Amay realized now that these dreams were not random.
They were indications.
They were too vivid—too structured, too emotionally consistent—to be dismissed as imagination. He didn’t wake from them confused the way one does after ordinary dreams. He woke carrying consequences.
That morning, after finishing his usual chores—sweeping the courtyard, wiping the shelves, aligning the books exactly the way they always were—he sat beneath the shade of an old tree. When he first arrived here, mustard fields had stretched endlessly, yellow and sharp against the sky. Now, those fields were gone. In their place stood paddy fields—lush, water-soaked, breathing with quiet life. The air was heavier, damp. The wind smelled of rain.
Time had moved. And he hadn’t noticed.
Lost in thought, he saw Guru walking toward him, his steps unhurried, almost measured against Amay’s racing mind.
Guru stopped beside him and asked softly,
“Amay… how long do you think you’ve been here?”
Amay frowned. He looked around again—at the darkened clouds, the softened earth, the change that felt both obvious and unsettling.
“When I came, it was spring,” he said slowly. “Now it feels like the rains are settling in.”
After a pause, he added,
“Four… maybe five months.”
Guru smiled—not in surprise, but in approval.
“So,” he said, “you have finally started observing the real world.”
Amay exhaled, relieved—until Guru continued.
“But tell me,” Guru asked, turning to face him fully,
“are you observing your dreams with the same attention?”
Amay stiffened.
“They’ve changed,” he said. “Completely.”
Guru raised an eyebrow. “Changed how?”
“At first,” Amay replied, choosing his words carefully, “they were only repetitions. Memories. I could predict every second of them because they had already happened. Same conversations. Same silences. Same outcomes.”
He paused, then added,
“I thought my mind was just replaying the past.”
“And then?” Guru prompted.
“Then small things began to shift,” Amay said. “Trivial things. The color of Anvi’s dupatta. What she ordered to eat. Whether she smiled or stayed quiet.”
He shook his head.
“These choices didn’t change anything important—but they were wrong. They didn’t match reality.”
Guru nodded slowly. “Insignificant changes are never insignificant,” he said. “They are how a reality tests its boundaries.”
Amay looked at him sharply. “That’s what scared me. Because after that… the changes weren’t small anymore.”
Guru didn’t speak. He waited.
“I saw a dream,” Amay continued, his voice lower now, “where she changed a decision.”
Guru finally asked, “What kind of decision?”
Amay hesitated. The weight of it pressed against his ribs.
“The one I always waited for,” he said. “The one I never asked for openly… but hoped for every time.”
Guru’s gaze sharpened. “Explain.”
“That day,” Amay said, “Anvi’s mood was off. She was distant. I asked her to come with me—not forcefully, not desperately. Just… asked.”
His jaw tightened.
“In reality, she refused. She stayed back.”
He swallowed.
“But in the dream… she paused.”
His eyes flickered, as if seeing it again.
“She looked at me differently. She picked up her bag. And she came.”
The air between them grew heavy.
Guru finally spoke, his voice calm but edged with certainty.
“So now you understand.”
Amay whispered, almost afraid to hear it aloud,
“Then why do I see only her?”
Guru smiled, this time gently and said,
" Because for you She is the only cost, Rest all of the things are Variants"
Amay looked back at the paddy fields, the rain-heavy sky, the world that had already changed once without his noticing.
“And now,” Guru added quietly,
“the real question is—are your dreams changing because realities are shifting…
or because you are finally ready to choose differently?”
Amay remained silent.
Not because he had nothing to say—but because every word felt inadequate against what he was beginning to understand.
Guru studied him for a moment, then spoke again, his voice calm, deliberate.
“Start meditating,” he said. “Whenever you find time. Don’t limit it to dawn or dusk. Let it become part of your breathing.”
Amay looked up, uncertain.
“But not the kind of meditation where you escape this world,” Guru continued. “Meditate so deeply within it that you no longer need to open your eyes to know it.”
Amay frowned slightly. “What do you mean?”
Guru gestured around them.
“Meditate until you don’t need to remember the scenery of this place,” he said. “Until, even with your eyes closed, you can tell exactly where you are. Which direction the wind is flowing. Which tree is behind you. Which bird is sitting on which branch.”
Amay’s eyebrows knit together. “With eyes closed?”
He hesitated, then asked honestly,
“Is that even possible?”
Guru smiled—not indulgently, but with quiet certainty.
“Yes,” he said. “Try it.”
He sat down beside Amay, lowering his voice as if the world itself was listening.
“Begin with sound,” Guru instructed. “The chirping of birds—notice how each one is different. The waterfall in the distance—how constant it is, yet never the same. The rustling of leaves—how it changes when the wind shifts.”
He paused.
“Then move to sensation. Feel the breeze on your skin. Its temperature. Its weight. Its direction.”
Amay closed his eyes instinctively.
“Don’t imagine,” Guru said softly. “Sense.”
He leaned closer.
“A day will come when you won’t need your eyes at all. When the world will reveal itself to you from within. You will see it with your eyes closed.”
Amay felt something stir—part disbelief, part awe.
“This,” Guru continued, “is your daytime discipline. To anchor yourself fully in the present reality.”
Then his tone shifted, darker, quieter.
“And at night,” he said, “turn your attention inward. Toward your dreams. Don’t dismiss them. Don’t rush past them when you wake.”
He held Amay’s gaze.
“Remember everything. Every sound. Every pause. Every choice—especially the ones that differ.”
Amay understood now.
One practice to ground him in this world.
Another to sharpen his awareness of the others.
“Only when you can hold both,” Guru added, “will you be able to tell the difference between imagination… memory… and truth.”
Amay nodded slowly.
No questions this time.
No resistance.
For the first time, he wasn’t chasing answers.
He was preparing himself to receive them.
Days kept unfolding into nights, and nights folded quietly back into days.
With each passing cycle, something within Amay loosened its grip.
The sharp edges of ego, the restless hunger for quick answers, the impatience that once pushed him forward—all of it slowly fell away. Not because he fought it, but because there was nothing left to defend. He was no longer trying to control the experience. He was simply allowing it.
At first, meditation felt like standing in the middle of a storm.
The moment he closed his eyes, his mind raced. It leapt from the roar of the waterfall to the whisper of leaves, from a distant birdcall to the sigh of the wind. Each sound pulled him in a different direction. He tried to hold onto one, but another replaced it instantly. Focus felt impossible—like asking stillness from flowing water.
Yet he returned to it every day.
Without judgment. Without expectation.
Gradually, the chaos softened. His awareness stopped jumping and began settling. Sounds no longer competed for attention; they arranged themselves naturally. The waterfall became a constant presence rather than a distraction. The rustling of leaves appeared only when the wind touched them. Birds announced themselves, then faded into silence without demanding pursuit.
With eyes closed, Amay began to sense structure.
He could tell where the wind came from—not by sound alone, but by how it brushed against his skin. He felt the shift in temperature before clouds gathered. He sensed rain approaching long before it arrived. The world revealed itself to him without requiring sight.
Meditation was no longer an effort.
It became recognition.
And when night came, the practice did not stop—it deepened.
In the beginning, his dreams revolved entirely around Anvi. She was the center, the gravity that pulled every detail toward herself. His awareness clung to her presence, her expressions, her choices, as if nothing else existed.
But slowly, the dreams widened.
He began noticing the space around her.
The smell of the air before rain.
The softness of a breeze moving past them.
The way her perfume didn’t overpower the atmosphere, but merged with it.
The delicate music of her bangles, the faint, rhythmic jingle of her anklets.
Wind chimes swaying somewhere unseen.
Clouds thickening, darkening.
Rain falling—not suddenly, but deliberately.
Fog creeping in, altering distance, blurring edges.
The dreams grew dense. Textured. Alive.
They were no longer images his mind produced.
They became environments he inhabited.
Even while dreaming, Amay felt awake. He could sense direction, depth, temperature—just as he did during the day. The boundary that once separated sleep from waking began to thin, almost dissolve.
When he finally opened his eyes each morning, he didn’t feel as though he had left something behind. Both worlds lingered within him, equally real, equally present.
Amay understood then—he was not drifting away from reality.
He was learning to balance multiple realities at once, without losing himself in any of them.
And then, one day, it happened.
Amay closed his eyes—not with effort, not with intention—just naturally, as if his body already knew what was coming.
And suddenly, the world appeared.
Not imagined. Not remembered.
**Seen.**
It was as though his eyes were still open somewhere deeper within him. He could *see* the land around him exactly as it was. The leaves had fallen from the trees, scattered unevenly across the ground. There was a dryness in the air, a faint sharpness that told him the season had turned. The waterfall still flowed, but its voice was softer now—no longer roaring, more restrained, as if conserving itself.
The nights had grown longer.
The days had shrunk.
He could sense it instinctively—the way darkness arrived earlier, the way light retreated sooner. For five long minutes, he remained there, witnessing everything vividly, unmistakably, with his eyes completely shut.
Then, without warning, the vision faded.
The sight dissolved into blankness—but the senses stayed.
He could still feel the air.
Still hear the softened waterfall.
Still sense direction, distance, and time.
When he finally opened his eyes, his breath came unevenly. His heart pounded—not with fear, but with something far stronger.
Overwhelmed, shaken, almost trembling, Amay stood up and rushed toward Guru.
“It happened,” he said, the words spilling out before he could steady himself.
“It happened.”
Guru looked at him, calm as ever, as if he had been expecting this moment all along.
A gentle smile spread across his face.
“It was supposed to happen,” Guru replied simply.
Amay stared at him, searching his expression—half disbelieving, half awed.
“And there will be more,” Guru continued, his voice quiet but firm.
“This is only the beginning.”
Amay stood there, the weight of those words settling into him.
For the first time, he understood—
what he had unlocked was not a moment, not a miracle, but a 'threshold'.That same night, a dream came to him—but this one was unmistakably different.
It unfolded a month after their marriage. Amay had a college reunion to attend, a loud, sprawling gathering at a large pub filled with familiar faces and old memories. Anvi didn’t feel like going. She said she wasn’t in the mood, that crowds drained her. But Amay wasn’t willing to leave her alone, not that night, not now.
At some point, she voiced the thought that had been bothering her.
“At the party,” Anvi said, adjusting the edge of her dupatta, “everyone will ask who I am.”
Amay answered without hesitation. “You’re my wife.”
She shook her head immediately. “No. That wasn’t our agreement. Until you marry me with full rituals, you can’t say that.”
After a pause, she added, softer but firm, “Tell them I’m your friend. Someone staying with you for a while.”
Amay smirked, eyes dark with quiet amusement.
“And you think,” he said, “people won’t look at us strangely then?”
She shot him a look but didn’t argue further.
Eventually, Anvi agreed to go.
When she came downstairs, Amay was already waiting—and for a moment, his heart forgot how to beat.
She was draped in a golden saree that caught the light with every step. Her scent lingered in the air even before she reached him. The red lipstick on her fuller lips felt like the final, deliberate provocation—subtle, yet impossible to ignore.
He stood still, restless, temptation tightening his chest.
*Beep. Beep.*
The sound cut through the moment.
Anvi glanced at his watch and smiled faintly. “How many alarms do you set in a day?”
If only she knew—that the sound wasn’t an alarm at all, but a warning from his racing heart.
In reality, he would have only looked at her. Stood there. Contained himself.
But in the dream, he didn’t.
He stepped closer, closed the distance, and pulled her gently into his arms. His hands wrapped around her waist as he leaned in and whispered, “Beautiful.”
Her ears and cheeks flushed instantly, color blooming with embarrassment. She looked away, murmuring, “We’re getting late,” carefully avoiding his eyes.
Amay lifted her face by her chin, firm but tender, forcing her to meet his gaze.
“Let me look at you properly first,” he said quietly.
His fingers traced her cheek, the curve of her jaw, the softness beneath her eyes. Slowly—almost reverently—they moved to her lips.
Anvi shivered when his fingers brushed them. She inhaled sharply but didn’t pull away.
*Beep. Beep.*
The sound returned.
Amay froze, awareness rushing back in. He stepped away, a restrained smile playing on his lips, as if nothing had happened at all.
“Let’s go,” he said calmly.
But the echo of that moment—of what he had allowed himself to do in this dream—stayed with him long after the night faded.
In reality, none of that happened.
That night, Amay never pulled her into his arms. He never whispered beautiful. He never lifted her chin or traced her lips.
He only stood there and looked at her.
The watch did beep—sharp, insistent—but he remained where he was, hands at his sides, restraint holding him in place. His eyes followed her, memorizing the fall of the golden saree, the red of her lips, the way her presence altered the air around him.
The desire stayed unspoken.
Untouched.
Contained.
And that was the difference.
The dream gave him what he had always controlled himself from taking.
Reality reminded him of the choice he had made—to hold back, even when every part of him wanted to reach out.
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