Dreaming of gold

Gold is the stuff of personal dreams for many, as it has excited the thoughts and imagination of generations. Actual treasure hunts have also taken place and some have even struck gold.

The gold rush in California is history, though it cannot be compared with desperate attempts to retrieve gold from history. Fictional accounts abound of people trying for years to find gold buried under  impossible locations, working on clues in ancient scrolls and the like, which are difficult to decipher.  But truth is often stranger than fiction.

When a government agency starts looking for gold on the basis of a sadhu’s dream, it strikes a bizarre note. A sadhu is the last man to have gold on his mind, but how could even the most self-controlled yogi prevent it from rising from the unconscious? A seer sees everything – past and future, under the earth and above the sky.

A local sadhu in UP’s Unnao district, Shobhan Sarkar,  claimed that he  had dreamed of gold buried under a fort in a village called Daundiya Kheda. Since the story has all the elements of popular interest, it spread fast. The amount of gold is substantial and it could even solve the country’s current account deficit troubles. A union minister, Charan Das Mahant, who has known the swami, took special interest and alerted the prime minister and the finance minister about the novel way to solve the economic problem. The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) has been digging in the village for about a week now for the buried gold, and the fort has become a centre of national attention, attracting crowds of people and the media.

The ASI of course says that it is not just chasing the sadhu’s dream but is acting on the basis of some data provided by the Geological Survey of India (GSI). The GSI has examined the site and has  detected  ‘a prominent non-magnetic zone’ indicative of presence of a metallic substance. But it remains a fact that the ASI has taken special interest in the matter after being prompted by the minister. The ASI’s labours will continue for a month before it is known whether the dream comes  true or not. If it fails to find gold in Unnao it should move on to Fatehpur. The sadhu has claimed that there is a bigger horde of gold there. Thank sarkar that there are some dreams to work on.