Chapter 7

I woke up drenched in sweat and fear….

It took quite a few minutes for me to get a proper breath in all the way to the bottom of my lungs. I was hyper-ventilating like a mad dog in summer heat. Breathe, breathe, breathe shrieked the siren song pounding on my skull….

My breathing eventually slowed down and the room swam into focus…..shit, I was back in my past and I hate the colour of that blue & while colour scheme while I was in it.

My room was overcrowded – no two ways about it. It was a horror show and worse, the current state was what pushed me into Japanese minimalist styles in my future years. Here it was all wood and furniture all over the place with bureau’s, cupboards, clothes horses etc while later it would all be recessed lighting, in built spaces and zen functionality of chrome, leather and steel. Office Spartan as bro would call it in disdain…

Bro…

He was still a runt….all 3 feet of him, not his usual lanky 6 footer frame… which one was real?

I ran my hands (sausage fingers – I hate myself!!) over my body. There are no tubes anywhere, I am not in pain, I am in my bedroom….not the correct bedroom, but still a bedroom I have owned and been a part of.

Slowly, I move my limbs, expecting banshee jolts of pain and lack of access. Everything is fine or as fine as the fatty frame would be…. I really needed to gym out. Damn!

As I swung my feet over the edge of the bed, I again looked at my hands and wondered what skills, memories and other stuff I have retained. I was scared that I was hallucinating….and remembered old Deshmukh, my erstwhile professor of lawschool who made me what I became. That old man, long since dead would sneer at my worries and demand action….of the mind first, boy, not of the body…

Retreat into yourself, find your mind, your mind is the greatest weapon ever prepared, find your mind, find your spirit and then show the world that its they who should fear you, not you them….

That bloody Nazi was a madman of the first order but he really knew how to push young and impressionable minds into a state of tempered arrogance and ability that would beat down any given odds just because they didn’t know anything else….

This is not helping, get up, think of something to do and DO it…sneered that horrible man in the corner of my mind.

Right….

The kitchen was always Ma’s sanctuary and preserve – in all her battles of life, she would commence and retreat into its enormous size. The bloody larder room or store room was the size of a modern Mumbai studio apartment and her kitchen did not seem to have any ending with its nooks & crannies.

Later, bro and I would modernize the whole crumbly edifice and ended up enlarging the store room into the dining room and the drawing room to create a continuous and tremendous living room capable of hosting massive parties. The kitchen would also be redone but Ma refused to use it after we did it up and would only issue instructions to the houseboys and cooks.

But NOW, it was still the same – dark, smelly and smoky with huge bloody utensils which seemed capable of cooking for an army. It was deathly silent in the afternoon’s slumber and there was a palpable sense of ownership – my mother’s and her army of helpers.

I went digging for coffee and found the old-fashioned glass bottle of nescafe instant sitting & liquefying  inside our decades old GEC (General Electric Corporation) refrigerator. That bloody fridge came with granny and stayed till bro went off to college. I think I finally donated it to the museum along with half of granny’s silverware, cutlery, cooking utensils etc. But it was working now and the coffee was in a horrendous shape.

Our family had tea-estates, coffee was for rare visitors who might ask for a cup and hence stored against said possibility. This was India of the very early nineties, still trying to digest Mr. Rao’s intentions of a liberalized economy & global reforms. I sadly took the glass bottle and dug up a kettle and put it to boil.

The coffee tasted weird…. I tried dumping sugar but it was still weird and strange on my tongue, scalding everything on its way to my untainted and very securely lined stomach linings. Ulcers and actual peptic problems were in the far future…. There was much coffee to be drunk…

I brought paper and pencil to the dining table (I feel comfortable on big tables) and decided to make a small list (checklists were hammered into my 34 year consciousness).

Statements of Fact:

• I am in my past, approximately 20 years ago.
• I have relapses when I sleep and I wake up in my future
• I am encased in fat and think I might be hallucinating
• This list is not helping
• I need to sort out school – its way too much trouble currently
• I need to really understand why I am here
• The parents need to be explained – this is definitely not going to be funny.
• Where do I go from here?
• This list itself needs help.

I was stymied and stumped – what am I supposed to do? The typical Hollywood movies had some guru-sort who would at least give clues and such. All I got was myself and memories of a future I am about to live in.

And I had homework to deal with….. ah, joy … NOT.