I had a dream during the 15-minute nap before my Zoom meeting.
I remember the cocktail party in my uncle's home in Bhubaneshwar. I am wearing a pleated ochre number from Zara and high heels in chocolate suede. My hair is short and the highlight of that entire look is a clunky chain of white beads and a metallic clasp. In my dream, I remember touching the beads ever so often. Even as I am dancing, I feel the coolness of the white beads, like little splinters of gentle moonlight. My aunt comes up to me and asks to borrow the necklace sometime. I remove it and she takes it with a smile. The party is over and as I am leaving, my aunt hands it to me. She says that it's an expensive necklace. I tell her that it cost me a hundred bucks or something. But she says that the necklace will demand a whole lot.
I shrug, wear my necklace and leave.
I am staying at another aunt's place who asks me, in the dream, to go out to get guguni, a spicy street-side fare. I go and I walk until the airport and return to Bombay. I have left my necklace behind. (In real life, I actually did.)
Then again in the dream, I am in my present house and present age in Bombay and I get the urge to check in one of the drawers of a cupboard I seldom use. So far, I had only put in some kitchen cloths there. I am really sleepy. But I wake up with a jerk. Some anxiety about the Zoom meeting maybe.
The meeting will start in half a minute. I don't have time to go to my laptop. So I join the meeting through my phone. As the meeting is in session, I get a nagging feeling to check my drawers.
I am talking on my phone as I walk to the drawers and open it.
The necklace is there.
It is very very freaky. I didn't have it all these years. My aunt had spoken to me after mom passed on. While talking she had told me that I must move forward in life. Maybe stay with her for a while and go partying with her. After all, my necklace and make-up was already at her place.
And just as weirdly, I lost my specs. I can't find it. I had kept it on the bed. And now it's just not there. It has disappeared.
Maybe there is a rational, logical explanation for all this. For now it feels as if the hours of my life, my memories, dreams, and present are being played around like a Rubik's cube. One square of red dream with one blue of twilight memory with one yellow of real life fact.
Maybe one day they will all line up neatly.
Until then, strange times.
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