So a random casket opened up in
the cellar of my reminiscences, and out tumbled a memory from years ago:
I was about eight years old. My
very first dog, Candy, had succumbed recently to old age. And to my eight-year
old mind, she had already become a direct-line messenger to God. So whenever I
wanted something, I would ask Candy to ‘put in a word’ to God, simply to
expedite the process of having it.
Back then, my school was located
close to my dad’s office. So in the evenings, the car would pick me and Rohit
(my neighbor who also went to the same school) up, and then we would wait for Dad
outside his office.
On one such day, Dad took longer
than usual. Rohit and I, restless and grumpy after a long day at school, couldn’t
sit still any longer. So we jumped out of the car, and put our eight-year-old
brains to work, on how we could get home sooner.
Suddenly, I brightened up. “I
know, I’ll just ask Candy to send Papa out faster!”
Rohit looked at me like I had
lost my marbles. “Err…What? Are you out of your mind?”
“Oh yes! She is my hot-line to
God! You wait and see, she’ll send Papa out soon!”
I think Rohit restrained himself
from pooh-poohing my plan further because he thought angering me would not be a
good idea at all, considering he still wanted the lift back home. So when I
started my conversation with Candy, he just watched quietly.
Now, the thing is, I didn’t just ‘talk’
to Candy that day…I thought it would be better if I could improvise and do
something more ‘impactful’, for quicker results. So, I began a little tribal-esque
practice of sorts. I marched round and round, all the while saying, “Candy send
Papa fast!! Candy send Papa fast!!”
And then, I do not know what came
over Rohit, but after a while, he probably thought he might want to give this
weird prayer/request thing a shot too. So he joined me in the circle, and
started marching briskly as well. Only, he didn’t mention Candy at all. (Umm, did
I tell you he had been scared of her all throughout, while she had been around?)He
made up his own chant, which was, “Uncle, Uncle, come fast!! Uncle, Uncle, come
fast!!”
So there we were, two eight-year
olds, marching round and round, and chanting away to glory, outside a big iron
gate that demarcated the corporate world from the outside world. To several amused onlookers, we must have
seemed like quite a crazy pair of kids. But we did not care. We were focusing
on our prayer: that of getting Papa out of the office at the earliest, so we
could reach home quickly. And when he did come out ‘sooner’, we conveniently credited
the outcome to our chants.
Looking back, I wonder if any of
the onlookers that day might have been tempted to forget their grown-up lives
for a little while, and join us kids in our little charade. Or if any of them
who understood what we were doing, might have wanted to shed all inhibitions
and ‘demand’ something from Nature in the same way.
Sometimes, even if only for its limitless
imagination, interesting observations, and the lack of inhibitions, I think
Childhood should be considered a SuperPower J
So long,
Mishree.
