Just a dream..
There was a huge hall littered with lilliputian wooden chairs
arranged in pairs where presumably we were supposed to have a ‘joint
class’. I enter this hall with a huge school-bag dangling on one side. I
am really small and my face is beaming. I look for the niche where my
class is seated and try to invest myself somewhere only to be told that
the place is ‘taken’ and directed elsewhere. To my utter amazement all
chairs are either occupied or reserved for ‘friends’ and I have nowhere
to lay my burden. Exasperated I tumble to the other end where other
‘classes’ are installed but I get no room there also. I am zigzagging
between the spaces of eternal rows of little benches from one to the
other end and there is no one willing to give me a seat hence I plummet
on the floor with exhaustion.
I decide mentally that I’ll sit on floor since no one wants me. I drop my head in silence to rest and they all stare as if am a pariah! Finally the head-boy and the head-girl approach me. They are about double my size (seniors)! The guy leans over and bellows why am I perched there ergo I try to explain that there is no vacant spot. He is fiendish, shaking my shoulders, almost molesting me, so I break into tears. Now the head-girl steps in and orders him to back off. She literally lifts me off the floor and I hug her sobbing. She asks me gently if I would like some candy. I tell her I have no money but she smiles and we walk towards the candy-shop. All through the way I tell her how I helped so and so with their homework, someone I’d lend my pencil, another one I’d given a ride in my car and so and so forth but none of them bother to give me a seat while she keeps swaying her head.
I return to the hall loaded with candies and my face smeared with chocolate and tears. The girl tells me to wait in a nook and walks off to talk to the teachers. She returns with one who looks so much like Sister Lily. (Sister Lily was my favorite teacher in primary school, perhaps the only one then, who loved me dearly.) She wasn’t dressed like a nun rather she was draped in a lovely colorful saree and had flowers in her hair. She informs me that they will give me a special seat with velvet cover and cushions. A chair good enough to fit 4 or 5 but I shall sit there alone and I can choose where I want it to be positioned. I point my little finger in the direction of a humble corner; my royal settee, a shimmering red, with peacocks painted over, is brought in, and ensconced.
Then again others stare however the glances are envious, as I stroll like a queen toward my royal recliner still crying, laden with candies. Someone places my schoolbag beside the couch and before I could plop down.. I woke up..
I awoke in tears and could sleep no more..
The dusk seemed to clear around me and the sounds of night began to fade in their poignant evocation of memory and hope. The past and the present appeared to be one in that strange dream; yet it is not so much a dream as life itself, a frigid reality.
pS - I dreamed this dream today... between 3-5 am ! :)
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I decide mentally that I’ll sit on floor since no one wants me. I drop my head in silence to rest and they all stare as if am a pariah! Finally the head-boy and the head-girl approach me. They are about double my size (seniors)! The guy leans over and bellows why am I perched there ergo I try to explain that there is no vacant spot. He is fiendish, shaking my shoulders, almost molesting me, so I break into tears. Now the head-girl steps in and orders him to back off. She literally lifts me off the floor and I hug her sobbing. She asks me gently if I would like some candy. I tell her I have no money but she smiles and we walk towards the candy-shop. All through the way I tell her how I helped so and so with their homework, someone I’d lend my pencil, another one I’d given a ride in my car and so and so forth but none of them bother to give me a seat while she keeps swaying her head.
I return to the hall loaded with candies and my face smeared with chocolate and tears. The girl tells me to wait in a nook and walks off to talk to the teachers. She returns with one who looks so much like Sister Lily. (Sister Lily was my favorite teacher in primary school, perhaps the only one then, who loved me dearly.) She wasn’t dressed like a nun rather she was draped in a lovely colorful saree and had flowers in her hair. She informs me that they will give me a special seat with velvet cover and cushions. A chair good enough to fit 4 or 5 but I shall sit there alone and I can choose where I want it to be positioned. I point my little finger in the direction of a humble corner; my royal settee, a shimmering red, with peacocks painted over, is brought in, and ensconced.
Then again others stare however the glances are envious, as I stroll like a queen toward my royal recliner still crying, laden with candies. Someone places my schoolbag beside the couch and before I could plop down.. I woke up..
I awoke in tears and could sleep no more..
The dusk seemed to clear around me and the sounds of night began to fade in their poignant evocation of memory and hope. The past and the present appeared to be one in that strange dream; yet it is not so much a dream as life itself, a frigid reality.
pS - I dreamed this dream today... between 3-5 am ! :)
