He woke up at middle of the night. He looked around but could see nothing. It was totally dark. He could feel a rectangular object in his pocket. He took it out. It was his cell phone. He randomly pressed its buttons and its screen lit up. It displayed 15th august 2011 3AM. From his calender he found that it was independence day. After pressing few more buttons he found himself. He was Dipendra kumar ghosh. He then tried to figure out where he was. He switched on the GPS. But it displayed 'unknown location'. There was no network there. But the compass application on his phone was working. He could see the directions. He looked around using the light of the cell phone. He was sitting under a huge tree. There were many trees around. He was somewhere in a dense forest. Slowly the moon began to appear and improved the visibility. The sky was crowded with clouds. The moon kept on appearing and disappearing. The forest was a bit unusual. One would expect noises of animals and birds . But here noise of silence was deafening. He did not know what to do.
He stood up and started walking. After walking five minutes or so, he reached a concrete road. The road was empty. There were no streets lights. He could not decide in which direction he should go. He took out his phone and started the compass application. He started walking towards south on the road. The deafening silence of the night was broken by a slow breeze which started to flow. It sounded like music to his ears. He could hear rustling of leaves. He continued walking. There were periods of complete darkness and periods of low visibility as the moon kept on appearing and disappearing. He bumped onto a tree in one such period of darkness and something fell on his head. When the moon reappeared, he noticed that he has bumped onto a mango tree. Few mangoes were lying on the ground. He realized that the object that fell on his head was probably a mango. The road on which he was walking had split into two. There was a mango tree at the split. There were many mangoes on the tree. He was hungry. He ate few mangoes to satisfy his hunger.
Dipendra took the road left of the split and continued walking.
After walking for few minutes, he saw something glowing in the middle of the road. It looked like a cracker which was about to burst. He decided to wait. Time passed but nothing happened. His cell phone had a camera. He decided to take photograph of that glowing object. He took out his phone and focused its camera on the glowing object. To get a better picture, he used the zoom feature. The glowing object was not a cracker but a lamp. He took its picture and continued walking towards the lamp. He picked up the lamp. It was an old lamp. He held the lamp in his right hand and continued walking. As he walked, the lamp rubbed on his thighs as his hands swayed forward and backward. Slowly white fog surrounded him. Visibility became zero. He could see nothing except white fog around him. A huge man appeared from the fog and stood right in-front of him. Dipen asked,who he was. "I am the genie of the lamp. You rubbed it and called me here.", the genie replied."Are you the same genie Aladdin had?", Dipen inquired. "Yes" the genie replied. He continued "since you have the lamp, you are my master. I can fulfill three wishes for you. What is your first wish master?" After thinking a lot, Dipen said, "Take me to 15th august 1597." The genie was puzzled. He asked "why 15th august 1597?" Dipen replied, 15th august is the independence day of India and 1597 is during the reign of Akbar, the creator of modern India. The genie said, "I can take you there. But I am not that accurate. I can take you to a date which is very close to 15th august 1597." The genie asked Dipen to close his eyes and keep them closed till he is forced to open them. Dipen closed his eyes.
"Is there anybody who can help me?", an old lady shouted. Dipen opened his eyes. He was standing near a river. There were many boats in the river, but all were empty. There was an old lady standing near one of the boat. Dipen took out his phone to check the time. It was 14th august 1597, 7:00 pm.
"Is there anybody who can help me cross ?", the old lady shouted again. A middle aged man appeared from nowhere and asked the old lady "How can I help you?". The old lady said that she wanted to cross the river but nobody was present to row the boat. The middle aged man agreed to help her. He helped her into the boat. Dipen hid his phone in his pocket and quietly went ahead and sat in the same boat. The man started rowing the boat. After a few minutes, he asked the old lady about her opinion about the king. She said, "The king is useless. He already has a palace, but still he is building a new one on the other side of the river." "I have to face this problem every evening", she continued."He should have built a bridge instead of building a lavish palace". After a few minutes, they reached the other side of the river. Dipen helped the old lady out of the boat and thanked the man who helped them. The old lady lived in a small hut. Dipen helped her in going to her hut. He requested her to stay there for that night. She agreed. She went in and started cooking some food. Dipen stayed out and started exploring the surroundings. After walking for a few minutes, he saw many people coming from somewhere. He became curious and went there to explore. He realized that the people he saw were workers who were returning after the day's work. They were constructing a huge building. After talking to few people he realized that the building under construction was the palace Akbar was building. Dipen returned to the old lady's hut where food was ready. He thanked the lady for food and went to sleep.
When he woke up next morning, he could hear voices of many people. He went outside the hut to see what was happening. He saw people coming from the construction site of the palace and going to the bank of the river. After talking to few of them he learnt that the king had postponed the construction of the palace and had ordered for construction of a bridge. He when to the bank of the river and saw a man surrounded by many soldiers. He leant that the man was king Akbar. He went closer to have a closer look at the king. He was surprised to see the king. The middle aged man who had helped him and the old lady to cross the river was king Akbar himself. He now realized why Akbar was called 'Akbar the great'.
Dipen went back to the hut and thanked the old lady for her support and left the hut. Then he looked for an isolated place where he could call the genie. After walking for hour or so he reached a forest. He looked for the lamp to call the genie. But he could not find it. He had left it in the old lady's hut. He took out his cell phone and used the image of the lamp to call the genie. The genie appeared. He reminded Dipen that he has only two wishes remaining. He asked "What's your second wish". Dipen replied "Take me to 15th August 2047, hundredth year of Indian independence". The genie asked Dipen to close his eyes and keep them closed till he is forced to open them. Dipen closed his eyes. But he could not keep them closed for long. The persistent noise around him, forced him to open his eyes.
Dipen opened his eyes and found himself by the side of a road. He looked around. He was standing in front of a hospital. He took out his phone. It was 16th of August 2047 morning 7 AM. He saw a little girl trying to cross the road. She was holding the fingers of an old man standing beside her. Many cars were zooming past them. This noise had forced Dipen to open his eyes. He went ahead and stood beside the little girl. It had rained recently. There were potholes on the road which had accumulated water in them. Suddenly a car drove past them and splashed dirty water on them. The car stopped after a few seconds, came back and splashed dirty water again. The glass of the car came down and they could see the driver of the car. He was laughing at them. He repeated this two three times and left. Reflecting on this incident, the old man said, "Today's generation has no emotion". On hearing this, the little girl asked, "Grandpa,I have heard of email, e-business, e-commerce, what is e-motion, is this some new technology?" The old man did not have any answer.
Dipen found his shirt dirty. There were few pieces of paper sticking to it. He removed and cleaned them. He realized that the pieces of paper were national flag of India. He could not understand. He asked the old man, "Has India changed its national flag?" "As far as I know, Tricolor is national flag of India. But here I find it as a piece of paper treated as garbage" he continued.The old man started laughing. He said ,"Tricolor is still the national flag of India." Dipen was astonished. He asked, "People don't respect their national flag?" The old man became curious. "Respect?, I heard this word after twenty long years. Who are you son?" Dipen wanted to tell the truth, but he realized that nobody would believe him. So he lied. "I am Dipendra. I was in coma for last twenty years in the hospital behind us. I regained consciousness last week and discharged today." The old man asked him where he was going. Dipen had no answer. The old man took him to his home. There was a park on their way. The old man told him that he came to this park daily with his grand-daughter. Dipen went to the park with them. They saw a boy and a girl talking to each other near a tree. Dipen could hear their voices. The girl said, "If you pay my bill, yeh dil tera ho jaega". The boy said, "Kaho na pyar hai , kaho na pyar hai, jaldi kaho varna .." The girl said argryly, "varna what??" The boy took out a bottle from his bag and said, "Otherwise I will pour acid on your face". The girl was afraid. She managed to regain courage and said, "If you try that, my second boyfriend will chop your body into 300 pieces and burn it in forest nearby and nobody will ever find you" Then she left the place. They also left the place and soon reached the old man's home.
The old man lived in a happy family. He had a son, daughter-in-law and a grand child. They welcomed him. He went to the washroom and cleaned his shirt. Then he was served breakfast. At the breakfast table Dipen repeated his question, "Has India changed its national flag?" Hiren and Mitali were astonished. They asked, "Why do you ask such a question?" The old man told them about the incident in the morning. Hiren tried to explain. "Yesterday was Independence day. We celebrate it by attaching the national flag to our clothes, cars ..." , "we attach it wherever we can think of " he continued after a small pause. "But today the celebrations are over. The flags are nothing but a piece of paper." "Don't be enraged Dipen, this is an usual practice", he continued.
After breakfast, Dipen requested them to tell him what has happened in last twenty years. Hiren went into his room and brought a file. It had all his degrees. He showed him his degrees. He had a MBA degree in corrupt practices. He tired to explain Dipen progress made by India in last twenty years. He said, "We have successfully redefined democracy". "Now democracy is of the influential, by the influential and for the influential." "Others are never counted, and are not allowed to make themselves counted". "Protest of any form by any other is termed as", he paused and continued after correcting himself "is attack on democracy". "Our parliament has given us one more right , 'Right to corruption'", he continued. "Asking for a bill after purchase, is punishable by law." "Nobody is sad here", he continued. "You mean you don't face any problems?", Dipen interrupted."I didn't say that", Hiren replied. He continued, "Today nothing matters". "It doesn't matter if 1% of the population is killed by terrorists and 2% by maoists". "It doesn't matter if 3% of our food stored in warehouses is eaten by pests and 4% of the population dies annually because of hunger". "It doesn't matter if 5% of government expenditure is lost to corruption and 6% of GDP is kept in foreign banks in accounts of unknown people". "It doesn't matter if 7% of the population are in jail for no apparent reason and 8% of the criminals are in parliament and state assemblies". "9% GDP growth overrides them all". He continued, "The only problem is that when the rate of inflation is 10%, 300% salary hike is not sufficient". "We also have developed a star rated language", he continued. Dipen could not understand. Hiren tried to explain. "Today every fifth word we use for communication has at least two stars in it". He started laughing after saying this.
Dipen was left dumb after hearing all this. He spent rest of the day staring at the sky sitting near the balcony. He was called for lunch and then for dinner. He was given accommodation in a guest room near the balcony. After dinner he went into his room and closed the door and waited for the rest of the lights to get switched off. He then called the genie using his phone. The genie appeared. Looking at his sad face, the genie inquired about the problem. Dipen told him about what had happened that day. He said, "my final wish is to make India as India our freedom fighters had dreamt of". The genie apologized and said that he was incapable of fulfilling the wish. He was a simple genie who didn't have such powers. He said, "Dipen, you have to do this yourself". "I can fulfill any other wish". Dipen said, "I will try my best". He told the genie his third any final wish. "Take me to where I started". The genie asked Dipen to close his eyes and keep them closed till he is forced to open them.
"Yeh jo desh hai tera..." song began to play and forced Dipen to open his eyes. It was an alarm set in his cell phone. It was 15th august 2011 6AM in the morning. He was confused. Was he dreaming? He checked his phone. There was a picture of a lamp. He rubbed the image but nothing happened. He was under the same huge tree. He tried to recall what he had seen and followed the same path. He reached the same concrete road. He walked ahead in the direction he had walked last time. The sun had began to appear and visibility was good. The road split into two and there was a mango tree at the intersection of the road. It was full of mangoes. He took the left road as he had taken previously. But after walking for a few minutes he reached a dead end. He had to return. Now he took the right road. After walking a few minutes, he saw a milestone saying, "Mumbai 250 km"
