Last night I dreamt of.....

"I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams."
- W B Yeats

Not Manderley for sure, I will leave that to Mrs. De Winter :)

I had gone to the movies on Sunday with a friend of mine. Never a big fan of DiCaprio even while the Titanic was afloat, I still wanted to catch "Inception" at the cinemas. Despite a terrible cold and a nagging headache, I was quite keyed up the whole day awaiting the "me" time.

However, having long since departed from my days of watching Bollywood movies, nothing had prepared me for the looooong 2 1/2 hours of this over-hyped and much awaited movie. I was quite disappointed with the movie and at times, my patience was running quite low that I was quite provoked to give the much needed kick the cast needed to get out of their maze of dreams. Of course, this is the kind of movie that would either be critically acclaimed as a masterpiece or considered to be a downright disappointment. Sadly, despite the stellar cast (I do luv the Juno kid) and visibly stunning special effects, the movie did not do much for me........it did get awfully boring towards the end and I wished I had a remote so I could get to the part where the credits start rolling :) In the end when we stepped out of the cinema-hall in a stupor with our grey-cells almost fried, we too needed a totem to remind us if we were in reality or still in a dream.

However I digress, my post is not about the movie itself, but just the concept of dreams. I am one of those people who does not have a restful sleep. Given my restless nature or a disposition easily reactive to stimuli, I have very vivid and colourful dreams which would more likely fit the label of nightmares than actual dreams. Despite having seen 3 1/2 decades, I totally freak out on sleeping on my own. My family and close circle of friends are well aware of my nocturnal episodes. I had a trying time especially when I was away on my own......I used to try everything suggested to ward off bad dreams.......rosary, pair of scissors, a copy of the shroud of Turin, even sleeping with the light on. Sadly nothing helped. I used to wake up in shivers or keening and sometimes suffering from bad episodes of sleep paralysis......occasionally my dreams have served me as premonitions of bad tidings as well. In the end I reverted my sleep cycle turning nights into days and catching up with my much needed sleep during the day.

So technically, I should be afraid of dreams by now !!! No, this is where "Inception" despite not being warmly received by me, struck a chord in me. What are we without our dreams? Why does reality pale in significance beside our dreams? Are dreams merely the incessant and meaningless chatter of our subconscious and if so, why do we still long for the faraway world of dreams?

Imagine stuck in a harsh reality with no exit signs highlighting your way out !!! What if the monotony of life painted in shades of black or sombre grey leaches the breath out of you and all you have within you is your capacity to dream. Would not the world of dreams then become the sanctuary offering total refuge, the only oasis of solace and comfort in the arid desert of existence? Perhaps the parched soul takes its sip of life-giving water to continue on its meaningless journey!!! Perhaps this is the parallel world where flimsy and broken castles of reality morphs into sturdy structures, where forgotten faces from the past are thrown into sharp relief, where broken relationships are mended anew without traces of fracture, where perfidy is forgiven with grace and compassion, where ablutions are conceded without judgement, where broken souls become whole, where utopia is the natural state..........maybe reality in this dimension is nothing but a bad dream :) For those living other people's dreams, this world becomes the only place to live their own dreams. Once the dream is over and you wake up blinded by the rays of harsh reality, the only thing that keeps you going, is your hope that someday your dreams might become your reality.

However I rush in to put a disclaimer ( read the small print folks), this post does not sanction any rights to you to throw away your reality in a haze of dreams :) Guess it is time I cut short my rambling discourse and hasten to the world of dreams :)

Two to tango....

"Ah, but let her cover the mark as she will, the pang of it will be always in her heart."

~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

As a kid growing up in India, I used to come across several stray dogs in the neighbourhood. Most of these dogs, emaciated and bodies covered with sores used to incite feelings of abhorrence and disgust in people who came across them. Paranoia of rabid dogs usually induced people, especially kids in the neighbourhood to chase these unfortunate animals out of the area mainly by throwing stones at them. Sometimes when the stones found their target, you would hear the pitiful cries of the animal while it scurried away, badly limping. The squeals which you would expect to die would later be picked up octaves higher when some other kid would direct his meanness on the ill-fated dog in the neighbouring streets.

Lately reading about the Iranian woman Ashtiani in the news, condemned to a stoning sentence for adultery, I am vividly recollecting these stoning episodes of dogs from my childhood days. It is sad enough to witness such deeds against stray animals, but likening a human to a mere animal and subjecting him/her to such draconian penal codes, it leaves you wondering if humanity is really prevalent in these days. What use is morality when you kill the very seeds of compassion and empathy in a society?

I am struggling to understand the macabre connection of stones and adultery in most cultures. Yes everybody is fully aware of the punishment for adultery in both the Old and New Testament of the Bible, but did not the Lord Himself condemn this barbarous act? In the Indian myths, we have the story of an adulterous woman turned into a stone by the curse of her husband? Atleast, the Indian race given their gentle disposition and less inclination towards violence, gave the woman a deliverance from her ordeal than an actual punishment - in any case here the woman is not subjected to judgement or ostracism or even traumatic experiences unlike her modern day counterparts.

As much as I would like to write about the grave injustice of the harrowing ordeal this woman and few other females languishing in Iranian prisons are undergoing, I can truly see the futility of my words. The international intervention and scrutiny this case has received has still not seen the liberation of this woman. Nor am I going to rally my sagging spirits and cast my stones against the Sharia Law especially in the holy month of Ramadan. Besides not fully equipped with the knowledge of the Islamic faith and principles, I would merely be seen as someone baying at the full moon. Neither am I going to empathize with these women who are very unfortunate in living in the wrong society and in the wrong culture nor condemn their folly when they ought to have been fully aware of the consequences of their actions living in a non-secular country.

But my curiosity is about the men involved in these acts - where are they in the picture? Why is the media silent about these men? Are they not worth mentioning because they have been acquitted of their guilt or they never were found to be guilty in the first place? Where are the men to catch the "fallen" women as the society labels them? Why does it take two to tango but one to burn at the stakes - in this case the women who are stoned? The reply, my dear genteel folks, even though stoning is not a gendered punishment, usually the men are allowed to get away with adultery given that polygamy is never frowned upon in the Islamic states.

What words of comfort can one offer these women, who perhaps driven by inexplicable needs have chosen to break the rules of their marriage but are now left to languish and wallow on their own in the aftermath of their passion - bereft even of the solace of the ones they sought earlier? How pitiable is their fate if they are discarded and thrown away even by the very men they chose to violate the sanctity of their marriage for? These women, left alone to face public scrutiny and ostracism and subjected to harsh judgement in the eyes of their loved ones -- have they not already died a little - what more are the courts going to achieve by flogging or stoning a lifeless corpse?

Alas, the saga of the Scarlet Letter repeats again........

Two minutes please.....

"The BEST part of waking up? Hitting the snooze button and going back to sleep."

- Anon

- It is 6.45, are you not getting up?

- Mmmm, 2 more minutes.....

- It is 7.00 !!! It is your turn to go early to work, remember !!!

- Yeah, yeah I do........just 2 more minutes please....

- It is getting late, you don't want to be late....

- I know, I know........I am getting up....soon...

This is how my mornings begin, with almost an identical conversation every single day........well and truly I can never boast of being a morning person.

I gather myself groggily from bed and with all the longing a mother has for her newborn, I turn back and give a yearning look at my still warm bed. I envy the slumbering family, their few extra minutes of sleep while I trudge slowly towards my shower. The cold manages to seep through, despite my heavy layers and I shudder at the prospect of getting ready for work. I am tempted to get back into the bed and snuggle under the covers but work beckons.

Even as a child, waking up early used to be the bane of my existence. My dad was fond of repeating the well-worn phrase "The early bird catches the worm". I ended up pitying the worm for waking up early and getting caught but yeah try telling my dad that........as a result, I used to bid a tearful farewell to my beauty sleep every morning and fervently attempted to master the art of sleeping with my eyes open. The moment he stepped away from the scene, I used to sneak back into my bed and slip into an uneasy but nevertheless welcome slumber......my ears sensitively attuned to the sound of the bathroom latch opening, an indication that my post at the study table has to be resumed. Passing years have not made much of a difference......I now sleep with my ears tuned to the alarm tone on my mobile. What can I say, I am totally powerless under the mighty spell of sleep incarnate, Somnus :)

I have come across people who not only have an in-built alarm system but are totally immune to the captivating charms of the snooze button. The concept of a sleep-in on a cold wintry morning under a warm blanket is totally alien to them. Come rain or shine, they are up at the said hour every single day. To these friends, I can only say that they are missing out on something so delectable an experience :) Despite the heavy pounding the snooze button receives every morning at my hands, we are best buddies and it is only fair I elucidate the nature of the tenacious hold the button has on me.

On a deeper and somber note, sometimes I wonder if I am hitting the snooze button on my life too. Am I afraid to step out of my comfort zone..... am I wary of tilting the fragile status quo in my life and embracing change? At the crossroads of life, am I taking refuge in the familiarity of the past, putting away major decisions that I ought to take rather than face the dark unknowns of the future? I am reluctant to find the answers for my question or facing a truth that has been staring in my face too long.......perhaps I ought to put a snooze on this question as well :)

The hot shower wipes away the remants of sleep from my eyelids and puts a spring back into my step. I now proceed to wake up the kids and well no surprise, I hear my daughter giving me "the two minutes" routine as well. Ha ha, there is no escape from my slumber genes, is there? I give her a warm hug, happy to have spawned another "snooze" addict into this world and proceed to wake her up gently to face a new day outside the barricades of sleep.