My Realities merge with Dreams!….(and why not?)

I had just sat down for a moment after settling my linen when someone called out for me, yet again. I felt a surge of anger but as I got up, I inhaled slowly and let out the air from my lungs with a force which symbolized: “I’ll huff, and I’ll puff and bloody blow you away” – whoever it was on the other side of the curtain.

Trivial things were needed but they are important for a smooth functioning of a home machinery. My housekeeping staff had finished a two-liter lizzol bottle in three days. I wondered where it had all gone. For, I never smelled lime freshness through the day. Two minutes? Yes. But not beyond. Forget it, I thought. It is not important, though the smell would have been nice, if it had stayed, I continued to think. STOP! Screamed my hand and it tapped on my forehead twice. I snapped out of it.

The rice jar was empty too, so informed my matronly maid. Anything else, I asked politely. It took an effort to be civil that day for my head had a pounding machine inside and even after two paracetamols and a domperidone, a tank of tea, no coffee and some fruits, the pounding had not stopped. She patronizingly told me she will check subsequently. Thus, dismissing me and asking me to fill up whatever she had identified first, and leave the speculating for later. Forget it, I thought. It is not important, though doing it one go would have saved each of us a lot of effort, I continued to think as I stepped inside my store. STOP! Screamed my head this time and shook itself. The tongue approved and clucked a few times. I snapped out of it.

Garbage bags, Dettol liquid, vim bar, hay for the rabbits – another couple of out-of-breadth individuals landed at my doorstep nee store-step. And the not-so-young little woman standing inside her store was ME! It was remarkable how my pounding head had, in spite the continuous thumping, managed to change the erstwhile, award winning opening line of my grade 1 essay into this? The original was: “That small little brown puppy sitting on my doorstep is Timmy.” Blimey! Let this be done, I thought to myself. And so, it was. As I switched off the lights and walked up, another skating maid skidded to a stop right in front of me. Yes? Oh, she forgot what she wanted, in her skating. Never mind. I stood patiently allowing her to recollect what she wanted. Aha! A broom. Of course, if only I could ride on it and whoosh all of them out of my sight right then, my head thought again. STOP! Screamed my thoughts. I snapped out of it.

A clutter and a clang of the steel plate from inside one of the hutches of my darling rabbits inadvertently made me walk across my drawing room lobby towards them. “Hallo! Munchkins! Mama munchkins”, I cooed in my baby-talk tone. I heard an extra rustle in all the hutches. The delight of having them respond to my small talk was like a shot in the arm. The most misunderstood or rather under-understood pets are these cutest furry creatures. “Hallo mama Beautiful!” I cooed again as I went up to my darling Californian rabbit, my Snowflake. She looked at me with sleepy eyes from her abode of a soft dhoti covered basket and twitched her nose furiously. “Has she got some treat? Nay! she hasn’t!” she figured out and continued to laze around. I cooed to the ground floor inhabitant – my darling Chocolate brownie and in his typical mannerisms, he did a snap twist around in his nervousness and looked skeptically at me. “Will she, won’t she?”, he assessed. “She won’t!” and then relaxed. If it had been my son, he would not even have thought for a second about this, for it would, be a hand inside and he would have been taken up in the lap for a good snuggle and cuddle. Something boy rabbits’ frown upon. “How girly!” they grimace!

As I straightened up from below, Snowflake stretched and did a mini surya-namaskar and yawned. I squealed in delight, “Mama Beautiful, love you, Munchkin”. My son, who was walking down the stairs asked in fright as to what the matter was. He is convinced that our white California has become swollen headed because I call her: Mama Beautiful. I described to him the cutest small pink mouth with two bunny teeth. And looked at her again. “Hmm, so what”, she asked me, twitching her nose energetically. “All bunnies have two bunny teeth. Haven’t you seen Bugs Bunny?! And boy, can’t a rabbit even take a decent stretch?”, she exclaimed dramatically. I knew it was the pounding in my head and the drugs inside me which was making me hear my munchkin speak. But with the clang of the plate and the crunchy, munching of the hay, she dismissed my hallucinations to be baseless. “That was me, Mama Darlkin!”, she muttered, annoyed from between strands of hay. STOP! Screamed my closed eyes. It is ok to have talking rabbits. Makes life more fun. I snapped out of my disbelief.

Scratch. Scrub. Gruff. I shook my head from my Snowflake encounter and walked over to the middle hutch from where the racket was heard. My darling Mommy was swishing her powder around her bowl and looked up with a brown powdered nose with much exasperation. She pouted with her pinkish lips and toothed her approval of my name. “I quite like Mama Darlkin!” she clucked with a hiss through the powder. “I quite like the name too,” I concurred. “But Mommy why so much of a messing up of the hutch?” I asked. In between gulps of the powder, Mommy started to dig into the bowl furiously and totally ignored me. I shook my head in disbelief and blinked my eyes twice as she pondered with her one good eye and with powder spewing off her cute pink lips, she professed: “I saw the light mist and the sun the other day and these lines came to my mind. Can you Mama Darlkin please note it down immediately. I wish we could hold a pen and make our jottings. Never mind. Ready?” she asked impatiently.  Incredulity took on a whole new meaning for me that day and I whipped out my notepad and pen from my purse which had almost anything one could need, to see one through the day. “Shoot, Mommy!” I replied as normally as I could.

  “As the mighty Sun of knowledge rode in the high, snow-capped mountains,
 The clouds of ignorance which had settled themsleves,
 On the mountains’ lofty peaks during the cold, damp night
 Dissipated into thin air and I thought: let there be light!”  

And she went back to her furious digging and the gulping. Breadthless, in-between her feverish eating, she stopped and looked up to ask, “Did you get that Mama Darlkin?”

I did, I did Mommy dearest, I pronounced. “Hmm…good. Sometimes some incredible thoughts come to one’s mind” saying thus she scurried into the closed section of her hutch and after settling the already neatly set dhoti, some more, she settled into her basket comfortably for the late morning siesta.

A squawking voice announcing that she was not able to locate the exact location where my slim, designer mug should go, shook me out of my reverie. Now the reason for my disbelief turned around to these other personas who found shuttling between three odd cupboards of crockery and two tubs of utensils and half a dozen rooms of cleaning and a mockery of a space of a kitchen as a mammoth chore. And here I had my munchkins spewing poetry and giving me nicknames. What would I choose? Mundane or electrifying? STOP! Screamed my senses. Let the slim designer cup find a place amongst any other of its kind, let the utensils get washed as best they can, let the cleaning happen and let the kitchen deal with the personas rummaging through it. I did not snap out of my dreamy reality. I choose electrifying, any day. I decided to stay in my make-belief!

Or was it thus? My daydreams had more reality than reality could ever hope for. My imaginations had more veracities than veracities could ever chance upon. My thoughts had more candidness than candidness could ever expect.