Must have been a dream

She placed a teacup on the table.

“The bottom half is wet and the top is dry, this is as different as it’s going to get.”

He stared at her suspiciously. “Could you please repeat that,” he said with consternation.

He had heard of her reputation as a magician who people came to for help. He was there only to unveil her as a trickster. But he hadn’t counted on her ignoring him up till now and that in the few seconds she would give him, she would offer him something to drink with a rhyme. He had already been told to pay attention. At that moment he had promised to himself that he would do everything very carefully.

“Could you please repeat that”, he said urgently, but he knew he would not get any more attention. With the others all staring at him, he picked up the tea cup and drank the strange concoction.

He didn’t feel any different. Although as he looked around he realised for the first time that the layout of the house resembled his grandmother’s. In fact it was exactly like his grandmother’s house.

He went down the narrow corridor that separated the sitting room from the sleeping quarters. He knew the corridor ended in three adjacent rooms with one right at the end and two others on either side. As he walked down from the sitting room and reached the other end, he heard noises coming from the room on the left, where his grandmother’s room would have been had he been in her house.

The door was open and without a thought in the direction of privacy, he entered. He saw his uncle, that is his mother’s sister’s husband, standing on the near side of the room talking and exclaiming loudly. Strangely enough, probably because of the familiar architecture, he didn’t find his uncle’s presence strange. But what seemed out of the picture was to see him so excited.

His uncle was normally very reserved and had a quiet dignity about him. He seemed to know all the facts there were to know, from how a particular road got it’s name to where you would get the best apples in town. He had been a heart surgeon for over twenty five years and held several other specialisations. So to see him standing there, hair askew and waving and shouting animatedly came as a shock. But it was nothing compared to what he saw when he looked towards the far side of the room to see who his uncle was talking to.

His grandfather was a quiet man. He would walk around the house and conform to his set habits. He was over eighty five years and at the age of seventy, had received a severe injury to both his legs. At that age, what with oncoming arthritis and the drastic weakening of bones, this could be extremely crippling. But little by little, he had hobbled till he could walk short distances without pain.

But his grandfather's quiet exterior never seemed to be his real self. He had heard, from his mother, that at a younger age his grandfather had been very mischievous, always trying to pit one person against another and then watching the proceedings with great enjoyment. He was very well read and although you wouldn’t ever see him studiously pouring over papers and magazines, was quite well informed. This, his grandson, had only recently discovered. His grandfather would stay in the background, always. But when he had stayed at his grandparents for a month, his grandfather had engaged him in conversations about his future. And they weren’t the usual conversations which involve the elder person giving thoughtful advice.

He would sit at times on the terrace in the evenings, watching the road, the large park on the other side of the road and the tall buildings that surrounded his grandparent’s house with their innumerable flats and balconies where people would hang out their washing. As it grew darker, he would derive great pleasure from looking at the distant windows through which lights would shine through and would imagine the kind of life and tasks that the inhabitants inside were doing.

Also in the evenings, his grandfather would come up to the terrace to feed the birds, water the potted plants and in general to get fresh air. At such times, his grandfather, while circling the terrace with his short steps would lean towards him and engage him in a rare conversation.

This is a scene from one of those evenings. Before this evening, his grandfather had already ascertained what his grandson planned to do in the future and why he was making those choices. He had done so by quietly inquiring and upon receiving answers he had walked away. He had told his grandfather about his interest in human resources. He had to choose an institute to study the course and had narrowed down that decision to two choices. After diligent research he had found that TISS was more office oriented and the other, XLRI was more blue collared human resources.

“You see him,” his grandfather said, gesturing down at the road from the two storeyed building at the chap selling fruits down by the road.

He peered down in the pointed direction.

“A person coached in TISS would feel sympathy for him and go out of his way to purchase extra fruits.” He paused to smile quietly. “Whereas a student from XLRI would go up to him and give him advice on how to grow his position and make more money.”

That was the kind of advice he would give.


As his gaze shifted from his uncle to the far side of the room, he saw his grandfather standing there in his weak frail posture dressed in his usual baggy nightsuit. But that was where the resemblance to his usual self ended.

He was hopping excitedly, first on one foot, then on another, shouting loudly. He had a look of astonished pleasure on his face. Then he spotted his grandson and spoke while gesturing with wild abandon,

“I can see music. Each chord, each strain pulling the strings of my heart. I can see music.”

His grandson nodded knowingly, his heart bursting and he didn’t know why nor cared to find out why. Music, you could feel it, sense it.

His grandfather was still chattering loudly with his uncle. As he looked at him, his grandfather turned towards him . His excitement was unabated, unfettered. He shouted, free as a bird,

“Sometimes it’s a marsh, sometimes it’s a lake, sometimes it looks like small wooden sticks.”

This caught him off guard for he had never seen it like that himself. But he didn’t want to talk about how he saw music, to compare and edify his grandfather along the direction his own thoughts had only recently taken him. He just felt glad and free and thought slightly enviously about the magician who had created such a place. He gazed once more at the raggedy stick like figure of his grandfather, shouting and beaming, and felt his smile widen.

The fountain

It was a hot day, even in the huge parks that surrounded India Gate. But on occasion, a cool wind would blow. He followed the wind and reached a huge fountain, spraying soft water hither tither. He looked at the fountain, massive, a lake extended around its fountainhead. Really, people were boating in the fountain!

As he glanced at the fountainhead in the centre, envious of the water drenched air around it, he saw two guys, standing barefoot at its base. Now the only visible way of getting there were a few blocks of stone, placed from the circumference to the centre of the lake and these were really too far apart to serve any purpose apart from questionable decoration. He started to look around for another path when he saw that the two guys were now standing amongst these 'uncrossable' stone steps. He looked at the steps again. This time he realised that they weren't all that far apart. It was just that the first stone that would launch you on your journey to the fountainhead was too far away from the edge of the circumference. And a jump to the slippery, flat, small first stone would result in an instant dip. Yet there they were, their pants rolled up to their calves. And they were as pleased as punch. They were now exploring the fountainhead, looking for a way to climb it.

As he sat there and watched, he realised how the fountainhead had been breached. Somewhere in the murky depths of the lake, lay a few more stones, bridging the gap between the edge and the first stone. But the realisation had come from an altogether very common medium, watching...

A young man was pulling two women towards the stone steps. The first, in a blue dress, was laughing and was looking at female companion with an expression that asked, "Are we crazy?" Still, she was walking along in the persuaded direction quite readily. She pushed her foot in cautiously, finding the sunken stones. But then she had watched the guy, who was now persuading her, do it easily enough. And even though she had watched him out of the corner of her eye, and she had been laughing and talking with her friend while she was 'watching' him, she pushed down fearlessly. The stone was deeper, deeper than both she and the guy watching them had assumed and he watched her slide in, clinging to her friend's arm as she fell and landed with an unpleasant bump, her dress wet to the waist.

He smiled. He looked away. Then after a few minutes, he looked back. She had decided to stay this side of the water. She was sitting at the edge of the edge of the lake with her friend, content, soaking her already wet legs, as they chatted.

They were having a competition. They had come quickly and loudly as teenagers usually do and were standing at the edge. He sat and watched as the first one sprang through the air, shoes and everything, landed awkwardly on the first step, pushed himself forward and continued running till he had crossed all the stones and rested safely and proudly at the centre. He waved. The next one jumped, tried to stop himself immediately after he landed and had to hug the narrow stone floor to stay on it. The next one to follow was confident after his friend's successes, jumped well short of the first stone and landed in the lake, trousers and all. No one followed.

He got up and pushed in his earphones firmly. He stood amongst the teenagers, bent down and tightened his shoelace. The guys at the centre all came on to the steps to watch. The crowd around the lake closed in. They cheered and clapped as they waited anxiously for him to fall. He had worked hard to convince himself that he would be falling in deliciously cold water if he missed, as it seemed he might, and the laughter of the crowd and the kid who had only recently sat next to him and who he had mercilessly lectured would roll off his back. He ignored the salivating crowd, the cameras aimed at him in order to capture the moment for later humourous family conversations, the voice which had only recently been solidly against the idea that now told him to at least think about it for a second before fell like an idiot. He took a few light steps, and jumped