There are two nightmares I had as a child that I still remember. They both came during a fevered sleep.

S. was our housemaid and she came and washed clothes and cleaned the house everyday. In one of my nightmares, S. was washing our clothes on a big stone placed in the center of a concrete platform. The platform was designed to drain water from the washing into a small gutter. As S. was beating my mother’s sarees on ths stone , a strange thing happened; the colors of the saree began to fade and run into the gutter. And along with it, S.

Imagine a three-dimensional person turned into a two-dimensional palette of red, purple and black, and dissolving into oblivion. This was my own ‘Scream’ and scream I did, when I woke up in the middle of the night.

A few weeks ago, I watched a movie that came close to representing what existential horror was. After watching ‘Pulse’ I was left with an incredible sadness, one that lingered for some days before dissipating.

There were no weird-eyed freaks or girls of the Japanese horror genre in this movie. It was more of a meditation on loneliness combined with a backstory based on the supernatural. What does my dream have to do with Pulse? It seems that the difference between existing and not-existing is just one of dimensions – three to two, and then you’re gone.