Alok and Asatya

Dinesh suddenly got up from his sleep. He was sweating profusely. Though it was a chilly winter night, his face and neck were wet with sweat. He sat in his bed for about a minute; then joined his hands together, murmured something looking up, and then

slept. I hardly showed any concern and slept immediately.

The next day morning, as usual he started narrating his scary dream to me while I showed no interest, whatsoever. This had happened N number of times and I saw no point in bothering myself with whether the dream was about Dinesh being chased by a rabid dog or whether it was about he becoming dumbstruck while a thief intruded his house at night.

I knew that he would go to the Someshwara temple in the evening after the college was over. He used to always insist on me going to the temple with him.

Our new college building was being built on the periphery of the town. It was covered on one side by mountains. The college was on the mid-level between the mountains

and the base. On the lowest side, approximately half a kilometre from the college, there was a lake. And on the bank of this lake was the Someshwara temple which is believed to have been built in the 12th century. What attracted me to this temple was not the presence of God, but the absence of humans. On the Mahashivratri however, man animals thronged to the temple in herds.

As a friend, and as a roommate, mostly I complied with Dinesh's request and went to the temple with him.

Dharwad in those days was a small town with a small population. It is situated between Belgaum and Hubli. It was known as a pensioners' paradise. Although

Dharwad was a small place, it had many institutes including a polytechnic and our Sri.

Dharmasthala Manjunatheshwara College of Engg. C Tech. I don't remember exactly

how many colleges were there, but I certainly remember that it had 7 cinema halls; 3 of which mostly ran Kannada movies. One theatre called Modern Theatre was located only a stone's throw away from where we stayed. It mostly showed English movies. We

frequented it so much that we often joked that we could visit it blindfolded. We preferred watching English movies because Jitendra-Sridevi kind of flicks used to be

lousy, unbearably lengthy, and the music... cacophonous! English movies on the other hand, were short and to-the-point. We could understand the entire movie by watching video. The audio went over my head.

So, as usual, that day also I had to go to the Someshwara temple with Dinesh because he had seen a scary dream. Dinesh came from an upper middle class, educated Malayalam family. His father was a businessman and mother, a professor at a junior college in Trivendrum. Although his was an educated family, it believed in all sorts of superstitions including ghosts. They believed that a bad dream was a premonition of an

impending disaster. On one occasion, Dinesh's dad had cancelled his business trip abroad because Dinesh had seen an airplane crash, in his dream.

That morning, while Dinesh was telling his dream, a next-door friend, Aalok entered the room and sat there listening with interest. After the story was over, he suggested that Dinesh should consult another friend Satyajeet (popularly?) known as Asatya.

Actually, I had coined this name; needless to say, I disliked him. So, let us continue with this name throughout the story.

Asatya was a tall, lanky guy, who, as a student, was an average. He came from a poor family. In my judgement, he was a psycho. He always had different ideas about everything, which I, and almost everyone else for that matter, didn't like. Nevertheless, his ideas entertained us. And this was the only reason why Aalok suggested Dinesh to meet Asatya.

So, in the recess, we went to Asatya's room. This was the first time I was visiting Asatya's room. I was pleasantly surprised to see the tidiness in the room. I had expected his room to be in complete shambles. On the contrary, it was clean and neat. Foul smell emanating from unwashed dirty socks is commonplace in hostels. But Asatya's room

was odourless. A light-coloured bedsheet was clean and covered the bed neatly. All the textbooks were plastic-covered and arranged vertically on a wooden rack. Two pairs of clean shoes were kept neatly in a corner behind the door. Asatya was pressing his

clothes when we entered. While most of us gave our clothes outside for laundry, Asatya couldn't afford to do so. He washed and pressed his clothes on his own. And probably he liked to do all his work himself.

On seeing us, he exclaimed, "What an unpleasant surprise?" and laughed whole- heartedly. He must have said that jokingly, for he had only friends and no enemies in the college. He argued but never fought. He didn't have to. He won most of his arguments hands down because he had mastered the knack of arguing, even when he was wrong.

We sat on his bed and explained why we had come.

"Dinesh has been seeing scary dreams quite frequently", Aalok said "do you have anything to say?" he asked, winking at us.

"This life itself is a bad dream", he joked again, but we were not amused.

"Guys, I am not a medical student. Therefore, don't expect me to say anything on this

subject with certainty. I will only say what I feel is right. But honestly speaking, I might be totally wrong.", Asatya continued.

"Don't bother yaar. Go ahead", said Aalok. Who was serious anyway? We just wanted

to pass time. Although I don't remember the conversation verbatim, here is what Asatya had to say, in short.

'While asleep, sometimes, some people's brains switch to what we may call in our common language as a Correction Mode. While in sleep, the body sometimes feel

uncomfortable for various reasons and the problem needs to be corrected. Here are some common examples:

1. A person might be suffering from acidity. While lying flat on bed, the acid comes to mouth and strikes the tissues in mouth, causing wounds. To dilute this acid, saliva is required. To facilitate secretion of saliva, brain starts showing dream that the person is eating mouth-watering foods such as sweets.

2. In case of small kids, when the kid's bladder is full of urine, brain shows dream that the kid is urinating in toilet and the child wets his bed.

3. If a person is sleeping and a temple bell starts ringing, the brain might show a dream that something is on fire and fire brigade is arriving.

In all above examples, brain does not want a person to wake up.

But there are times when it is necessary to wake up the person so that he can take corrective measures. Here are some common examples:

1. A person is sleeping on his back, and one leg is kept crossed on top of the other. In this case, a vein in the lower leg gets pressed, causing obstruction to blood circulation.

2. A person is sleeping on his back and one arm is kept on an eye. The eye is feeling heavy weight of the arm.

3. It's wintertime and a person’s blanket is not on his feet. The feet have become very cold.

4. A person is sleeping on one side with both legs folded through knees and his palms are sandwiched tightly between the knees.

5. A person is sleeping on one side and the lower ear is folded.

In all the above situations, it is necessary for the brain to wake up the person so that he can knowingly or unknowingly correct his position. For this reason, the brain starts

showing scary dreams.

Sometimes, one dream is not scary enough for waking up. Person wakes up only for a moment and sleeps again in the same position, only to see another scary dream. This continues until he wakes up fully enough to realize that he is not sleeping in a

comfortable position. For example, he realizes that he is feeling cold; pulls blanket over his legs and sleeps again.'

Saying this, Asatya asked Dinesh if any of these situations applied in his case. Dinesh couldn't answer but said he would check the next time.

Aalok didn't look impressed. I was not quite convinced with this explanation for two reasons:

Firstly, I was not going to allow myself to like Asatya, for, he always had different

opinion on every subject. Secondly, Asatya himself had told in the beginning that he was not sure about what he was going to say.

That evening we went to the Someshwara temple anyway

--Amol Sakhalkar