Power play

This post is an exercise I tried out just now. I wrote whatever sentence came to my mind. No editing, absolutely. I did not plan on any plot, no ending in mind. This is just to see what I can come up with by letting my mind go free. I enjoyed it.

She opens her eyes. The chandelier is going to fall down. The bear yawned. On TV  Oh no, it is the actor who resembles a bear. A dog barks in the street. The aroma of fresh filter coffee decoction tugs her nostrils. She closes her eyes again.

The chandelier goes back up. It is just swinging on the elastic rope that connects it to the ceiling. A lone spider is spinning a web on it. How on earth does the eight legged fellow get any sleep, she wonders. She goes back to sleep.

The AC sputters and goes off. Power cut time. Ugghhhh, she groans, rolls over and gets up from bed. Ambles down the hall to brush her teeth. She is all fussy about it like this: "I have to wake up, walk all this way, open the tap, squeeze tooth paste, put it on the brush, and brush. Twice. Why god, why me?!" First world problems in the third world. That is how confusing the situation is in the country.

Newspaper. No. This is not 1990. Facebook. Twitter. Gmail. Whatsapp. Checked. Coffee consumed. Off to bed again. No, 2 more hours before power comes. Cha.

Goes to the veranda. Vegetable vendor lady passes by, shouting "Keeraiiiii". A man cycles by, shouting "Pazhaya paper!". A kid bumps into an uncle's scooter. Uncle is raising his voice and calling upon all gods in heaven and all devils in hell to lend some sense to the kid. The smirks and runs off after bestowing a kick to the rear of uncle's scooter. Uncle drives away, his shouts over the engine's roar still lingering in the entire street's ears.

Eyes on the clock. Not even an hour down. The balcony offers time pass activities similar to those offered by the veranda. One hour passes. One more hour to go. She checks the mobile. Charge available. It is 10 AM. She mentally eliminates areas without power cut and shortlists ones likely to suffer a power cut now. Besant Nagar. Ok. Now the list is sorted and prioritized  based on the ability of each of her friends in those areas to sleep in spite of the sweat during a power cut and the degree of boredom or irritation they are capable of producing. This exercise takes only 2 minutes for her practiced mind.

She places a call. 

"Hey power cut here. 40 minutes more for it to be up again."

"I know. It is total shutdown today. It will be back up only at 5 PM."

She knows this friend is always a harbinger of bad news. Now if power does come back in 40 minutes, it will be "hence proved" that the friend is a liar. If it doesn't she is bad luck. She goes back to the veranda and sulks.

Happily ever after. Not.

All this harping about family and friends. Yes, they are all important. But you know what, I realized one thing. Only you will remain with yourself forever. No one else does. Not even your dog or your favorite dress. If something remains with you longer than normal, then it is not the same. The dog is old, the dress is tattered.

I never got this really. I am not sure I still get it deep down. I have realized it but I guess it will take a lifetime to understand and get used to it. I partly blame the stories we listened growing up for making this so hard to live with. The fairy tales always end with people living happily ever after and all glowing and gooey. In real life - the only gooey thing is the gondhu(gum) in TVS nagar post office. So henceforth, fairy tales are going to be changed, with a touch of normalcy.

So Cinderella got her Prince Charming and they got married. They lived happily in the castle, but not ever after. No. They fought over his hunting with friends and her preoccupation with their kids. They threw plate at each other in their imagination. And then they made up. And one day one of them died. The other probably died a few days or years afterward, wondering what went wrong with the "ever after" part.

Snow white and the prince married and lived happily, for a while. She took a bite from so may other free apples and fell asleep, vomited and coughed up bunny rabbits, all of which the prince had to remedy. And then the prince went about looking for an apple that would make her hate apples. And then one day, she ran away to a land far far away with apple orchards.

The frog turned to a prince and married the princess. After many years of bliss, they got into an argument and walked around the palace arguing. They reached a well and the prince tried to kiss the princess to stop arguing. But she had turned into a frog now. No one knows what happened after that.

These are just a few of the fairy tales we have heard as kids but you get the drift, don't you? If you have kids, make sure you tell them a normal story. Don't raise their expectations in life. It is one thing to be positive and another to be misleading. You know it is just a fairy tale. The child, or its sub conscious mind does not.