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Daymules are the kicking cousins of nightmares. Only, you don't have to go to Freud or Jung to interpret them. They are pretty easy to synthesize in bed.
These days I go to bed at 1 in the night and wake up at 6 in the morning for my driving duties...dropping my D-i-L at her bus stop at 7.30 and Ishani in her school at 9. And 5 hours of sleep is just not enough for a mad old man like me. So I snooze during the whole day in spells, since I have to fetch both of them home at 1 PM and 3 PM in the reverse order.
And I take an antidepressant, an antihistamine, an antioxidant and an anticoagulent among other tablets before going to bed. And for the past couple of days my skin man has been pumping a couple of Augmentin 625 tablets in the fond hope of curing my recalcitrant boils. With the result that I drowse all the time. I can be caught and booked for Drowse & Drive.
Yesterday my friends Prof & Mrs Rao visited us kindly bringing a whiff of good old KGP.
And the day before that my sambandhis were asking how best to travel to Bharat Sevashram Sangh in the Lower Tank Bund Road to attend the 10th day funeral rites of their distant relative...an old lady of 87.
That evening I was rereading my collection of Chandogya Upanishad (Tattvamasi) shlokas where a young lad was led away blindfolded by robbers and left in a remote place in the Gandharas (Khandahar in Afghanistan). And how he had to seek his way back, inquiring everyone on the way...graamaad graamaad pruchchati...
Last night I went to bed with a Jeeves story in which Bertie suddenly found himself in possession of a policeman's helmet pinched by someone else, and had a grueling time explaining.
These days I go to bed at 1 in the night and wake up at 6 in the morning for my driving duties...dropping my D-i-L at her bus stop at 7.30 and Ishani in her school at 9. And 5 hours of sleep is just not enough for a mad old man like me. So I snooze during the whole day in spells, since I have to fetch both of them home at 1 PM and 3 PM in the reverse order.
And I take an antidepressant, an antihistamine, an antioxidant and an anticoagulent among other tablets before going to bed. And for the past couple of days my skin man has been pumping a couple of Augmentin 625 tablets in the fond hope of curing my recalcitrant boils. With the result that I drowse all the time. I can be caught and booked for Drowse & Drive.
Yesterday my friends Prof & Mrs Rao visited us kindly bringing a whiff of good old KGP.
And the day before that my sambandhis were asking how best to travel to Bharat Sevashram Sangh in the Lower Tank Bund Road to attend the 10th day funeral rites of their distant relative...an old lady of 87.
That evening I was rereading my collection of Chandogya Upanishad (Tattvamasi) shlokas where a young lad was led away blindfolded by robbers and left in a remote place in the Gandharas (Khandahar in Afghanistan). And how he had to seek his way back, inquiring everyone on the way...graamaad graamaad pruchchati...
Last night I went to bed with a Jeeves story in which Bertie suddenly found himself in possession of a policeman's helmet pinched by someone else, and had a grueling time explaining.
And this morning at 10.30, as I was preparing for my snooze, my son asked me if I wished to accompany him to the barber shop. I said, no, I postpone the ugly visit till I am blindfolded by my goldilocks falling over my eyes.
And before hitting the pillow I opened my laptop to see who is reading my latest crazy blogs and found that there was a hit from my Constant Reader in Chile.
And I slept off...
Within minutes I was transported to good old KGP and was on my way to the barber shop in Gole Bazaar. And found that all the barber shops there were closed. It was strange because shops close in Gole Bazaar only on Thursdays. And today was only Tuesday, I argued. And was told that all surviving barbers in KGP were from AP and they follow the AP custom of closing on Tuesdays. No Andhra visits their barber on Tuesdays since it is considered ashubh (unholy).
And I continued my walk on foot and soon found myself in a dark jungle trying hard to get back to Gole Bazaar, in vain.
And I landed at a hamlet of Santhals and tried asking them my way back in Telugu, English, Hindi and Bengali. But they were all replying in Spanish which I couldn't decipher well enough. Upon inquiry why Spanish I was told in gestures that the Red Corridor has now been taken over by renewed Maoists whose framed deities are Che Guevara and Fidel Castro back again. And they are out to take over Bengal from Didi and a retired Chief Justice who molested one of their santhali girls.
I kept on walking and feeling tired and scared and terrified till I saw an Andhra hamlet which was populated by brahmins wearing dhotis and chotis and chanting funereal tenth day mantras. They could follow me and tried to help by asking me to accompany them...they knew the route to KGP. But they insisted that I participate in their holy vedic chants which I couldn't.
I then found myself on a bullock cart along with a dozen men and women, all bound for Gole Bazaar by the Bombay Mail.
And someone pulled out my pockets and discovered a handful of cell phones, and they were all trying to crucify me as a cell phone thief. Till one of the ladies recognized me as a retired professor of IIT KGP, fallen on bad ways.
Their leader asked me to turn on my right side to continue his search. And there was a shooting pain from my surviving boil...
...And I suddenly woke up and opened my eyes to find my good old bookshelf in its place with my time piece on it pointing to noon...
The relief was terrific...I never felt such joy in my life discovering it was all a prolonged dream, like Alice in Blunderland.
And recalled the saying that waking up to one's own true Self is like waking up from this worldly nightmare...or daymule...once for all...
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