Thousands exhult, rejoice, regret. Salman took to the stage, like a fish to water. Crowds thronged the local gymkhana to hear him, with his false promises and what not. Hope is a funny thing. 4 years older, yet babes of infinite innocence. Saman bhai zindabad! Bhai! bhai! Hamare bhai! Voices resonated as Mr. Promise bestowed the stage with his benign presense. Justice to those denied, food for the hungry, illuminition for those lurking in the dark! Mr. Promise grew, upwards and sidewards, in all forms. Arms and knees, knees and arms. Until he grew too heavy and...kapooch.

What happened afterwards, has been subject of a thousand books. All thrilling political satires ofcourse. Critics termed it a catastrophe. And on the auspicious occasion, a struggling shayar proclaimed Kaha woh jannat, aur kaha yeh jahanum? It is not my job to judge, I am simply a story teller. The events are henceforth:

The crowd pregnant with their 12th dose of hope grew restless as Mr. Promise grew. The excited voice of young white kurta-pyjama clad poilition failed to excite. His words failed after the initial uproar that oft follows a grand unveiling.

I'm sure there is a reasonable explanation for what happened next. However, it is beyond my comprehension why somebody decided to reduce the foor fellow to the ground and have him swim in his own blood?

And so writers hurried to there desk. Records were made. Names of all those that perished in the violence that ensued were iscribed. A grand monument erected. I was deeply saddend, but then my wife announced her pregnancy and I was happy.

Salman came out of the safety of his mothers womb 9 months hence. I wasted no time in the removal of his foreskin, bestowing upon him the honour of his heritage. It's a sad thing no-one told me that the absence of this epidermis would one day leed to his unfortunate demise. It's a shame I never got to vote for him.

Inject in my veins a dream, let it run within me, through a struggled heart and around again. Impegranate my mind with the sperms of imagination, let them form into a foetus of what is not and be grown into a babe of awesome illusion, of crazed deception. Allow me, Oh most benevolent, most merciful to gestate what grows within me for the rest of my short life.

I am happy when I am delirious. When I'm injected with dreams, when all of this feels unreal...when I am lost. Ecstasy. I am wrapped in the warmth of belief. There is a second world yaara! I am 110 percent sure of it! You don't believe me? Here, here. Inject, vroom there! Off you go.

It's slow, almost static. But you're protected. This building, sirjee. Absolutely, fire proof. Here, the fierce flames of what actually is, lick along the walls. At their strongest, all frames united, even then, they fail to penetrate into this second world.

I am knee deep in reminiscence today. As I tread deeper, the pains bridled are unleashed in forms of great guffaws of laughter. It's strange, but here nothing is strange. What is and what isn't? I am miles from any traces of reality.

Fuck this. Give me another dream. So really unreal.

The shore is miles afar. And my body is caressing, moulding into the bed of the sea. I wonder why I treadled so far into the depths of my soul? Only wafts of my crackling remain. A dying flame lingers, fanned desperately by the moths of hope.

And just then, a miracle. I am transported with soul, to my beloved second world, and my body finds it place at the bottom of the sea.