of attempting sleep. Some are now recognisable just like old friends but most remain obscure – abstract art pieces that make little sense whichever way you look at them. That dreams are related to your daily grind – of this there is no doubt but it is connecting these ethereal and fleeting images to the sweat and the toil that goes into most days – that remains an inexact science.
I have three or four recurring dreams. They play out more or less exactly as they did the first time they ‘arrived’. There is one based in New York and a KLM flight that I must catch but am running woefully short on time. JFK is at least an hour and a half away. I am running (always difficult since you are in bed) here and there, upstairs and downstairs in an apartment where I am the only one around. I cannot find my baggage. When after frantically opening door after door I see it, I rush to it and suddenly remember that I have no idea where my passport or ticket really is! Panic sets in full time. I search blindly, looking at all the likely places which turn up nothing and then as paranoid sets in, extend the search to the stupid areas – bathroom shelves, under flower pots, behind the TV, amongst knives and forks in crowded kitchen drawers. Nothing. I finally find both documents – the dream never explains why and where. They are just there. I rush down with the suitcase plunge onto the pavement. There is no cab in sight. I look all around – not a single yellow cab. I run up and down shouting ‘taxi’, but no taxi appears. I am now desperately late and beginning to gasp with fear. Finally I see a cab and literally body-stop it. In goes the suitcase and I tell him to rush to JFK. I have less than an hour but soon realise the cab is crawling. I implore the cabbie to step on it but he does not reply. Somehow some time later, JFK weaves into sight but hold on – it is not JFK. It is Lahore Airport of the 60s. Where am I? I rush up the familiar path, round the decorative fences and into the airport but there is a long queue and I am the last one. By the time my turn arrives, the counter attendant tells me the flight is closed. ‘But I had to go to Peking?’ I say in the dream! Peking? ‘You must be dreaming’, says the attendant, which in truth I am. Each of these airport sequences has had the same effect on me. I have shot up in bed, anxiety ridden from tip to toe. It takes a while for the room to swing back into focus. That it was a dream comes later.
But I am not so lucky with the river Jhelum, another regular visitor. It is a wild stormy night. The rain pelts down in sheets on a derelict train with faded yellow bulbs and ancient bench-seating. There is no one around except me. The train is parked at a station that has no name and barely a couple of bulbs that are swinging to and fro in the storm. What am I doing here? Why am I the only one on this train? I ask myself these questions but there are no answers, only the fury of the storm and the howling wind. With a sudden lurch, the train starts to move gathering momentum. I get up and walk to an open window from where the rain is pouring in. Trying to close the window, I look outside and see that the train is approaching a gradual right turn, so I can see almost all the compartments ahead of me, particularly the engine and first bogies. To my horror I see that the train is fast heading for the raging Jhelum, its engine disappearing into the churning waters. Soon it is swallowed up after which follow the bogies. So far all my re-runs have stopped here and I am not too keen to get a new instalment which lucidly shows what happens next. No wonder this train dream leaves me drenched with sweat and my first waking moments reinforce the dampness and the sweat which I have gathered. I shoot up in bed gulping in air in deep breaths only to be reprimanded by the Gov Gen – the lady wife, rudely awoken from her undoubtedly pastoral slumber, with a resounding, ‘now what’s the matter? Are you ok?’ I start to explain the train but give up. It makes no sense and ‘explaining’ it makes even less sense.
The way things are collapsing in and around us, perhaps it is best that we spend more time dreaming even if it’s a watery end. I suppose even nightmares are more entertaining than the reality we get slapped with daily. If I had a choice between reading the daily newspaper and getting clobbered in yet another nightmare, I would have little hesitation in opting for the latter. My only fear is that somehow, the King of Polyester Pop, Mr Rehman Malik will somehow have himself imported into my nightmare. That could be quite unbearable though undoubtedly entertaining.
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