Kill The System: A Dream Vignette

Part I: The Parade of Nations

The cold morning air carried the scent of marigolds and jasmine through the three-storey hollow of the school. On National Day, we weren't just students, we were living stereotypes meant to be broken. Our class had become Punjab itself, wrapped in the vibrant chaos of Phulkari embroidery and the weight of tradition.

I adjusted my turban, feeling the stiff fabric press against my forehead, and looked down at my Patiala salwar, voluminous, pleated, alive with colours that seemed to shout rather than speak. Around me, my classmates moved in their kurta-pyjamas and salwar-kameez, their juttis clicking against the floor in perfect rhythm. Through the windows, I could see other classes: Kerala in their white-and-gold kasavu, Haryana in their robust pagris, Bihar in their simple elegance, each standard a different India, each classroom a different truth.

The drums began. Ta-Na-Ta-Na. Ta-Na-Ta-Na. That relentless Quick March, 120 beats per minute of mechanical discipline, the heartbeat of every school assembly that ever was. It pounded like Michael Jackson's "They Don't Really Care About Us", defiant, steady, impossible to ignore.

The parade began to move, a river of colour flowing through the corridors.

Part II: The Ghost in the Classroom

I should have followed them. But there he was, sitting at the teacher's desk in our Punjab-themed classroom, behind the decorative dhol, beneath posters of the Golden Temple and Bhangra dancers frozen mid-leap. Gandhi. Not the marble statue version, not the poster on the wall, but him, frail, smiling with those deep creases around his eyes, his round metal-rimmed spectacles catching the light, his dhoti impossibly white against the red Phulkari curtains.

The parade drums faded into the distance as I stayed behind.

He looked at me with that warm, impossible smile. His chest was bare under the thin shawl, his pocket watch visible near his waist, and he seemed so small sitting there among our miniature tractors and dried wheat stalks on the window ledges, our Durries covering the institutional floor.

"Why are you alive," I asked, "and not Bhagat Singh?"

The smile didn't fade, but something ancient moved behind his eyes. "Destiny chooses its martyrs and its witnesses," he said, adjusting his spectacles. "Which do you think I am?"

The answer felt like a question pretending to be an answer. I pressed on.

"Why did you create the division of India?"

He leaned forward, and his voice dropped to something almost playful. "Do you know what happens when you tell a secret to ten people? To a hundred? To millions?" He didn't wait for my response. "Secrets become prophecies. Prophecies become truths. Or perhaps..." his eyes glinted behind the round lenses, "perhaps they were always truths, and I was just the one fool enough to speak them aloud."

The weight of that non-answer hung in the air, heavy as the sweet smell of flowers drifting through the windows.

"And the caste system?" My voice was harder now. "Do you understand it?"

"I understand," he said slowly, "that some systems survive because we understand them. And others survive because we don't." The smile returned, sad now. "Which one do you think it is?"

"Then help me kill it," I said, refusing to play his game of riddles. "Kill the system."

Part III: The Chant

The words left my mouth like a match to kindling.

"Kill the system."

I repeated it, louder. The parade drums were still beating outside, Ta-Na-Ta-Na, and somehow my words found their rhythm. Someone else picked it up. Then another. Then the whole class, returning from the parade, poured back in, their voices rising:

"KILL THE SYSTEM!" Ta-Na-Ta-Na "KILL THE SYSTEM!" Ta-Na-Ta-Na

The drums synced perfectly with the chant, that marching beat transforming into something revolutionary, something dangerous. The sound filled our Punjab classroom, spilt out into the three-storey hollow, and echoed off every wall until the entire school was vibrating with it.

But revolution breeds chaos.

Different thinking people started fighting, Kerala arguing with Haryana, Bihar pushing Maharashtra, everyone suddenly remembering old grievances wrapped in new costumes. The stereotypes we were meant to break were breaking us instead.

I had to take control. I had to find the real troublemakers.

"Jatt khara kalla aajo jihne loha laina!" I shouted in Punjabi, my voice cutting through the chaos. Come forth, whoever wants to pick up the iron, whoever wants to fight.

Four figures pushed through the crowd.

From Kerala, white kasavu dhoti gleaming, his movements fluid like the backwaters he represented. From Jharkhand, tribal jewellery catches the light, his stance grounded and dangerous. From Haryana, a massive pagri, broad shoulders, bored eyes, looking for any excuse to prove his strength. And from Delhi, dressed in modern fusion, cocky, there because fighting looked fun.

Part IV: Honey and Steel

The cold air seemed to freeze as we faced each other. The sweet smell of flowers intensified.

But as I looked at them, Kerala in his white kasavu, Jharkhand with his tribal jewellery, Haryana with his massive pagri, Delhi in his fusion wear, I saw it. Four fragments of the same fractured country, each carrying stereotypes they'd been forced to wear like costumes.

Still, the fight was coming. Dreams don't pause for philosophy.

I ran toward the Arunachal Pradesh classroom and grabbed their container of traditional honey. In one swift motion, I threw it across the floor between us.

The honey spread like liquid gold, sticky, slippery, catching the light like a trap and a treasure at once.

Kerala went down first, grace betrayed by the slick surface. Jharkhand followed, jewellery clattering. Haryana, big, bored Haryana, fell hardest, and all three crashed into the water cooler with a tremendous splash, cold water mixing with sweet honey.

But Delhi hung back, watched, and learned. Now he came at me, and in his eyes I saw something familiar: the cleverness that survives by adapting.

I pivoted into the Maharashtra classroom, through Shivaji's forts and warrior traditions. There on the wall: that Maratha dagger with its dark, curved hilt and crescent guard, brass-wrapped grip gleaming. Behind it, a painted tiger loomed.

The blade sang as I drew it, Damascus patterns catching the light.

Delhi stopped, reconsidered. In that moment, we both knew: we weren't fighting each other. We were fighting the roles we'd been assigned.

But he'd committed. He came anyway. Because sometimes you have to act out the symbol before you can understand it.

What happened next wasn't technique. It was pure spirit, pure Shivaji, courage and cunning against the empire. I moved like I'd seen in movies, probably watched before sleeping, my body remembering what my mind had never learned. Each party has a rejection. Each movement is a question.

Delhi went down, not hurt but defeated, sprawling among the Maharashtra decorations. He was laughing, I realised. We both were.

Part V: The Hollow

I walked back to the centre of the school, to the ground floor beneath that three-story hollow. Water dripped from the broken cooler. Honey stuck to the shoes and spread in golden patches. The drums had stopped.

Everyone was looking at me.

They lined the railings on all three floors, Punjab, Kerala, Maharashtra, Haryana, Bihar, Jharkhand, Delhi, Arunachal Pradesh, every state, every union territory, every stereotype we'd worn today. The hollow amplified everything. One voice here could reach everyone.

I raised the Maratha dagger, still in my hand, still catching the light.

"We're killing the system," I said, and my voice carried upward, multiplied by the architecture. "Not the identity. Never the identity."

I could feel them listening, really listening, in that way that only happens in dreams, where words carry the weight of absolute truth.

"The system is the rules and regulations that divide us. The system is the walls they built between states, between castes, between us. The system is every lie they told us about each other, every stereotype they made us believe."

I gestured at our costumes, our decorations, our beautiful, ridiculous displays.

"But this? This is who we are. Kerala's grace, Jharkhand's strength, Haryana's courage, Delhi's cleverness, Punjab's joy, Maharashtra's valour, these aren't the system. These are our identities. These are real."

It was Caesar speaking to Rome, Mark Antony at the funeral, every great orator who ever made a crowd forget their anger and remember their purpose. I wasn't criticising anyone. I wasn't blaming anything. I was just speaking truth, and in dreams, truth has power.

Heads nodded on all three floors. Kerala helped Jharkhand to its feet. Haryana clapped Delhi on the shoulder. The honey was still stuck to the floor, sweet and slippery, but no one was fighting anymore.

"Kill the system," I said one more time, softer now. "But keep everything that makes us us."

The agreement was unanimous. The understanding was complete.

And then, like all perfect dream moments, I was awake.

---

The cold lingered. The sweet smell of flowers and honey stayed with me for minutes after waking. And somewhere in my mind, that drum beat continued: Ta-Na-Ta-Na, Ta-Na-Ta-Na, the rhythm of a parade that never ended, of a speech that would echo in that three-storey hollow forever.

But here's what I didn't say in the dream, what I couldn't say until I woke up: I was terrified the entire time. Terrified that Gandhi's riddles had no answers. Terrified that the honey-slick floor was just a trick that worked once. Terrified that my words in that hollow were just noise, that they'd forget everything the moment the dream ended.

Maybe that's why dreams give us these moments. Not because we're brave enough to live them.

But because we need to know what it feels like. (Author's Note: A dream is just a dream—symbols, not statements. Any resemblance to historical figures or political positions is purely the strange logic of sleep.)