Beginning of the End

It was quite late when I returned from my office which was at another end of the city. Everyday I used to cross the whole metro city (Mumbai) to reach to Churchgate from Kalyan. I was fade up of this everyday hardship and wanted some peace. That night when I entered in the premises there was some strange atmosphere. I saw much crowd at the parking of our building and everybody was whispering something. I crossed the crowd to find out what has happened but couldn't understand. I heard one of my neighbors was talking about my wife. I started listening carefully. He was saying, "It is really a great shock to Mrs Shekhar. She has to bear this shock. Nobody can say what will happen at the next moment. Nobody can give any guarantee of anybody's life." Still I was confused and felt that I must go and ask my wife. I went on floor. Many people were there in my house some of them sitting, standing. All of them were discussing similar thing. Nobody was ready to look at me. I moved further and saw my wife and son were sitting beside a body covered with white cloth. I couldn't get the face so I moved a bit further and saw that it was my dead body. I was shocked. How it will be possible because I am alive. I tried to tell my wife but I realized that she was not in the mood of listening anything. I saw my close friend Jayant standing near telephone and making calls. I could succeed to reach up to him and tried to ask him but surprisingly he was looking towards my direction but couldn't see me. I tried to talk with a few more people gathered there but I couldn't. I realized that I became a soul and nobody is able to see me. By the time I came to know that while returning from the office, I was hit by a fast taxi and I died on the spot.

It was amazing to see, how much people think about you when you are dead. I saw a couple of persons in our building who used to abuse all the people all the time, talking good things about me. My body was taken for cremation. My 12 years old was asked to perform all the last rituals. I was worrying how he will manage all the things as he was so young. I was worrying about my wife that how she will manage all the loan which we have drawn from SBI recently for our new flat. Though I was feeling lighter and lighter, my heart in my aerial form, was found to become heavier. I saw my wife was trying to call Jayant regarding selling of our new flat as she wanted to pay the loan which we had drawn from SBI. I screamed her name. I found I was in the bed and my wife came running from the kitchen and asked, "what happened? Did you get any nightmare?" I realized that it was a dream and I am sweating. I felt relieved to see myself alive. I couldn't answer to the questions of my wife and got out of the bed to start my new day. I was thinking, yes, anything can happen anytime. I might be thinking this as a start of a new day but every new day might be a beginning of the end.