There are two recurring themes in my dreams. In one I am always stranded on a very narrow wall or stairs or something which is very very high. On top of that I am trying to navigate on these very very high stairs or wall or whatever. Most of the times, I even have to climb from one wall to the next and distance between them is huge and mind you, I am far above the ground. Or I am on unimaginably an high staircase and some of the steps are missing and I have to take the jump. Similar lines, wall, rock, stairs, terraces, lifts, you get the drift. A few years ago, I used to get this dream every single night. Every. Situations changed. Now, it's less frequent. Once in a while. Only when I'm really worried about something.
My mom (right), my sis (middle, duh)The other recurring theme involves my nani. Infact, all women from my mom's side and my nani's home. I find it difficult to believe that all these women are there in almost all dreams of mine (except the stuck at heights ones). I could be dreaming about anything, anything at all, and there they would be in the background. They are always there as some extraneous characters. And many of my dreams had my nani's home as the setting. All this is more surprising because I hadn't met my nani or even gone to her place in almost 10 years. Yet there they all would be in my dreams.
mommy again
I hadn't thought much of these nani dreams till recently. Till I went back to Haryana where she lives. Till I met all my cousins and aunts and uncles and my nani. Till I smelt the soil, felt the air on my face, the cold on my skin. Till I ate their food once again. Till I spoke their dialect, my dialect. It didn't take me long to realize that I may travel far from my roots but my roots are never far from me. They are within me and I carry them with me.
For past many years, I tried to fight this urge, this dream. I tried to fight every feeling that told me that I am attached, that I have to go back. Why was I trying to do this is another story in itself but let's assume that I had my own very valid and rational reasons. But then one of my close cousins was getting married and I had gone on for 10 years with bitterness, skepticism and fear in my heart. Something inside me let go. Almost instantly, as if being directed by someone else, I didn't think, I didn't fear anymore. I summoned my sisters and just like that I was on a flight to Delhi. To say that 'planets aligned' would not be an exaggeration.
And boy, did the planets align? The five days that I was in Haryana were the most awesome days I have had in a long long time. And I have had some very good days in the past two years and so I'm talking like really really awesome days.
There's this thing about family. I didn't meet these people for the last 10 years, didn't even speak to them. Some cousins who were half my height when I last saw them have grown into handsome young men taller than me. But when I met them, time dissolved, distances dissolved. It was like we were always in touch, never apart.
What was done with a lot of 'what ifs' turned out be an extremely good thing for me and my heart. I no longer feel the void. I feel connected, rooted again.
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The black and white pics are from my nani's collection. How it warmed my heart to see these again.
