I open my eyes to darkness and a throbbing pain behind my right temple. The scent of sandalwood and jasmine drifts through the air, pressing against my senses with jarring familiarity. A moment passes as my vision clears. This isn't my bedroom. The heavy curtains drawn over the window cast the room in twilight hues. Pale morning light fights its way through the silken fabric, hinting at dawn beyond.
My heart stumbles. The carved wooden bed, the patterned sheets—everything around me is vivid and alien. I try to sit up. The muscles in my neck protest. My hand moves reflexively to find something. I wear a coarse cotton kurta — the garment feels... foreign against my skin. I don't remember ever wearing anything like this. Who am I wearing?
A strange dread knits the hairs on the back of my neck. Where am I?
Memories, fleeting and disjointed, cascade in confusion. Last night—I was at my office, negotiating a deal that could make or break our fiscal quarter. The city skyline from my glass window, the taste of stale coffee on my tongue, the blare of my smartphone alarm. One moment I was Arjun Verma, an entrepreneur on the cusp of success. The next moment, a blinding white light and the ache of mortality.
Now here I lie, in unfamiliar surroundings, hearing muted voices in another room. I swallow; my throat is dry. My lips feel thick, my words gravelly. I cough, clearing my vision further. There is a photograph on the bedside table. The glass is thick, slightly dusted. I lean forward and squint: the image shows a smiling man in a crisp suit, round spectacles in place, waving from a podium. The Union Jack lies tattered behind him, and the Indian tricolor flutters proudly nearby. Pandit Nehru stands at the podium, his face alight with hope.
Shock floods through me. My lungs balloon, but the air feels strange — humid, carried by a breeze from a distant shore. For a moment I sit frozen, the photo trembling in my hand. 1947? I blink and rub my eyes. My vision swims with that photograph: the man with round spectacles must be J. L. Nehru — India's first Prime Minister — receiving the flag from the departing British. But he was long gone before I was even born. Yet here it is, impossible, staring up at me from a picture.
Footsteps approach. The voices become clearer, urgent. In stunned realization, I drop the photo on the bed. Panicked, I slide to the edge and plant my feet on the cool tile floor, gingerly pulling myself to stand.
The door creaks open. A pair of gentle brown eyes widen at the sight of me. A silver-haired man in a white khadi kurta stands there, hands pressed together in surprise. "Raghav... you're awake!" His voice trembles with relief and concern. "Beta, were you having a bad dream?"
I open my mouth to answer, but no words emerge. The man — my supposed father? — simply blinks down at me. His gaze pierces deep, searching. His features are kind but lined with tension. The fear in his eyes is palpable.
"Are you all right, son?" he asks softly.
I want to answer, to say the truth: that I'm not his son at all, that I was never here, that I'm someone else entirely. But no sound comes out. A stranger in a borrowed body, I stand mute.
He steps closer. "You sca—" Then he stops himself. Perhaps he wonders if I recognize his voice, if I know his face.
"Dad…" I croak, my voice barely audible, an echo of something I don't remember sounding like. My words hang in the heavy morning air.
His eyes fill with worry. "Doctor is on the way," he says, gently sliding the blanket off my legs. "You fainted after the celebrations last night; you made me very frightened. I ran here as soon as you came to."
"Celebrations?" I manage to whisper, confusion knotting my throat. "Celebrations? What… what happened?"
The room drifts around me. My mind scrabbles for explanation. His face tightens; relief washes over him when he hears "celebrations" escape my lips. Relief that I speak as if I belong here.
"Son, we'll talk more in a moment, okay?" His voice is soothing, but I don't trust it. I step forward, wobbly. "What is going on? Where am I?"
He hesitates, concern and confusion clouding his expression. "You're at home... at our home in New Delhi. Your mother has sent tea," he says, struggling to keep it simple, as if I'm still a child.
New Delhi. The name sinks in like a stone. India. Wasn't it far away — this India? I try to recall anything I know about a Raghav Mehra, about New Delhi in 1947.
Quietly, as he watches, I slip off the blanket and tiptoe over to the dressing table. There, tarnished on its face, is a silver pocket watch. My fingers tremble as I lift it. Engraved on the glass is a name: R. Mehra. My heart hammers wildly. R. Mehra. Raghav Mehra. That must be me, then, I suppose.
"Father…" I say again, forcing the syllables. "I... feel strange."
"You should rest," he says, helping me back onto the bed. "You lost some blood in the stampede outside Parliament. I'm just grateful you're safe."
The mention of blood and stampede puzzles me. Stampede? Outside Parliament? In New Delhi?
Nervous dread settles like a stone in my gut. "Outside Parliament... after… after midnight?"
My father's face goes pale. "Yes, yes — after the flag-hoisting last night. You were feeling faint, and I came as fast as I could." He pauses. "Have you been keeping up with the news, beta? Today is a historic day."
His words hit me in waves: news, historic day. I swallow hard, the taste of iron in my mouth. My mind spins back, a torrent of fragments: India under the British Raj, Partition, Gandhi, Nehru's speech... none of it makes sense.
"Historic day?" I echo.
My father nods, uncertainty in his eyes as if he's not sure how to explain to me, his son, in terms I can grasp. He takes my hand. "Yes. It is August 15, 1947. India is free."
The words grip me. I blink, disbelieving, heart thundering. I try to reconcile them with what I know. 15th August 1947 — the date of India's independence. I was not alive then. How can it be now?
Clarity rushes in unbidden: I am alive — or rather, I am living — in 1947. My present self is not Arjun Verma the businessman of 2025, but Raghav Mehra, son of a politician, in the dawn of India's freedom.
Everything falls into place in an instant — and shatters my reality. The revolution in the streets and on the radio, the battered photograph in my hands, the khadi-clad man addressing me as his son. It's all real.
My mind reels. The story of my modern life vanishes beneath a tide of questions and fear. My business empire, my family, my possessions — gone, erased without warning. How could this be? A nightmare, perhaps? Yet everything feels so vivid — the scratch of the cotton bedsheet, the tang of iron from the small cut at my temple, the faint music from a transistor radio in the next room.
I clutch the bedsheet, knuckles white. "Arjun Verma," I whisper to myself, testing the name. It feels distant, like someone else's identity. All my memories of that life flicker in my mind — the board meetings, the late nights at the office, a family birthday I missed. Am I dead? Are those memories all there is of Arjun? Because here I am, somewhere else entirely.
My father clears his throat. "Beta, we should get you some tea." He sounds earnest, worried. "Then perhaps you can tell me more about your dream."
I stare at him, my heart thudding. A dream? As if it's some fevered hallucination. Everything in me screams that I am not dreaming. This is worse — something I could never have imagined.
"No… not a dream," I say at last, each word deliberate. "I need to know everything."
His eyes widen with surprise and concern. He pulls a chair close, and I talk haltingly, truth veiled in a guise of confusion. "Midnight… I remember a speech on the radio. A new anthem playing..."
A radio chirps into audibility, drifting through the wall. I catch the fractured words: "…stroke of midnight… India shall awake to life and freedom…" Pandit Nehru's voice crackles, then fades into static.
My father exhales, and I realize we are listening to a recorded broadcast. "Yes," he says softly, eyes never leaving mine. "He gave that speech at midnight. Your mother recorded it. We thought perhaps hearing it again might calm you."
I barely hear him. My vision blurs; my hands shake. So they had this recorded, to replay, to remember. But to me it is revelation. This day — it truly happened, a lifetime before I was born. Yet here it is, playing through the radio as if we live it. The world is lying.
No TV or internet. Only what my senses and this father tell me. The solidity of these moments crushes me. India — a world of independence, hope, fear — stands before me in all its raw, sunlit morning glory.
The distant sounds outside filter in through the cracked window: laughter, cries, horns, the murmur of buses on dusty roads. Perhaps it's the murmur of thousands rushing to welcome this new dawn. Everything feels charged — pregnant with possibility.
"Yes. Today is freedom," my father says again, breaking into my spinning thoughts. "I had planned a small celebration here with neighbors and family, but after you fainted..."
I shake my head, trying to steady myself. How could this be my reality? I run a finger along the side of my temple; there's a bandage, and beneath it a slow trickle of dried blood. I remember: thick bodies pressing at a gate, the jostling, me stumbling and falling...
My mouth goes dry. "Stampede…" I whisper. I recall reading about crowds, people desperate to witness the first flag raising. People must be injured. Was I knocked unconscious?
My father looks concerned but nods. "Yes. But it's okay now. They cleared the crowds. Here — drink this." He hands me a glass of hot, sweet chai. Its spicy warmth burns my throat. Real tea, not some espresso.
I watch my reflection in the brass cup. The face looking back at me is none of mine. My hair is fine and parted to the side; skin warm cinnamon, clear; eyes earnest brown. In the corner of the cup's reflection, I see the silhouette of a nose and jaw — different than my own memory. I press fingers to my lips. No stubble, no mustache. In my life, I always had the luxury of neat barbering. Here I am scrub-faced, boyish. This Raghav never grew older.
If the universe had a cruel sense of humor, I couldn't argue it. Arjun Verma — dead, all that he knew gone — reborn as Raghav Mehra. A dusty, burgeoning politician's son in the new India that has just split from a dying colonial empire.
My father sits back in his chair, hands folded. "Do you remember the ceremony? The flag?"
"Yes," I whisper, surprising myself. I close my eyes for a moment, recalling. The flag. I see it in my mind's eye: the saffron, white, and green; the proud wheel at the center, spinning like destiny itself. I recall colors more vivid than any corporate logo I'd ever seen. The crowd singing an unfamiliar hymn — no, the new national anthem, Jana Gana Mana. There's a hint of its melody in the radio static.
He nods. "Yes. The morning of August fifteenth, 1947. Your countrymen worked for this for decades... your freedom."
I feel tears burn at the corners of my eyes, but not for a patriotic reason. I am overwhelmed, utterly disoriented. Months of business meetings, dinner with my wife... gone. All I have are echoes of a past life as shadow memories. I never thought I would welcome routine, but now I might trade anything to wake up back in that familiar bed.
But I can't. I realize with impossible finality that Arjun Verma is dead, and Raghav Mehra is alive.
Quiet settles between us for a moment. In the distance, a blackbird sings, greeting the dawn beyond the window. The morning is alive. I hear laughter outside — children perhaps, each in a little kurta and a Gandhi cap, likely celebrating independence. The scent of marigolds from a small altar in the corner mingles with the chai. Everywhere, there is the unspoken truth: something new has begun.
My eyes drift to the balcony — the wind catching something bright from beyond the glass. India's tricolor rises on a pole, unfurling to greet the sun. Hope and fear fill the sky above it, woven together.
I take a deep breath, steadying the tremor in my chest. The taste of cardamom lingers on my tongue. Standing a little straighter, I fold my hands on my lap and meet my father's eyes.
"Thank you," I say quietly. Truth and gentle assurance in voice, borrowed but not false. "I remember now."
He smiles and breathes out. "Ah, good," he says. "Then rest while you can. There's much work ahead for all of us now — India is on the cusp of something new."
I nod, though a thousand thoughts race. "Yes. Very new."
And inside the small bedroom, I close my eyes with a mind burdened by two lifetimes, knowing that my journey has only just begun.