From Being Chased by a Washing Machine to making a New Year Resolution

I seldom dream or as most people have told me, care to remember any of them. But, when I do, I try to decipher it because it is usually a once-in-six-months kind of oddity. 

On the last day of the last year (2017), I went off to sleep around 11 pm because I was shit tired. I had worked long days on the 30th and 31st and was in no position to go out or wait for the fireworks to go off. I fell on my bed and literally died till I was woken up by my own voice trying to shout but, sounding like that of a wounded animal in pain. 

I think it was the sound that woke me up. I have never shouted in my sleep ever before or been woken up by my own voice. 

As I opened my eyes to a grey room I recalled the dream vividly. I was being chased by a washing machine inside a home and I was running away from it. 

I also recalled thinking someone was pushing it to follow me and that if I shouted for help, I would be rescued by people - most probably my family - who were in the next room.

I tried shouting but, I was unable to. I tried really hard a few times and that is when I made that garbled noise that woke me up.

As I came to consciousness in my own bedroom in the apartment I live in alone, I was scared for a bit. What did happen? Who was trying to chase me? Why was that person or apparition hiding behind a washing machine of all things to chase me down?

Questions that my mind started forming within minutes of my waking up. By the time my breath returned to normal, I was wondering what message was my mind trying to share with me.

Then suddenly I realized it was the new year and the old one just slipped away while I was sleeping. 

As is human, I started feeling happy about the new and soon forgot about the crazy 'chase scene' and fell back to sleep dreaming of fresh new stuff. After all, who doesn't love the new?

In the next two days, though I did not stop thinking about it and discussed it with my family. My mother found it extremely scary - but, she is my mother. Then, my sister asked me something very interesting, "Are you running away from something?"

That was a good start. So, I started thinking if there was any truth in her query. There was no one to ask but, myself and I spent a lot of time thinking if I was indeed trying to run away from anything in particular. 

A day later - today - I opened up dream interpretation sites and read about chase dreams. Bingo!

She was right. That exactly was how chases were explained. 

I have been running away from a whole lot of decisions from a long time. I have been procrastinating and even avoiding my own counsel. 

It doesn't take a lot of insight to interpret a dream when you are nudged in the right direction. 

The washing machine was probably my own creative imagination that made me make up all the fancy and Surf Excel excuses that help me put off doing things by another day and then another and yet one more. 

So, my super-simple new year resolution would be to worry not and jump into the fray.

There's not much to lose is there. A wise man (may God rest his soul) had once told me many years ago, "there are only two ways a situation can go. Negative or positive. There is no in-between." 

Somewhere in the rat race called life, I had forgotten this absolute gem of an advice and started worrying too much about failing. It's silly in the long run to be scared of not doing something because of the fear of not passing with flying colors.

Life is actually simple because, either we have or we don't have certain things. What we have doesn't come with a guarantee of forever after and what we don't have is always a possibility that we can achieve.

My father, another wise man whose interpretation of life is really very simple always insisted that everything goes away eventually. I have been so burdened with the scare of losing that I had stopped taking the leap of faith. 



This year when it came through, tried to jolt me awake and make me aware of my inactivity. 

It was funny too for the simple reason that probably the universe was irritated by my status quo or maybe it was my inner self. So, something as innocuous as a washing machine was used to chase me out of my stupor by powers that be. 

Once I had uncovered the meaning of the great chase and scream dream sequence that made my life exciting in the pre-dawn hours of the new year, I laughed. I laughed hard at the exasperation of my self that is so tired of me putting things off.

It made it very easy for me to form my resolution - "get moving"!

Have a great and awesome new 2018 and, "get your ass moving people!" Because, it is always better to chase your dreams rather than be chased by them. 

Say 'No' to Stay Happy

Life is never easy and mostly this is because there are too many choices to make. For every decision you take there are a thousand that 'could have been' or 'would have been' or 'if only'.

Personally, I have always faced a problem has been saying 'No'. I have always been scared of making someone unhappy by saying no when they want me to say, 'Yes'.

It had made my life thoroughly complicated and difficult for many years. The idea that I will hurt someone by saying 'No' always ended up by me being miserable for a long time for saying, 'Yes'.

The heart always knows what is right and the wise always go with their heart. I finally learnt to say 'No' from my young niece. When she was just learning to communicate at around the age two years, she would very clearly let us know if she did not want something. She'd simply say, 'no' and stick to her decision. Whether it was on food, time to be put to sleep, who she would want to be carried around by - for every decision, she'd look at what is on display and give her emphatic decision.

I learnt from her. By closely following her whims, I realized that she was exercising her right to choice without any outward influence. It did not matter whose heart she was breaking by saying no. What mattered was whether she was comfortable with the final decision - I observed that she always was. Once she decided, she stuck to the decision and stayed happy. She actually is a happy human being who is able to light up a dark day with her laughter.

Most of us are like her when while growing up. But, adulthood and society takes care of us soon and we become slaves to what is supposedly 'expected behavior.'

But, each time we say 'yes' to something that we wanted to say 'no' to, we kill a bit of ourselves by putting our happiness on hold.

Since Dussehra just passed us by, another story struck me and made me believe that what I learnt from the baby in the last couple of years was absolutely correct. It is the story of Ratnakar bandit who later became the great sage, Valmiki.

Ratnakar confessed to a monk he had captured that he became a dreaded criminal and highway robber to feed his family. The monk very calmly asked him to go back to his family and ask them if they were ready to take his sins on their heads because he was 'killing and looting innocents to feed them'.

Ratnakar without hesitating for a moment said, "of course they do. They are my mother, father, wife and children. They have always known what I do and how I bring home food. They are partners in my life of crime because they are benefiting from it."

The monk who was tied-up to a huge tree and had the fierce Ratnakar staring at him in the eye with a scimitar ready to behead him said, "Nothing is involuntary in the universe. Go and ask your family and if they say that they are ready to take your sins on their heads, I will be happy to die by your hands."

Ratnakar somehow could not say, 'No'. Perhaps this was his biggest character flaw as he was soon to realize.

He went back to his family in the jungle and asked each one of them separately and then, together but, everyone unanimously refused to take on his sins including his mother and beloved children. They all said, 'it was your duty to take care of us and you did it the way you decided to. We never influenced or asked you to take on a life of crime and murder to feed us. It was your decision to do so and therefore, the sins that you have incurred are also yours.'

No amount of begging or crying would change their minds. Finally, the truth hit the dreaded bandit that we are alone are responsible for taking our own decisions and therefore to suffer or reap the rewards of the Karma we make from them.

He thought he was making his family happy but, in taking care of their happiness he refused to take a road that might have been less paying thinking it would make his family happy. Probably they were too but, Ratnakar himself was not. He was miserable and constantly afraid of death that he meted out to others all the time. Probably it was his inability to overcome his fear of death that made him listen to the monk who had nothing to lose.

In saying 'Yes' to a path of crime, Ratnakar had permanently written-off his choice to be free of the ghosts of his own making. He was successful but, not happy.

He went back to the monk, let him off and took up a vow to cleanse his sins by praying on an ant hill for many years.

How that worked out and how he became the revered saint Valmiki, the author of Ramayana is another story and perhaps his reward for accumulating good Karma post renunciation of the material world.

That day however, was an eye-opener for Ratnakar because, he realized the hard way like most of us that we alone have to suffer our choices. No one will take up the responsibility of our mistakes or bad choices even if we have taken it to make them happy.

What matters is to listen to your heart and follow what your gut tells you.

Choose wisely to live happily because we are the protagonists of our stories and each story deserves a happy ending.