A moment's wait

Staying away from home, I usually have my dinner in one of the stalls across the road. They reassure something that I have always believed in; the roads are a sad place.

Every evening, I see a lot of beggars asking for money, while a lot of people and I just ignore them or feel sorry for them and continue eating and filling our stomachs in front of someone who might not be able to eat anything at all. I ofcourse feel sorry for them and feel ugly about myself, but, reality's reality. It's often that in these cases, you don't think beyond your own needs. There are two specific persons who come to that area to ask for money. One of them is a young girl and the other looks like her father, blind and perhaps, mentally challenged. The father walks as if he walks and his head is tilted towards the sky. He constantly keeps nodding it from side to side and his eyes are white. They go around, like every other economically devastated person in hope of getting something to sustain on.

One particular day, while I sorrily denied them any money while eating my food, again, they went to a man to ask for some money. The  man was extremely tall and well-built. He was half-bald and looked like someone I knew (He wasn't that person). He had just lit a cigarette and was smoking it like a professional. While his other companions and friends had denied them money, he stopped them. He literally blocked the way they were taking to go to another place. This caught my attention. I stopped eating and looked at what he was going to do. He lifted his hand to his face and shot up three fingers. Logic dictates, as it was true, that he had asked the father, "How much is this?" It did not look like the father replied. The daughter tried to escape, but, he blocked their way, again. It made me angry and question his actions. All this time, he had a one-sided smile on his face. It ticked me off further. But, well, what could I do? I was just another person with a mind to prevent such humiliation and no body to do it. The man asked the father, again, "How many fingers am I holding up?" It was almost as if he was doing it for his own entertainment. The daughter replied something that I could not understand. The man spoke with the daughter for some more time, asking her questions. I tried to place myself in their shoes and think of how devastating it would be, for someone to doubt my disabilities and plight. I wouldn't have cared, after living in such conditions, about what other people thought when they had heard me. I would just feel devastated about someone questioning my disability just for their entertainment. I do not think that the father even replied to any of these questions. Maybe, he wasn't able to. I was watching this scene and I felt really bad. But, then, something magical happened.

The man who seemed to be taking fun out of their plight was not some bully I had thought him to be. He was being a kind man. The man did not intend to add salt to a wound, he sought to add medicine by sharing the pain and knowing their story. He was making conversation with someone no one would. He was being friendly. I know this, how? Soon after the daughter and the man finished talking, he pulled out a fifty-rupee note and gave it to the daughter. The daughter took it and went away. I don't know if she showed any expression of gratitude. I don't know if the man felt good about it; maybe he did. I would've. He calmly walked to his group of friends and smoked his cigarette, nodding to some chat his friend was having about office.

This scene made me smile. A moment ago, I felt like thrashing the man and a moment later, I felt like felicitating him with the highest humanitarian award that there is. I'm thankful that I had waited that moment, because, it gave me a gem of a memory that I will cherish for a long time.

Piloting a Spaceship

It must be my obsession with scientific things or my obsession with space and its wonders. I'm having dreams in which I'm learning how to fly different types of spaceships. 

A few weeks ago, I had a dream in which I was a secret agent, along with two other friends, working for an extremely secret organisation. The case was one of extreme risk and secrecy involving something that would decide the fate of Earth. While working on the case, I come to know that the 'something,' a piece of information stored in a pendrive, is gone. So, I investigate into where it could've gone. It was some building I had been in before. Big, yellow, glass windows, trees and plants inside with a glass roof. So, I went in, with an entire team of agents, knowing what I'd be dealing with in there. But, what I did not expect, was one of my friends being the rogue agent who stole the piece of information. This 'friend' was someone I could not recognise. She shot my other friend and shot me, taking advantage of the shock we were in. As my eyelids slowly shut themselves, I saw the roof open wide and then, something took off.
When I opened my eyes, I was in a place I did not know. The place was dark with small yellow lights flickering in certain places. There was window, and it was dark outside. I was lying on the floor and the gravity felt weird. It was different than the gravity I was used to. The temperature felt synthetic. There were some 'beep' sounds in the background. I got up and went to the window to see where I was. It must've been a dream, because, right there, in front of me, was a blue star with planets orbiting it. I was in the orbit of one of the planets which was entirely blue. I looked to my right and inside there, was a room with bigger windows. In the middle of that room, there was something that looked like a column with a plate on top. As I went closer to it, I saw buttons and other things on it. On one of the screens, there was an image of something that looked like a flying saucer. It did not take me much time to know that it was the spaceship I was in. It was black in colour, as if it wanted to hide itself in Space. I did not remember I got into the spaceship. I did not know where I was. But, none of this was shock to me. It was as if I knew that interstellar travel exists. I was in one of those star systems. There was life on the planet below. The ships flying in and out of the planet made it clear. Then, I placed my hands on the "plate" and the ship made a sound, as if it got activated. The outer rim of the saucer started rotating. Then, I pushed the plate forward and the saucer tilted forward and moved. I pulled it back and it moved back. With each push or pull, the outer rim moved faster. There were no buttons, really, than ones which looked like they'd be activating the weapons bay. Something I did not want to do, with an alien planet below me. I had a thought about finding out where I was and message Earth. Two holographic screens opened up. One of them showed me where I was in the galaxy. The other patched me through to Agency HQ. The technology in the ship, everything which was not weapons, worked on telepathy. The navigator showed me that Earth was a few star systems away. The communicator showed me people who were shocked to see me. The director of the Agency, a wrinkled, old man with square spects dashed to the screen to talk to me. I told him whatever I could recollect and he ordered me to return to a world in danger. I knew I had to go home. So, I pushed the panel forward and backward again, to check if I had got it right. Then, sideways to see if I had go it right, for sure. Ascent and descent were, again, telepathic. With the basic knowledge of flying an alien spaceship, I made way for home, or, as far as I could go. I did not know what the saucer ran on or how far it would take me or whose it was. I had to get home.
I don't suppose I'll ever know if I had reached home and looked at what was happening.
Maybe, now, I can fly a spaceship modelled like a flying saucer.

Last night, I had another dream. I was with Sandra Bullock from 'Gravity' and Anne Hathaway from 'Interstellar.' We were on a mission to rescue Earth or, perhaps, the people on Earth. Anne and I were trainees and Sandra was the trainer. This ship wasn't a flying saucer. This was a long spaceship that could carry lots of people. The cockpit had just enough space for three people, unlike the saucer's. Everything was physical, unlike the saucer, which was telepathic. The yoke of the console was between my legs, just high enough to reach my hands. My feet were on two pedals. To my left was a tool that would help me determine fuel ignition and speed. Two other similar consoles lay to my right and to my left. Sandra was sitting to my left and told us about the basic controls. The pedals were brakes. One of them was an air brake. The cockpit had small windows; narrow ones just enough to look ahead and slightly above or below. I was sure that this ship belonged to Earth. Next, Sandra taught us about ignition and speed. She asked us to slowly push the throttle ahead until it reached '6.' I pushed it till 10 before she completed her sentence and blew the ship up. It was a simulator. So, no harm. The next time, I heard her properly. She told us to push it till six, slowly and to leave it. The throttle, apparently, would calculate the need for more ignition, if required, when taking off. So, the second time, I did it right. We were off! The next thing she taught us was landing. She told us that the landing would not be vertically down, but, horizontally in a landing bay. So, we had to fly the huge, enormous, gigantic ship close to the landing bay, whose gates must've been huge, and wait till we felt a magnetic pull. This was to be our path to follow. As we would enter the landing bay, we had to eject anchors. The anchors weren't big, metal flukes, but, bulged, metal parachutes. When ejected at the right time, they would get pulled towards the magnetic 'anchor pods.' The anchors had inertial balancers so that the ship wouldn't rip itself apart because of being stopped at that momentum. It was pretty to look at. The next thing she taught us was the procedure to follow in case of the ship crashing or when under threat that would cause the mission to be pointless. There was a button in cockpit that, on pressing, would take hold of every life-form by deploying a blue bubble around them. It was supposed to be an air pocket and something that would fly them to nearest human establishment, as soon as possible. It was fun to look at.

So, I'm learning how to pilot spacecrafts.