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.