By Rimly Bezbaruah

Do you believe in signs? It is said that every day we are shown signs but most of us are so busy with our worries and tensions that we do not recognize them. Signs can be anything, from forgetting your cars keys as you are rushing out for an appointment, to writing out a wrong cheque, or a gut feeling about something. It can also be a dream. We should never overlook them. They are telling us something.I give you one instance.

This was a couple of years back when a series of bomb blasts tore our city. My mother had asked my brother to deposit a cheque in the bank which was right in the heart of the blast. My brother walked that day instead of driving and it so happened that he noticed halfway to the bank that the cheque was incorrect so he turned back home. He had barely reached home when the city rocked with the blast; many lives were taken that day. Had he not turned back he would have been right in the middle of it. Had he not been walking he wouldn't have noticed the error and had he not turned back,who knows?

You may be rushing out to your car only to realize that you have forgotten your keys and you are irritated but have to turn back to get them. On reaching the house, the phone may be ringing to tell you that you need to rush for this appointment. Or you find out later in the news that there was a very bad accident on your route that day. Who knows, maybe it could have been you in that accident.

Warning signs can come to you in the form of a dream. Dreams can be recurring too, trying to tell us something. I have had recurring dreams but till date I have not been able to find out what they mean. However there was this one dream that I didn't pay attention to. It was an early morning dream and they say morning dreams generally come true. We have this superstition in this part of the world that when you have a bad early morning dream you should tell it to someone in front of a fire. It nullifies the negative aspects of the dream. Anyway about this dream, it was in the wee hours of a December morning. I was then in Vishakhapatnam, far away from my parents. I dreamt that morning of my maternal grandfather whom I was very close to. He had passed away many years back. I saw him dressed in white. I was a little girl in my dreams playing outside my aunt's house. He came to me and asked about my father. He said "Where is your father, I have come to take him?" I told him that perhaps my father was inside and that he should go and look for him. Now I should have become alert to this dream but I didn't. I sat on it complacently.

I had been thinking for some time that I should speak with my father more often. I am always chatting with my mom on the phone. Had I seen the warning signs that morning, perhaps I would have picked up the phone and spoken to my dad but I didn't. Two days later my father passed away all of a sudden. I regret to this day as to why I didn't pay attention to my dream. But we tend to take things for granted so often. I took my dream as just another dream. I never could tell my father that I loved him.

Today I pay more attention to these little signs however insignificant they may be. I tend to look for some kind of meaning in them. Why things happen? It is always for a reason. Even the tiniest delay can save your life or avert some danger or loss. There are no coincidences in life.