A Dream ^ - ^

It was one of the coldest winter afternoons in Paro. The road trip was kind of scary with the ice topped road, the car skidded every now and then. My brother’s speed driving added to it. The potholes made it worst. I never had such a bumpy ride ever in my life before, I thought. My endurance level slowly faded and I pulled the hand brake, stopped the car and drove on my own till the destination. The two ladies who were soundly asleep at the back of the car were also woken up by the sudden stop. I had wondered how they could sleep so peacefully when my heart was in my mouth, though my sister claimed that she had lesser sleep the previous night. We reached our destination past mid day.

So many other things happened in the middle, it’s kind of vague now…..And…. It was almost dark when we finished eating, we had wasted too much of time choosing the spot. When I suddenly felt so thirsty I had asked my sister to get me a bottle of water from the shop nearby. After a while, I saw a group of people running towards us. As I watched them come closer, I realized it was my sister who was being chased by a group of familiar faced men. I couldn't recognize them instantly, but later when I was out of the situation, I realized they were some popular faces.

My sister was panting. I asked her what happened and why these people were after her. She told me that she had some argument over the price of the water with the shopkeeper and the shopkeeper sent the whole bunch of people to beat her up. I was kind of shocked that this was happening in our country, I had never heard of one. Luckily the village headman was after them and he solved the issue without my sister getting beaten.

After a hurried thank you to the village headman, we rushed towards the car and drove hastily towards Thimphu. In the car my sister explained to me, how the argument started. She told me how the shopkeeper over reacted when she explained that overcharging is wrong. The shopkeeper sold the bottle of water for Nu 50 which had a printed price of Nu. 20 only, she alleged.  We were too engrossed in our talk that we hadn't noticed two big vehicles following us. I don’t exactly remember the make.

One of the vehicles speed-ed ahead of us while the other one was still following.  The vehicle which was ahead of us stopped when we reached a dense forest.  When we realized we were being followed, we were already surrounded by ten huge people wearing black dresses and boots. They were the same people who were chasing my sister a while ago. We were all trapped, the four of us, we screamed for help, but there were no sign of any people, forget people the place didn't even seem to have animals. They tied us to a huge tree, we cried and cried. They asked us to shut up. The only good thing they did was they didn't hit us. Amongst the ten tall men, I recognized one of them, he was one of my old school buddies, he didn't even seem to know me there, I tried to introduce myself to him, he just pretended not to hear. I was so annoyed with his audacity.

It was dark, really dark, the wind was very cold. We froze even with thick jackets. These ten men started to play cards while watching us from a distance. I thought we were going to die there tied to the tree.

Abruptly, an idea stuck me, a phone call. I searched for my phone, I thought it was in my jacket pocket, but it wasn't there. My sister had her's luckily, but as my hands were tied, it was really difficult to take out the phone from her jacket. After few hours of trying, my mouth, well my teeth to be precise, successfully took out the phone. I threw the phone on the floor and dialed 113 with my toes. I felt like a genius, seriously. As I dialed 113, the cop on duty picked up the phone from the other end after few rings. 

Unfortunately, one the men in black saw me bending and talking over the phone and before I could tell the cop our location, all ten of them came rushing. At this time, I realized the few of them were some contestants of the Indian Reality TV show, big boss 8, few others were some bollywood singers including Lucky Ali. (I had read about Lucky Ali’s performance in Bhutan come February :P in the morning)

Frustrated, the men started untying us, I was pretty sure they are going to bury us live. Just then, I heard the cop car siren in a distance. The most irritating sound seemed like the most amazing sound at that time, I was so happy though I couldn't understand how the cops could locate us. However, the men in black didn't seem to bother at all. The sound became more clear now but the car and the cops were still invisible and more surprisingly, the men in black were still around us instead of running away.

As the sound came closer, my ear started hurting. I happened to turn around to see my dearest mom’s smiling face on the phone. Hurriedly, I woke up and thanked her for being my savior even in my dreams. ^_ ^.. 

This was a dream I couldn't help sharing here.