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Excerpts from the Autobiography of a sleepwalker : Dr. Manoj M. ( view bio )

The multitude of strange voices and scents started the sleepwalker out of his slumber. Extending his travel weary limbs, he gazed round himself only to meet with millions of critical eyes, all staring back from behind a curtain of vacuum, pride, apprehension and fear. Many turned away, searching for better prospects. A few smiled, trying to strike a chord. ”Is this it?”. he thought, ”the rendezvous, the battle field he had pushed himself to his limits to reach?”.

Suddenly, he stood transfixed by fear, petrified by the unshakeable inertia of immobility. Advancing towards him, were his predecessors, whose skin, though might have been soft ages ago, had now metamorphosed into pachydermal hides and whose faces, the scars of many a battle, had mauled into hideous, menacing masks. Growling, they lashed their whips in the air and pandemonium broke out among the newcomers. Sleepwalker felt himself being crushed by a tsunami of humanity. As they ran helter- skelter, the weaker ones got trampled by their compatriots and whipped by their predators.

As he came back to his senses, his face stuck in a clotted pool of his own blood, saliva and vomitus, tears welled up in his eyes trying to wash away the excruciating pain which seemed to be crushing every sinew in his body. Too drained to lift his head and look around, but sensing he was alone, he waited for her. She came, engulfed him within herself, wrapped him in feathery soft blankets of analgesia and took him away to the promised land of dreams…….. and of nightmares. So he dreamt……..

The place occupied from the nauseating odour of formalin and of the bodies whose natural sojourn towards a decomposed oblivion had been abruptly arrested by the chemical. The cadavers, all harmless, ageless, faceless, nevertheless reflected the eternal sadness of the souls that had once inhabited them. Then the sleepwalker saw himself…… or was it his sinister alter ego…….. leaving open the chest of his own brother. There…….. he was holding the heart in his hand…….. guiding his index finger through the venecaval inlet into the right atrium to the right AV orifice……Nooooo!!!.He fled shrieking into the darkness.

Landing with a thud on the jagged peaks of wakefulness, he saw strange faces around. They weren’t his compatriots. Oh!! An epoch had passed away in merciful coma. This was the next generation. He realized he was holding a whip. As he growled and cracked his whip,he shuddered at the menace that had crept into his voice. Watching them flee, he felt no thrill, no satisfaction, but instead a dull ache deep down his entrails. Disgusted, he threw away the whip and went back to sleep. And he dreamt…….

The dim red hue and the cloud of smoke pervading the room matched the musty labyrinths of his own neural networks dulled by exotoxins. The haunting melody of Jethio Tull which caressed him in waves seemed to be emanating from a pinpoint of light on the verge of his inner horizon. Floating submerged in the peaceful dark waters of existentialism, like Ravi from Khasak, he thought of what Krishna had propounded in the Geetha:

Na tvevaham jatu nasam
Na tvam neme janadhipah
Na chaiva na bhavishyamah
Sarve vayamatah param.

There was not a time when me, you and they didn’t exist. They do exist and shall continue to do so till eternity.

Emerging from the depths of his self imposed hibernation, he surveyed the battle field. With a chill running down his spine, he realized he was lonely. Yes, there they were, he thought, spotting his cotravellers, now just specks on the darkening vista. Hit by the thunderbolt of lonliness, fear, defeat, he bolted up and fled in pursuit. As images from “Run Lola Run”, flashed in front of his inner eye, he thought, ”why am I running ?!”. Then he remembered. He had come to the rendezvous for the same to fight, to run. Years of sedation had made his lung atelectatic. His muscle cells on an oxygen feeding frenzy, he felt his alveoli turn into iron, refusing to expand any more, refusing to breathe. He ran….. and ran…… until he thought he had died, his soul floating high up in the empyrean, looking down amused at a body that was still running.Then, all of a sudden, it was all over. He had crossed the finish line.

The place was totally deserted. He was standing at the edge of a lake so large, he couldn’t make out its opposite bank. Out of the water, a stranger stared back at him, has face and body scarred with a thick hide, and the eyes of a hound cheated off its prey, hungry, cruel and tired. He felt strangely light hearted.

The prize giving ceremony was over. The victors had left with their bouquets and trophies. Searching around him, he found it, the toils of his labour. Lovingly, he lifted it from the dirty ground and placed it on his head. Then he ran.

It was a crown of thorns…….Neverthless,it was a crown-which was all that mattered.

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