One featured Dee, a married guy with whom I had an affair last year. In the dream, Fay, the only person i call a friend in its true sense, and i are in a beautiful cottage somewhere. She and i are by a glass window, laughing and chatting, when i glance outside and see three figures in raincoats walking on a concrete pathway. One of them looks at me. I can only see his eyes. I am almost certain it is Dee. I am scared.
It's morning. I am just waking up. I realise i am being smothered with a pillow. It's Dee. He is sitting on top of me. Fay is nowhere in sight so i assume she is in the bathroom. I am hopeful she will come out any moment and see what Dee is doing, and finally realise what i have been trying to convey to her about him for a long time now. I also feel i might not get killed by Dee because he doesn't know i am with Fay. He hadn't seen her when he looked at me through the glass window the previous day. I struggle with all my might against him and manage to overthrow him. I pin him to me with my legs and call out for Fay so that she can see for herself what i have been talking about all this time. She comes out of the bathroom and sees me and Dee.
I tell her how he tried to murder me. She says, 'but i just saw that you have trapped him with your legs.' The familiar fear rises in me. Of being told that i am not to be believed. I tell her he was trying to murder me just a while ago. That i overpowered him. I am now hoping Dee has escaped so that he wouldn't hear the doubt in Fay's tone. He will get to know that i have no one on my side. He will feel triumphant. Fay believes me, but only reluctantly, i feel. I can tell that she thinks i am reporting everything wrong. The dream ends.
For some months now, i have been trying to get back the money i lent Dee. There was no response from him even after repeated requests. I had to send a legal notice to him after which he promptly called the lawyer and told her that the majority of the amount i was asking back was his remuneration for edit work he did with me. I had already explained to the lawyer that he had made the claim in the past too and that it was not correct. I had added his name to the credit list not because he did the work to earn it but because of my feelings for him at the time. It was an unprofessional act. Fay told me that i had sunk low in the cesspool of my actions of the time. It is true. If this particular act was unprofessional, the rest betrayed feminism. Dee's friend refused to believe me when i told him that Dee had not done the work, pointing to the fact that i never contradicted Dee when he claimed otherwise, and stating my memory issues. He said that i had agreed to pay him for the work when we were together. I told him that Dee had later told me he would return the amount. Fay told me it could be because Dee felt insulted when i later went back on my payment promise. She too, pointed out earlier instances of my memory issues.
The incident triggered me endlessly. It brought back every little incident in that relationship where i was humiliated and lied to by Dee and i failed to question it because i was so emotionally entwined. It was easy for everyone to state that i never contradicted him when he made claims regarding edit work. It's natural too, as i am known for calling out people and confronting them quickly. However, I avoided confronting Dee on numerous occasions in that relationship, not just regarding edit. In fact, i went to great lengths to claim that he did the edit with me so that people, especially my teammates, would respect him. He was always complaining that they didn't consider him worthy of me because of his lack of higher education and complaints of discrimination by a female teammate. I avoided confronting him regarding his lies not just in front of others but even when i was alone with him. Whenever i dared to confront him, it would result in lengthy disrespectful debates at the end of which he would withdraw love and affection for days. He was especially touchy regarding money.
His withdrawal of love at will was my perennial fear in that relationship. It started when he started exhibiting a pattern of showering me with love for a brief period and quickly withdrawing it for long periods (called 'love bombing' and 'bread crumbing' in today's lingo). I would cling on to the spurts of love and would be grateful for it. It's only very recently that i even broke out of my emotional attachment to him and this is when i was finally able to analyse the incidents that transpired. This does not justify my favouring him and adding his name to the credit list when he did not deserve it but i now know why i put up with his lies about it and many other things. Why i tried my best to not hurt his ego.
Fay told me that i would be among the people who called my actions sexual harassment if Dee was a female and if a complaint was made. That's true too. In my case, i do think that the power he had over me, which arose from the pattern of showing and withdrawing love, overrode the power i had over him due to professional hierarchy. In fact, after the relationship and the pattern commenced, i was unable to even reprimand him on more than one occasion when he committed dereliction of duty. He would just brush it aside and not take accountability. I now even suspect that some of his love showering spurts were strategically placed to coincide with other personal events in my life. If, despite this, it really is sexual harassment, i do think Dee should file a complaint. After all, at the point when the relationship started, the only power equation that existed was the professional one. It's only when it progressed that the emotional equations emerged. The law now permits men to make complaints. I was, in fact, one of the people who lauded the amendment.
It will take much more time for me to get over the fact that he has 'chosen' not to return me my money. That he 'chose' not to respond when i asked it back. Even without the amount he now claims is his remuneration, he owes me. People have asked me to let go of it as it is a small amount. It was not a small amount when he borrowed it. Neither for me nor for him. The fact that i was not respected in that relationship makes it worse for me.
The second dream featured an ex-professor of SRFTI. Following complaints of sexual harassment from female students including me, this professor was found guilty by the ICC and was dismissed from service. He and another professor who received the same punishment challenged the order in Calcutta High Court. The court ruled in their favour recently. We appealed against the order but don't have the emotional energy to follow the case up and have lost hope. They might return to teaching any day. During our fight against these professors, we were hounded by the administration and fellow students both. The students especially were very violent.
I was recently contacted by some students there regarding ongoing cases of sexual harassment. The current ICC is treating complainants with utmost contempt and functioning illegally.
In the dream, this professor is teaching us. It's an outdoor class. We are all going to be tested. I am excited. I want to be the topper. One of my classmates is a male student who turned out to be a gigantic hypocrite during my time there and whom me and my roommate used to call 'fuckrum.' I badly want to beat him in the test.
The professor and i get along very well. I am enamored by him. I see that he is slightly flirting with me with his glances. I don't object. When the test is explained, two of the male students, including the hypocrite try out a video game which is somehow related to the test. They already know how to play it. I see that i don't.
The test begins. It is not a video game but something like a pinball game. I have to use hand controls to bounce six or so balls into their places on pegs - all inside a glass case. Not only do i win, i beat others by a huge margin. I am ecstatic. Some of my classmates also celebrate with me. I look at the professor. He looks happy, eager and proud. I feel a butterflies in my stomach.
It's night. We students have a bonfire in the lawn behind the old hostel. The professor comes up to me and says 'i love you.' I am disappointed. I didn't want him to hit on me. I think of making a complaint but feel that no one will believe me because I was openly in awe of him earlier. I am guilty of having butterflies in my stomach when i looked at him. This is what Fay talks about, isn't it? She would say that i initiated it? And if she says so, it would mean it's true? The dream ends.
'I love you' was the professor's words to me all those years ago while i was a student. He said it over the phone, after saying, 'it is what it is.' He made repeated advances at me even after i told him on that call that i wasn't interested in him. Once at a party, he laid his hands on my waist, slapped me when i commented on a salad he had prepared. When i protested, he apologised and said i should go straight to the police for the mistake he made. He made comments on my body.
I had been in awe of him when he started teaching. I knew he was slightly flirtatious with me with his glances. I had tried to impress him. Had tried to get him to notice me. From childhood, I always tried to impress my teachers, especially if i liked them. I used to pluck flowers from the garden and take it to my favourite teachers every day.
I am constantly accused of forgetting things. I do have memory issues - a little more than most people. Someone could tell me their name and i would forget it in less than a minute. I don't remember faces. My brain subconsciously deletes entire episodes that it deems irrelevant. Certain memories associated with trauma are deleted. I believe this happens in a lot of people. Are we not to believe them at all? It really hurts when i am not believed even when i recall something vividly, when i am certain of what happened.
I hit my lowest low this year. Depressed, constantly considering suicide, i am certain that my future is doomed. The weight of my terrible mistakes pull me down into dark and unknown depths of despair.
