Birendra was walking the roads of Khurja, a small town in Uttar Pradesh in India. Birendra was a traveler who loved walking and exploring new places. Even the places he didn’t know much about, he would travel on foot to explore the markets, old and fascinating buildings and off-course the temples. He worshipped Lord Hanuman who is believed to be an incarnation of Lord Shiva. On the roads of Khurja, Birendra walked down a thin lane. While looking up at the chimneys of the crockery factories, that emitted black smoke, he came across a broken building on his right. It was in ruins and was yet inviting. He wanted to get inside and see what it was. He wasn’t able to find the entrance so he asked a tea seller about the place and how he could get inside. The tea seller showed him a path to the entrance of the building and told him to be cautious while going inside. The place, he said, is an old temple of Lord Shiva and hasn’t been visited by anyone for more than 50 years. He said, the place is covered with spiders’ webs and is believed to be haunted by the demons who have made the temple their home. Birendra laughed at tea seller’s ignorance as he knew that if the place was once worshipped as Shiva’s temple, it can never be haunted by any demon. He bought some sweets from a shop nearby to offer to the lord and went inside without thinking a bit about what the man said.

The place was a little dirty but it hadn’t lost its charm. It seemed as if the walls were narrating what happened years back and as if there was a story to be heard about the place. He walked inside and found a huge Banyan tree. Banyan is worshipped in India and is said to be a house to the souls of old saints and sometimes ghosts. He wasn’t scared as he trusted the lord whose temple it was. Finally, he found the statue of Shiva and without any delay, he knelt down to offer his respect to the lord. He opened the box of sweets that he had carried and placed it in front of the statue. He sat there in peace for some time and meditated. He felt he wasn’t there by chance. He was called to the place by some higher energy. He hadn’t seen a temple like this before. A haunted temple was strange to believe.

He closed his eyes and folded his hands towards the lord. He wanted to ask for something from the lord. His wife was pregnant for the second time. He already had a daughter whom he loved a lot. He wanted to complete his family by having a son. He did a small mistake, which can be called his destiny or something he was meant to do. With his eyes closed and his hands folded, he asked for a son from the Shiva’s kingdom.

Shiva’s kingdom comprises of gods and demons both. His kingdom even has demons who were earlier gods but were cursed to be ghosts for some reason. There were some in the almighty’s kingdom who hadn’t been born for centuries and hadn’t seen earth because they were sinner-saints who had to be punished and were confined to the old Banyan trees.
Birendra had asked what he had to and left the place without thinking about what he had asked for. He might be given a god as his child, a demon or a cursed saint who hasn’t seen the earth. There was a storm in Khurja that night and the people around the old temple witnessed a disturbance in the temple. They could hear some noises from inside but no one dared to get inside. They prayed the whole night that the lord doesn’t punish them for any of their mistakes.

Birendra was unaware that he had disturbed something in the place. Someone was being sent to his family whom he hadn’t thought could be there. The night passed and many such nights went by. His wife was finally in the hospital for her delivery as the labor-pain had already started. There were a few changes that occurred before the delivery took place. Birendra got a huge business contract and earned well from it. He got rid of people who could bother him in future. He felt confident and powerful more than he ever felt. He was turning stronger and confident and felt blessed to see so many changes in his life. But there was something else he realized. He was turning short-tempered and aggressive. He was richer but angry on everything. He was turning devilish, which wasn’t his nature before.

As he had asked for, the nurse in the hospital came to him and asked for a grand treat as he had been blessed with a son. He felt his family was now complete. He had a daughter and a son and he had ample money to raise them.

The day he got his son and wife back home, the very night he had a dream. He was sitting in the same temple as he had visited a few months ago in Khurja. He was sitting in the place where he actually sat and asked for a son. But he saw something more. Lord Shiva actually appeared and sat on the throne kept in the temple. He raised his voice to call somebody and it shook everything around. Birendra was a silent spectator and was not a part of anything in the dream. He sat quiet and looked at everything. After the lord’s roar, the banyan tree shook for some time as Birendra could hear the sound of the leaves fluttering and colliding with each other. Shiva called “Mahesh, get down, you need to leave this place now and move elsewhere.” There was no one there in the temple except the Lord and the silent Birendra. He looked around but couldn’t see anyone.

Suddenly, there was someone in the temple. A man walked in and his appearance scared Birendra to the bottom his spine. The man was chained, had a grown-up beard and looked like someone who had been living a bad life. He looked tired but aggressive. He was angry, walked with a strong attitude but looked harmless. He stood there in front of the lord. Lord repeated that it’s time for him to get over with what he had experienced till now. There was a better place waiting for him. Mahesh asked, “is my curse over?” in a very tired yet influential voice. The Lord said, “it isn’t over yet, but you can get over it faster now. I am sending you to Earth.”

Earth is believed to be the place where it is easier to reform oneself. The cursed souls have more power on Earth as they have the free will and a conscious mind of a human being, which is powerful enough to change oneself. One can change faster and reform easily on Earth than changing in any other spiritual realm.
Birendra looked at Mahesh. He realized something as if he was being told about Mahesh now. His inner voice narrated him, “Mahesh was a god who had committed the sin of having illicit sex when he was sent to the earth the last time. He met a tragic end in that life as people around him left him alone and he died a death that shook his soul. As he left his body, due to all the negativity he had gathered during his lifetime, he was captured by other evil souls and was at the lowest realm of hell for thousands of years. Shiva could see him but he couldn’t help him as no one can defy karma. As Mahesh gained some power and lived his karma, he moved to higher realms of hell and was finally taken back by Lord Shiva and was hanged on the Banyan tree to gain more power and get over the remaining part of his curse.

Birendra could not have called it a dream as he felt that it actually happened when he left the temple that day. God was showing him that who had come to him as his son and that he was no ordinary human who was born to him.
The dream was still on. Mahesh agreed to what Lord Shiva said and left the place. The lord also disappeared and Birendra was left there, ruminating on what he had asked for from the lord.

He woke up to see that it was 5’ o’clock and he was back to his bedroom. He found his wife sleeping with her arm around their son who was sleeping without any idea of what curse he had come from and what remains to be lived. Birendra was ready to live it and love his son without thinking of what he had seen in his dream.