On dreams and everything else...

A few days back I had this dream. I saw myself hastily running to a notebook and jotting down some brilliant poetry that had come to my mind. I don’t really remember the words, but remember seeing my dream-me thinking how exquisite the verses were. Then I saw two people (probably friends, though their facial characteristics weren’t central to the dream) who came to me and asked me why I was in such a hurry to take these lines down. And then I mentioned that these were some words that had come to me in a dream, and I just feel like taking them down.

When I remembered this dream-on-a-dream (Parag dream?) days later, I first thought how ridiculous this was. And then tried hard to drill deeper in my head, and extract those words. They must be hidden somewhere deep down in my subconscious, I reckoned, ala the ‘Answer to the Ultimate question of life’ which supposedly lay programmed in every being who was created as part of the earth experiment.  The words of God (or any overlord rat-person) haven’t come to me yet. But I guess I am listening, hard.

Reading H2G2 (and I still haven’t read the last two of the five book trilogy) lent me a whole new perspective towards rats. And I see a whole lot of them scurrying across the road around Worli, where I live. Ever seen those creatures scurrying across the road? There is so much purpose in every little step. It all fits. They made themselves so insignificant, so that nobody would ever get a whiff of their master plan. Then, some days I find one flat on its back, squished mercilessly by a careless driver. I see the insects feeding ravenously on it, and I shout out, “O Rat-god. Forgive them, for they know not what they have done.” Ganesha, the Hindu deity, has a rat as its vehicle, too. Couldn’t be mere coincidence?

With this I think I should retire for the day. I was in a mood to write something completely random and ridiculous. Success. Also, I deviously hope I have left the reader with the image of a horrible rat, belly-up (literally) with monstrous insects feeding on its flesh. Ok, I am sure now I have.