Every night, when we go to bed, some one wishes us 'Good night, sweet dreams'. Sometimes the dreams we have are sweet and some are not so sweet. Then there are nights where we sleep soundly and its all dark in our mind, no dreams whatsoever. But when we see those visuals in our slumber, we either jolt up all of a sudden, realizing that what we just saw has never happened and will never happen, or we continue sleeping, with a grin breaking across our faces without our knowledge.

But, how would it be when you saw something terrible AND you know that it WILL happen? How would it be to see dreams where you witness horrible deaths, the dreams where you can smell the saltiness of the blood and even get a hint of its metallic taste? You would say that it is a nightmare, that you just need cold water to be poured on your face or maybe a sharp kick on your bum to throw you out of bed and bring you back to senses. Alright, you wake up from that horrible nightmare. But when you see what you dreamt of, happen right in front of your eyes, moments after you dismiss what you saw in your sleep as a nightmare, how would you feel? Terrified? Scared? Helpless?

Then you can probably fathom an inkling of what Sapna Vaid felt when she started getting these kind of sapna in her sleep. It wasn't just one dream a night. It was twenty dreams a night. And it wasn't just twenty deaths. She even saw massive accidents where tens or hundreds of people died. The surprising bit is, she wasn't born with this gift, neither did she do any hooch pooch to start dreaming of such things. It just started happening to her from one fine night.

Often in such cases people tend to follow back the genes of such an individual to see if any of their family members ever portrayed any such capabilities. So let's take a look at Sapna Vaid's roots.

She belonged from a middle class family like any of the girls she grew up with. Her parents were extremely simple and kind people. Both of them had very humble beginnings to their lives. But they were a step ahead of the others in their prime. They were a couple whose love for each other stemmed from their love for books. Sapna's dad, Prakash, was the calm and composed kind, whereas her mom, Kalpana, would go and bash up anyone she found doing something wrong without thinking twice. However when these two souls came together they dreamed of making their own small world away from that of the others. They had two children from their matrimony, Vikrant and Sapna. With their meagre savings they had bought a flat in an isolated locality, furnished it with basic necessities and moved in with their family. Vikrant and Sapna were like any other siblings and shared a very deep bond with each other. Prakash couldn't believe that he had his own comfortable house, a caring wife whom he loved deeply, two perfectly beautiful children and a peaceful life to lead. But he should have been wary of all the peace his life had then, because in the near years the peace that he once had would be just a memory.
The first blow came to them when Vikrant was in the twelfth standard. Fate played its first bout of cruelty on this happy family by killing Vikrant in a tragic train accident. The family was devastated. It was as if Vikrant had taken a part of their soul and left for the heavens. We think time heals everything, but it may not always be true. It's just that people figure out ways of survival as time passes by, but the wound still remains. Prakash imagined Vikrant beside him in every moment of his life, Kalpana drew images and Sapna wrote letters to her dead brother. They all had methods of coping up with this loss. Life resumed its pace for them, but only to be thrown terribly off track and that too forever when Sapna had her first dream of death.

At first they thought she was having psychological problems, and tried to rationalize with her. But what Sapna was trying to explain to her parents, hit home, when she avoided an accident from happening right before her mother's eyes. That's when she realized that her daughter wasn't turning delusional. Sapna was afraid of closing her eyes at night, she was becoming a shadow, but Sahil, her friend in college was the one who held her down. Sahil loved her deeply and Sapna loved him too. Sapna's parents approved highly of Sahil and he was a part of their family for them. But next comes Kabir, the man who turns their world on their heads.

Kabir, a rich, famous and handsome business tycoon, gets fascinated by Sapna's story when she saves his life. The business man that he is, comes up with a plan to help Sapna, and also rake in money in the process of course. He comes up with the idea  of a show which would help the victims in Sapna's dreams save their lives. So he took the innocent Sapna, and a handful of other people and begun a show, which turned Sapna into a worldwide sensation. They worshiped her and believed in her when they saw that what she said wasn't a farce.

She turned into a messiah for the people. But also a murderer in disguise?

The author Amit Sharma, very carefully chooses to talk about the world of dreams threaded amazingly with reality. He tries to not make it sound too fantastical or out of the world. He knows that the concept will sound outlandish, so he comes up with theories to make it stick to the ground.

As a matter of fact another 50 pages more would have worked even better for it I think.


Note: I received this book as a review copy from the author Amit Sharma in exchange of an honest review. I would like to thank him for giving me this opportunity.

Author : Amit Sharma 

SOC Rating : 3.5/5

Genre : Science Fiction

Publisher : Readomania

Publishing Year : 2017