The Villain

I was woken up in the morning by the sharp tone of SMS alert. I unlocked the phone, checked the first message, and read,

“HELLO SAW U IN MY DREAMS YES’DAY”

At first, enviously I realised that I had not seen any dream for so many years; in fact, dreams and dreaming were my childhood fascinations. Don’t think it was my girl friend or someone like that who sent me the SMS. It was from my sensitive friend, Kiran Ravindran, a senior journalist and a film maker by profession, who had some interesting short films and documentaries to his credit. He also is the author of a noted book, which deals with the history of playback of Malayalam cinema. Another sharp note of the SMS alert made me wake up from thoughts. This was also from Kiran. He used to send SMSs like this fashion, one sentence in two or three text messages. The second SMS was a continuation of the first one,

“BUT A HORRIBLE ONE”

Stopping forcefully a destined-to-be-satisfactory yawn at midway, I immediately dialled his number and asked him about the dream. I had read Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams and I knew that the modern day psychoanalysts have different opinion regarding Freud’s views. When asked about the dream, he said,

“I can’t remember much of it, what I remember only is the fact that you were of a certain villainous character in the dream.”

That was half true. Kiran had just directed a short film for which the screenplay was mine. Apart from asking me to do a role in that film, he gave me the freedom to choose the character also. I chose the character with a villainous nature. That might be what caused him to see a dream with a villainous me, I thought.

When asked more details of the dream, he promised that he would try to remember the forgotten parts of the dream and would tell me in the format of a story filling the missing links.

Two days after, in the evening, he rang up at my number and asked me to meet him at a nearby teashop.

While sipping a glass of hot coffee, he revealed that he failed to collect the forgotten links of the dream.

“But, it was something like a public function, in which both of us were attending,” he said. “Suddenly a commotion started among the gathering,” he continued.

“A commotion? What was the reason? Who started it?” I asked.

“It was you who started the commotion. You caused the trouble among the people who were attending the function,” he said.

“Oh, I see, Ok! Describe me in your dream. Did I wear any sort of costumes like that of a ruffian? Did I have a local headgear around my head?” I asked.

“No, you were in casual wears,” he said.

“Ok, then?” I became more curious.

“Your rebellious actions caused casualty amidst the people. You made something like a blast. Many people were injured, some dead,” he said.

“Were you also injured?” I asked.

He said, “No, I was not injured. But when I called for help, you did not come up. You did not help me.”

“Oh, that’s sad,” I said, “Ok then?”

“I don’t remember much of the dream plot. But I was asking you, Oh, how you could do such a terrible deed! And with a pathetic expression and fear, I woke up. It took some more minutes for me to realise that it was a dream,” he said. 

I seriously began to reflect upon his dream. 

And the film that we did have much similarity with his dream.