There was recession in Heaven

Let the scientists figure out how and why dreams occur. I am here to experience them; some will be good, most will not make sense and the odd one or two will send me looking for the water bottle at 3 am. It’s the dreams that have absolutely no logic to the sequence in which they unfold that are the most interesting ones; and I’m sure it’s the same with most people.

I had this one particular dream, back in 2003, which I found so hilarious I began laughing in my sleep and consequentially woke up. It was one of those no-brainer nonsense jokes, but I guess the punch line at the end of the dream was too good that even today, 6 years hence I can recount every detail as it unfolded.

The scene is set in the prayer hall of my school. There isn’t much lighting around in the hall but for what’s filtering through the windows on a cloudy December morning. There’s a stage and I’m standing on it. The hall is empty and spacious with the big wooden door on my far right. There are framed photos of freedom fighters on the walls on my left hand side. At the entrance to the hall near this door is a tripod stand supporting a black coloured board with holes (the kind you would find at the entrances of reception halls with yellow and white letters stuck in it announcing the event details). I see my Head Mistress and my two best friends Satya and Anoop standing in front of the board reading what’s displayed on it. Curious to see it for myself, I get off the stage and walk towards them. As I get around to facing the board, I call out to my friends. They can’t hear me, for they aren’t responding.

Here’s what I see on the board – in big white letters is the word ‘Prayer’. Following this, in smaller letters are four lines of English poetry; the first three ending with commas and the last one with a full stop. I don’t remember what the lines were, but interestingly after the four lines, I see something else. In tiny yellow it says ‘Rs 81’. That’s right, Rupees Eighty One. Anoop is reading out the lines on the board with my Head Mistress and my other friend Satya nodding along approvingly. I’m a mute spectator to all of this. All the while, I’m standing there thinking “What is the ‘Rs 81’ doing there at the bottom? What does it mean?” Soon enough, Anoop completes reading the ‘Prayer’ and looks towards the teacher. She asks him in her bossy commanding voice “What do you think of this prayer?” Without a moment’s hesitation, he replies “It’s good. But why did you have to pay 81 Rupees for this English prayer? You could have bought a cheaper Hindi Prayer for 25 bucks.”

I woke up with spurts of laughter that morning. I’m still trying to figure out what the 81 Rupees was for. Maybe even God wasn’t spared of the 2003 market downturn, and He had to resort to selling copyrights of His prayers to lesser mortals like us. For the record, my school prayer was Gajananam, bhoothaganadhi sevitham ....