" THE BUSINESS OF DREAMS "

"The business of Dreams"

Last night at 3 am I woke up half way through a  dream. That usually happens with me now as part of the  aging experience.

At that moment (that is, when I woke up) I was trying in my dream to locate someone I had abruptly lost as I  was walking side by side with him,  chatting pleasantly, on a safe but lonely stretch of a rocky path.

That person happened to be  Aamir Khan, the bollywood actor ! 

So when  I suddenly woke up and could not know how Aamir Khan disappeared I felt bad. Just before that talk-and-walk with him,  I was eating a 'maska-pav' (bun with a liberal amount of fresh butter) at a street food stall. He had not joined me. He had patiently waited for me on the other side of the road, both hands deep in his trouser  pockets, reclining against a wall. I had crossed the road to eat muska-pav and he waited for me to finish . . . !

I had paid for the muska-pav and then we were on this rocky path, happily chatting, when he suddenly disappeared. I started searching him . . . and then I woke up with a  start. . . .

My dreams baffle me and many of these dreams are not pleasant.  why do we dream at all when we sleep! Why ?

Sigmund Freud’s theory of dreams suggests that dreams are a representation of supressed unconscious desires and motivations. But this particular dream did not fit into his theory. I think I dreamt this dream because I was watching a part of the film "Three Idiots" last evening. There is another theory that maintains that dreams are a subjective interpretation of signals generated by the brain during sleep.

We dream throughout life in what is known as the Rapid Eye Movement (REM) stages of sleep. According to a theory, circuits in the brain become activated during REM sleep, which causes areas  involved in emotions, sensations and memories to become active. This results in dreaming.

Mercifully almost all dreams get erased from memory moments after our waking up. And yet some dreams persist. I still recall a dream of a fat young girl with a very chubby face role-playing bhagwan (lord) Sri krishna (standing cross-legged and playing flute) in one of the interludes in a circus. I was then  five year old  and had visited a circus for the first time in life. I might have  been deeply moved by an altogether new experience of outside world - so the dream must have got engrained.

Writers often spin their stories around dreams. Shakespeare did so with abandon and so did many others. Yes, from ALICE IN WONDERLAND to HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX they have blazed a trail of adventure woven in dreams.

And yet it was a haunting one-liner about dreams that had impacted me the most :

“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again . . . “

. . . .So began the unforgettable classic 20th-Century suspense novel REBECCA of the inimitable Daphne du Maurier . . . taking us on to a journey of intense drama and intrigue !

***

BLAST FROM THE PAST

"BLAST FROM THE PAST"

Buy a Railway platform ticket and enter platform no.1. Take a stroll  from one end of the platform to the other end, viewing every thing, everybody..

Are you missing something that was a common sight a long time back? Yes you are !!

It's the bulging big khaki "HOLDALL" !

It was made of tough canvas cloth, pale green or khaki in colour. Three feet wide,  six feet long when unrolled. Deep-closed two ends where you tucked in the pillows, towels etc. Three feet long open area in the middle with full flaps on both side to wrap the open portion securely. It would carry a bedding - gadda, a couple of small pillows, a bedsheet, a blanket and quite a few other items including the ones you could not pack into the suitcase or the trunk. Bigger the family, more the children, bigger the packed stuff in the holdall.,

And then the overstuffed holdall posed a CHALLENGE ! How to roll it up and close it securely. And buckle  the leather straps securely!

YES. It had to be rolled up to close it and then buckled shut with the two  tough long leather straps. You sweated and managed to roll it up but as soon as you stretched a hand to get the ends of the leather strap it would loosen up again!

Enter the Kids! Yes that's right. They would be watching you toil.. They were a great help. And they were expecting to be called in ultimately to help!!

As soon as you rolled it up again, the kids instanly sat upon it  to prevent it from loosening - giggling and enjoying the "fun"!  Now you could wipe the sweat off your forehead and  buckle up the straps.

In those days usually a big black steel trunk was also there to keep company with the holdall if the family was travelling.

In north India the best trunks in the days of my grand parents were of the famous R.C Brothers, chowk, Allahabad. Totally rust proof and tough.

As you arrived outside the railway station, the red shirted coolie would be  there to pick up the trunk, hoist it on his head and the holdall on top of it.

He carried the massive burden to whatever platform you had to go.  Just for fifty paise !!

Once you were settled inside the compartment after locating your reserved berths,  you would unroll the holdall on a reserved berth—that would transform the berth  into your prime territory throughout the journey. Then you would distribute beddigs for your other berths.

And if it was the dinner time when the train hissed out of the station, tiffin careers of various sizes would soon materialise out of wicker baskets all over the compartment, filling the air with the irresistible aroma of  poori, paranthas fried vegetabes and pickles!!

And the steam engine would happily carry you all, and countless holdalls,  through the dark wilderness towards your destination!

BON VOYAGE !!

*****

Steam engine

BICYCLE TIMES

"BICYCLE TIMES"

HERCULES, the sturdy bicycle, cost about twenty eight rupees in nineteen thirties That would be about six dollars or two British pounds of those days. They were "MADE IN ENGLAND". There were other brand names roo.

The days of  British raj in India were the salad days for manufacturers in England. India was (in MBA language) a captive market - an assured big market.

So most cars  were British make. And all the bicycles too. The cars were usually small - Morris, Austin or Hillman. There were a few noisy T-model fords too. The  rich were still maintaining Tumtums (closed horse-drawn box carriages) until late forties. For others there were Tongas for hire.  The poor used cheaper uncomfortable Ekkas (jhatka). Cycle rikshaw became common only in the fifties.

The rich and the common men both kept a bicycle, usually a Hercules.   Our dashing young family doctor (ex)Capt. Sinha used to come to our house in a shining dark green  bike complete with a dynamo electric  light, a deluxe bell, a pump and a full chain cover. It was a treat to watch his noiseless shining dark green bike reflecting the Sun's rays as it came along crunching the red-gravel over our driveway.

As a kid I learnt cycling on a bike that my father had acquired in early thirties as a student. Lot of others too used this sturdy bike to learn cycling. As a kid, short in height, it was difficult for me to mount the seat. So I used to do what was popularly known as KAINCHI (scissors) style paddling. The right leg was put across the main frame to get to the right paddle.

The first time I found balance and got moving continuously without falling was a magic  "Newton's apple" moment of discovery! Riding a bike then became fun and freedom!!

The most coveted jobs were in the government. The luckier ones got into state civil service - PCS in short. These PCS chaps were the "brown sahibs"- they acquired decent tweed coats, three piece suits, a tennis maxply racquet, a better brand of cigarettes, the best quality  "Sola hats" (photo) and a well maintained new  bicycle. When  world war second started, petrol became scarce and bicycles even more popular - for office, clubs and everywhere.

The best brand of cigarettes was 555 State Express. Gold Flake came next. The middle class smoked Scissor's  or cavender's in packs of ten. Panama cigarettes in pack of twenty came later. Poor people smoked Bidi, the most popular brand being "Pahalwan chhap bidi".  Almost all adult males were smokers. They smoked inside the cinema halls too! All cinema halls had proper bicycle stands where one could deposit the bicycle for safe keeping while watching a film in the cinena hall. Money saved in transportation went up  in smoke!

"Sahibs" in British days were of two species - the brown ( Indian) and the white (British). Different food, different cultures, different lifestyle, different clubs. But both species had two things in common - the now forgotten sola hats and the british bicycle.The Sola hats kept the head cool in the fierce summer months.

Lot of stories have been woven around the Sahibs and their styles of rule. Books such as in the link below will take you back into those times:

https://books.google.co.in/books/about/The_Men_Who_Ruled_India.html?id=w4zTPQAACAAJ&redir_esc=y

For people moving up in social ladder a club was a must. Clubs had tennis courts, billiards rooms, playing cards tables etc. and ofcourse a cafetaria. A play corner for kids with merry go round, seesaw, slide-downs etc. was also usually there. In the portico area of clubs one could spot an Austin, a Morris or a Hillman car and a plethora of bicycles - all british made.

That was 'once upon a time'. . . . . ! Those were the bicycle times. No smog. No noise. Fresh air. A clear night sky where you could locate "Orion Hunters" or even "The Kite" constellations on a moonless night.

It is good to see that  bicycles are again coming back into fashion.  There are now  designer bikes too for the rich. Separate bicycle lanes are being laid down in many cities to encourage safe cycling. May be, the days of less automobiles and more bicycles will follow. "Twinkle Twinkle Little Stars" and the glow worms (fireflies) will then come back once again!