Scattered Dreams

This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 33; the thirty-third edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton. The theme for the month is 'Celebrations'

A gas-balloon, unknown of its own future, was conceitedly floating in the sky, as if on its maiden voyage of galaxies it was destined to kiss stars, but a trivial gust of wind shook its existence.  

Sitting on the raised platform that ran around a banyan tree, Raghu was watching the balloon with an unadulterated smile and undying sparkle in his eyes.  He was living a similar life, many dreams were getting accumulated over many seasons beneath the tiny petals that covered his eyes, but his destiny was throwing challenges that tested his life’s fragility every moment. The biggest challenge was to satisfy the perpetually obstinate demand of hunger.

The Picture of eye sourced from Internet

Two days before taking her last breath of immortality; his mother had a presage of an anonymous fear. Her mother was tagged immortal. She had survived the wrath of nature, which stuck in the form of lightning that charred the tree under which she was trying to save the cow-dung-cakes from getting wet; she escaped unhurt barring a few minor burns. She had survived a cobra-bite, a rarity in the village. But, her immortality was grotesquely tattered by a human. On the day when everybody was celebrating Holi, she was raped by the son of village Sarpanch in front of her own husband, who was immobilised with his hands and legs tied down to the peg used to tie the cows. After recovering, she chose the bottle of pesticide that was strategically placed on a stool that lay in front of her husband, instead of untying him. Continuous shouting, which could not rupture the veil of silence worn by other villagers, had already choked his throat. He silently watched his wife shedding her immortality breath by breath.  

After the death of the his mother, his father, a living dead, found solace only by drinking that unbearably stinking orange coloured drink. Many a times Raghu was left at the mercy of villagers who fed him with their leftovers. Two monsoons had already passed after his mother’s death but his dilapidating hut was not repaired. The banyan tree outside his hut provided a better shelter than the virtually nonexistent roof of his hut during monsoon.  Yet, the sparkle in his eyes had not dimmed. He had dreams that sounded very unrealistic even to his mother, but his determination was unruffled. He wanted to fly in the sky and race with the plane that appeared around 10pm every night; he rarely missed the opportunity to wave at the unknown and ignorant travellers.   He wanted to drive his mother to the fields where she worked, in the same long car that the rich man used while coming to his farmhouse situated at one corner of the village. Unaware of its significance, he wanted to own and gift that round structure, the picture of which was discarded by a mob carrying tricolour flags and shouting some slogans, to his uncles so that they stop harassing his parents for money.

Inspired by the bedtime story narrated by his mother a night before, Raghu woke up in the morning with a dream; he wanted to conquer the world. This was only a few days before his mother died. ‘Learn to contain the agility of your mind first. You have only seen nine monsoons, too young to carry the burden of the entire world but too old to contain your own emotions. The world is very ruthless,’ his mother had said. His tender brain could not decipher the philosophical undertone of her words.

On that fateful afternoon, Raghu was playing with his only toy, a discarded bicycle tyre. Rolling the tyre on the road, with a small but curved stick that helped him to give the thrust and the direction to the tyre, and running alongside it, as if he was measuring the world he wants to conquer with his strides, gave him immense contentment, which he rightfully deserved. Raghu and his tyre appeared unstoppable on the the newly laid tar road, which saw the departure of the potholes that threatened the tyre to complete even a single rotation. The tyre bumped into a pebble on the road and changed its direction. Raghu ran faster and could control the tyre from toppling over but soon he was traumatised by a loud screeching of break.

‘You fu***** As*****, you could have spoiled our celebration.’ A voice screamed. Almost frozen on the road, Raghu was staring at a large vehicle with missing roof and three young men sitting inside with their eyes emitting exasperation. ‘F*** off the road,’ screamed the man sitting at the wheel by loosely swivelling his hand in the air.

With steps smaller than his usual stride, Raghu moved away from road, but he was continuously staring at the men, not with fear, not with hatred, but with expectation, an unknown expectation. The word celebration was whirling inside his brain. It was not a word alien to him, but celebration for him only meant those two small earthen Diya lighting the door of his hut during Deepawali, but even that celebration lasted not more than ten minutes until the scarcely filled sesame oil burnt, along with burning the spirit of celebration with itself. After his mother’s death, the words celebration had abandoned Raghu, perhaps forever.

The same evening, Raghu left his hut in search of his father. It wasn’t a search per se since Raghu knew precisely where to find him, the same liquor shop at the corner of the village. He never liked this activity because of the putridity of the place and in the mind of people frequenting there, his father being one of them. However, it was different that evening, Raghu was filled with joy, as if the mention of the word Celebration has rejuvenated his being. He was walking straight, he was walking with reverse foot, he was running, he was dancing, he made many futile attempts to catch a butterfly, but when the butterfly flown outside his reach, he laughed at it by raising his hand and twisting his wrist as if he himself had forgiven the butterfly.

Very rarely that Raghu missed any distinctive sound that blessed the village on rare occasions, but that evening, a music, which was extremely foreign to his ears got registered inside his brain only after he saw the same large vehicle parked outside that farmhouse owned by the rich man. The intensity of music playing inside the house grew as Raghu covered the distances with careful steps. The unknown expectation that had sent the sparkle in his eyes a few hours ago was reignited. The expectation was to see, or if possible become a part of, the celebration of rich men and live their life even for a fraction of a second.

He forgot the purpose for which he was on the road. He forgot the threat of unnoticeable creatures that may be crawling inside the bushes when he took the deviation from the road to reach to the tree, a branch of which crossed the concrete boundary wall of the farmhouse and tilted downwards so that one could comfortably descend inside the lawn. He had used this tree many a times in the past to venture inside the farmhouse to pilferage the otherwise wasted mangoes. The corpulent old security guard posed negligible threat.

The deafening music raised his adrenalin level while he was watching inside through the half-open window. The smell of liquor was wafting in the air, but even that could not distract him. He was surprised to see that the clean and wrinkle-free clothing, he was envious about the rich people, was missing from the body of the three men. They were dancing like a maniac with only short pants covering their sanity. All the three of them were holding a glass in their hands and two of them had tucked cigarettes between their lips.

The music reached an abrupt halt and the three men collapsed on the couch. This was perhaps the first time Raghu blinked but remain attached to the place.

‘Good that your father allowed us to use this place.’ A man with the stubble on his face said to the fattest among them, after recovering his breaths.

‘He was bound to, has anybody in his family ever seen the gate of engineering college. His son will join one very soon.’ Another man with curly hair exclaimed by raising his glass for the toast and other two followed.

‘Don’t you think something is missing?’ The fat man spoke after sometime with a husky voice, after sucking half of his cigarette.

‘All because of this as*****, what was the need to bump with his partner in a common place, because of that all the girls backed out.’ The man with curly hair said pointing towards the man with stubble. An intense argument ensued for some time. Raghu was slowly losing interest, for the first time he distracted his eyes and looked towards to gate to check for the guard. He was convinced that he was in a safe position. He again looked towards the men but there were only two of them still arguing and the third, the fat one was missing. Raghu cursed both of them for arguing, and silently pleaded that the music should start. Very contrary to his thoughts, a hand, the heavier one present in that moment landed on Raghu’s shoulder. For a moment, as if he was pegged on the place, he didn’t move, perhaps his pulse were silent too.

Raghu was pulled inside by the fat man. Without much of resistance, he followed him.

‘He was watching us from that window; I am not sure for how long.’ The fat man said.

‘What were you watching dude?’ The man with the curly hair asked. Raghu remained silent. The man repeated his question, this time with slightly higher decibel.

‘Celebration.’ The word escaped Raghu’s mouth.

‘Celebration?’ The man with stubble asked with surprise.

‘Hey, this is the same bastard who almost killed himself today in front of our car.’ The fat man said. There was a moment of silence.

Unaffected by all this Raghu was watching at the table where the food items were kept. He could not suppress the desire speaking from his eyes and leaking through the sides of his mouth. This perhaps melted everybody in the room.

‘You want to eat something?’ The fat man asked, sympathy lurking on his face. Raghu simply nodded. No further words were exchanged between them. After almost fifteen minutes of assault on the food items, Raghu turned his head and looked towards the other members in the room. A cunning smile was back on their faces clearly suggesting that something was cooking inside their brain, but Raghu was too innocent to decipher.

‘Come, we will play something.’ The man with curly hair said. ‘You can eat after that as well.’ Raghu tuned and tilted his head in acceptance.

‘You seem very dirty. Take this soap and have a bath, and don’t wear these dirty clothes again, come out in the towel. We will buy new clothes for you from that village shop.’ The fat man said handing the soap to him. Raghu immediately took the soap near his nose and smelled. As if the perfume trickled every sense of his body, he exhaled the satisfaction.

By the time Raghu came back from the bathroom, the other three inmates in the room were under the absolute grip of Alcohol.

‘Come baby, come, come.’ The alcohol inside the fat man said. ‘Let me see how you smell.’ He pulled Raghu towards him and started sniffing, up and down, his entire body. In the next moment, the entire towel was lying on the floor. Raghu was raped animalistically, first by the fat man and then by the man having the curly hair. Raghu tried to protest but he failed. He shouted, he cried but all his efforts went futile.

Before the man with the stubble approached him, a voice of a man singing on the road reached his ears. It was his father. He ran towards the window and holding the grill he wanted to shout, but he could not, continuous shouting and crying had gnawed his voice. The man with stubble started pulling him, but Raghu’s grip on the grill didn’t loosen. High on Alcohol, the man gave up trying after a few attempts. With his legs barely holding the ground, he disappeared in one of the rooms and came back holding a gun. Raghu was terrified even more, he looked towards the other two people, but they had already passed into a deep slumber.

The unbearable pain in the lower part of his body was now replaced by the horror of the gun swiveling on his head. Raghu’s grip on the grill was slowly loosening, but the alcohol barked from the mouth of the gun, a bullet pierced through Raghu’s eye, drilled his brain, and came out making a large hole on the back of his head.

Raghu’s body collapsed on the ground. Stream of blood started flowing from his eyes carrying the unfulfilled and wrongly placed dreams. Looking at the scattered dreams all over, his soul, perhaps, could have understood the exact meaning of words spoken by his mother.

Early morning his body lay a few feet below the ground under the same branch of the tree, which brought him to this place.

The celebration continued. The three men came back three months later in the same way albeit accompanied by three girls this time. 

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