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I had a Dream

This was a long time ago when I was a little boy. It was so long ago that I don’t know if this was a dream or the confabulation of the mind of a three-year-old.

It was a large house in a place called Warangal. This is the first house I have any recollection of. My father had a transferable job and we used to shift places every three years. Needless to say, we have been in a lot of places in South India and enjoyed the best of every place we had been to.

I was three and that makes my brother a five-year-old and my sis an infant. Life was a lot of fun with a very protective brother and an angel of a sister who would never miss an opportunity to smile. If you folks know the names of my bro and sis, you would agree with me that their names really suit them. I was the little devil in the family. I was the most mischievous kid. Right from using my aunt’s Julaab Jamoon as ‘shoe polish’… to dumping a kilogram of detergent into the bath tub… to giving my sister a haircut so that we all look alike. Even the Veena was not spared. Unfortunately, my brother would always get caught and would bear the brunt of the punishment. But every time I think of Warangal, I am reminded of this dream / incident.

There were a lot of people in my house that evening, mostly our neighbors. My mom had invited these women for a Raghavendra Swami Puja. Being Hindu, we believe in idol worship. The deities were at one end of the room on a mandasana (a traditional table). My bro and I were sitting by one of the doors in the room right beside the deities. It was a huge room and there were at least 30-40 people seated on the carpet on the other side of the room leaving some space in the center for a person to walk up to the deities to do the ‘aarti’.

As my bro and I sat down beside the deities listening to songs in the praise of God, we saw our mom walk down the aisle carrying a pot of my favorite Prasad. As I kept looking at my mom, I saw a white figure walking majestically two steps behind her. As I watched my mom come towards us, I could see the figure in white more clearly. He looked like a saint. He was semi transparent but he was very radiant.

What do you do when you see something as awesome as that? Pure light radiating from him! It felt as if time had suddenly become slower and I saw everyone doing their stuff in slow motion and no one noticing the saint. I look at my bro and he is staring in awe too! Surely, he was the only person in the whole room other than me who was able to see him.

We watched him in slow motion as he neared us. He had the happiest face I had ever seen. As he disappeared into the deities, I saw him turn towards us and gave us a big smile.

Have u ever observed this? You lock eyes with another person and give a big smile and you almost always see the other person smile back. Something in that smile told us that we are very special and it encouraged us to "Always be good children". It felt so peaceful and serene.

As I recollect this dream, my brain mysteriously hits a blank sector in my memory about what happened after that. For some mysterious reason, my bro and I decide not to speak about it this whole episode to anyone.

For a long time, no one ever spoke about it. When I was eighteen, I drew a map of the house and I asked my mom if that was correct. I also asked her about a lot of people being in that room for a Puja.

My mom was pretty surprised and she asked how I knew that! I told her that it was the earliest memories I had about the house. She told me that I was about 3 years old at that time and they had that Puja only once on that scale. They stopped inviting people for that puja after that day.

I asked her why they stopped inviting people after that day! What had happened?

My mom told me this story about her childhood. When she was a little kid, a tribal nomad had come to their house. My mom was playing with her dolls when he came up to her and told her a few things about her. He had predicted a lot of stuff about her future and almost all of them had come true. From that day onwards, she always believed in people who could predict the future.

When they had first shifted to Warangal, a priest had told her that she should have this Puja at home and invite our neighbors and friends. Not having any objection to a social gathering, my parents invited all our neighbors and friends for the Puja. At the end of the day, the priest told my mom, “You are a very religious person! If you keep up your faith (he meant by doing more such Pujas), one day God will come to you and will bless you to become a saint. I can see the aura in you”.

My mom told me that the tribal nomad had predicted that such an incident would happen! And then she worried about us three children! Who would take care of her children if something like that were to happen? From that day onwards my parents stopped inviting everyone for those Thursday evening Pujas. We would still continue the tradition of special prayers on Thursday evenings.

I never told my mom about the figure in white. The tribal nomad had predicted that my mom would marry a very nice man and have two intelligent sons and a beautiful daughter. And he had also predicted that one of her sons or grandsons would one day become a KING.

Guess, this is my tribute to Martin Luther King Jr. and hence the title

J Neo