Chapter 10: Nandita

4th October 1891. The country of India at the time was under the yoke of British rule. The British East India Company had brutally suppressed the Indian rebellion of 1857 ( The sepoy mutiny ). The revolt of 1857 had seen the demise of many leaders of the revolution. One of them was Queen Lakshmibai, the Rani of Jhansi. She became a source of tremendous inspiration for the generation that came after her due to her leadership during the rebellion and her dream of living as a free individual. Alas, the young valiant queen had passed away even before she was thirty years old while fighting the East India Company in Gwalior.

Nandita was one of those individuals, who had been inspired deeply by the courageous queen. Born in Meerut in a Rajput family, she was descended from a long line of warriors. She had always dreamed of living in a free India, free from the oppression of British imperialism. This dream of hers had driven her towards being a revolutionary. At the time, when these events are taking place, she had just turned 30 years old. During all this time, Nandita had already made a lot of connections with various freedom-seeking outfits. But nobody knew how she looked. She always was the individual in the dark. The outfit that she led was called: The Shahid outfit or TSO in short. Even the members of TSO did not know who she was, except the person who was second in command. All of these actions that she had taken had a purpose. Even if the British government crippled her outfit, they would not know who the leader of the outfit was. Hence, the outfit could be rebuilt again right from the scratch.

It was a sunny Sunday. Nandita was looking down at the street from the roof of her house, absorbed in her thoughts. She had not been able to sleep properly for the last few days. Every alternate night, she had been visited by strange dreams and once the dreams ended, she would wake up and would not be able to sleep again for the rest of the night. The dreams were very strange; she felt as if she was the person living these dreams. The first night she dreamed of being in a paddy field with her father; she knew the man in her dreams was not her father, yet she felt tremendous love from the man when he looked at her working in the fields. Another night she dreamed of being in a circus where a group of men were expertly showing their knife-throwing skills. There was a boy by her side who loved her as if she was his sibling. This dream had perplexed her a lot like the feeling she got from the boy was that of a friend having a lot of goodwill and love towards his brother or sister. But, every time before she could reach the climax of her dreams, she would wake up with a start. The dreams and the subsequent lack of sleep troubled her a lot. They did not feel like normal dreams to her. She felt as if she were the men in her dreams.

Nandita thought: " Does it even make sense? Why do these dreams feel so real ? Am I becoming mad slowly ? Whatever it is, if I don't get enough sleep, I will surely fall ill. I need to speak with doctor Rajnish today ". Having thought of that, she called the doctor up and requested him to make a house call. Doctor Rajnish had been the family doctor for Nandita's family for a long time. He had treated Nandita's mother when she was ill and before she passed away. He had known Nandita since she was a wee little girl. Hence, he came over very soon and started inspecting her.

Dr Rajnish: Nandita, tell me about what happens when you try to sleep at night.

Nandita: I drift to sleep doctor uncle and then I start dreaming. I feel like I am half awake while I am dreaming and those dreams... They are vivid dreams. I do not understand whether I am dreaming or I am half awake and living those lives in the dream.

Dr Rajnish: I think, these are just dreams. They are probably disturbing your sleep because internally you are feeling stressed and tensed. I will suggest you take a rest and these are the medicines that I am prescribing for you. Take them for 2 weeks. I am sure you will have sound sleep. In case, you are still not able to sleep, let me know. I will conduct a few investigations.

Saying that the doctor left. Nandita felt happy and relieved. She can at least have a good night's sleep today.

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Somewhere else in the room with the mechanical contraptions :

The man who was sitting in front of the machine was looking at the screen, which read: " Inhibitor detected. Sequence injection may fail. Try alternative route ?"

The man's face was inscrutable. He suddenly heard a voice in his head: " Atan, are you there? Are you in the querencia? " He answered: " Yes, I am coming. Wait for some time. ". He then typed in the machine:" YES" and disappeared from the place where he was seated.