Incredible Adventures of Jack Flanders

In the dead of night, a large shipping crate is delivered to the home of our hero, Jack Flanders. Opening the crate, Jack discovers a green velvet overstuffed chair. When he sits in the chair, his everyday reality fades away, and he finds himself in a magical realm where three-masted ships sail the skies.

As a church bell tolls the midnight hour, Jack can feel himself being drawn to the green overstuffed chair. When he sits in the soft, velvety cushions, he finds himself seated upon the back of a Frombork, a fierce winged reptile. 

At midnight, the green velvet chair calls to Jack. As he sinks into the seductive cushions, he finds himself back on the Blue Swallow, sailing through the night sky. Standing in the bow, smoking a cigar, is a little girl with pigtails, her name is Little Frieda.

Jack dreams that he is on the back of a Frombork, but he awakes to find he is in a punt being poled by a man wearing a cape and top hat. This strange fellow introduces himself as the Marquis of Carumbas (a name he stole from someone who never existed). The Marquis offers to take Jack across the borders into the realm of, “The Nevermind.”

While on the Blue Swallow, the alchemist, Dr. Mazoola, causes an explosion that also injures Little Freida. Both are fading fast. Captain Swallow convinces Jack to bargain with the Lords of Death for their souls. But when Jack finds he’s standing before the Lords, with nothing to offer, they insist he dance for them. But when he tries, wearing the Marquis’ tap shoes, the Lords of Death boo and hiss, it’s thumbs down all around.

The sky ship, the Blue Swallow, encounters an ice storm, plus pirates, and are forced to land on the misty isle known as “The Dragon’s Breath.” While the ship is being repaired, Jack and Little Frieda discover a cave with paintings of giant eggs. And then, they discover The Dragon!

Jack tries Old Arts' "far-seeing" and winds up in the mind of a wild Frombork. The Blue Swallow is attacked by the Pirate Queen, the Black Mona Lisa. Captain Swallow catches a cannon ball with his tummy, and with the Pirate Queen about to board, Jack is voted the new Captain.

Using a whip, cutlass, and curses, the Pirate Queen teaches Jack how to be a “Captain!” Attempting to free Little Frieda, they attack the sorcerer Mad Mazoola’s castle. Jack “far-sees,” putting himself in a whirling dust devil, but winds up in one of the sorcerer’s bubbling glass beakers.

The bickering Talking Totems tell Jack he must meet Mad Merlin Mazoola in a dream contest. The challenge is accepted, and Jack finds himself with Mojo and Dr. Marvin Mazoola in a “Festival of Demons,” where cast iron monsters, flatulating foul smoke and belching balls of fire, crash & bash one another!

This is the final episode. Captain Jack sails to the Velvet Realms, where he discovers the Celestial City. Descending into the Pearl Dome, his Frombork spirals down to the marble floor below. Within the translucent pillars, angels and demons swirl like carbonated bubbles. And at the base of each pillar, is a green velvet chair.

In an Indian restaurant in New York City, Jack Flanders is greeted by Kamala Shukla, a woman who claims Jack knows her aunt, Lalitha Chatterjee. “You gave her your card.” She hands Jack the card, he reads it, “What appears to be coming at you, is coming from you.” It has his address, his phone number, but Jack has never seen it before. “She sent me to ask you to come.” Jack is intrigued. “Where does she live?” “Near Mysore?” “Where's that?” “South India.”

They fly to Bombay (now Mumbai). Kamala is surprised that Jack knows of the poet, Rabindranath Tagore. “Truth in her dress finds facts too tight, in fiction she moves with ease.” When Jack asks, “What does it feel like, wearing a sari?” Kamala replies, “Like fiction.”

Staying at the Hotel Taj Mahal (in separate rooms, of course), Kamala greets Jack with the ‘Tagore of the day.' “I have lost my dewdrop, cries the flower to the morning sky that has lost all its stars.” They take the train south to Mysore, and from there, to a village and her aunt's villa. When Madame Chatterjee sees Jack, her first words are, “This man is an imposter!”

Jack explores an abandoned summer palace on a hill outside the village. He wonders, is it haunted? He felt he was being watched. The second time he enters the palace, he hears his own voice echoing, “The night kisses the fading day, whispering to his ear – I am death, your mother. I am to give you fresh birth.” It is then, Jack realizes, he can't see his body.

Aunt Chatterjee asks, “Do you feel you can confront it?” Jack confesses, “I'm not very good at exorcising old summer palaces.” Later, with Kamala, Jack asks, “Your aunt made a pact with a jinn, and now the spirit has come to collect, is that it?”

In the middle of the night, Jack enters the desolant summer palace. Inside, he sits and waits. In his mind, he relives climbing the hill, entering the palace, and this seems to happen over and over. It goes on and on, as more and more Jacks in the palace, until he doesn't know which one is him.

(Notes) All the sounds you've been hearing in “Dreams of India,” we recorded in India - in Delhi, Mumbai, the Taj Mahal Hotel, Bangalore, Mysore, the countryside of South India, and the Palace of the Maharaja of Mysore. We also recorded the steam train (Episode 3) that runs from New Delhi to Agra. The train is called, “The Taj Express.”

It is night, Jack is again in the abandoned palace. But now he is floating, drifting away from the palace, down the hill and into Madame Chatterjee's room. She is talking to someone – he is tall, a white turban, a white beard, a long white robe that reaches his toes. He is saying, “You must release me.”