ಒಂಟಿತನ ಮತ್ತು ದೇವರು

ಜೀವನ ಎಷ್ಟು ವಿಚಿತ್ರ ಅಲ್ಲವೇ? ಹೇಳೋದಕ್ಕೆ ನಾವು ಸಮಾಜ ಜೀವಿಗಳು… ನಮಗೆ ಸಂಸಾರ – ಅಪ್ಪ, ಅಮ್ಮ, ಅಕ್ಕ, ತಂಗಿ, ಅಣ್ಣ, ತಮ್ಮ, ಗಂಡ, ಹೆಂಡತಿ, ಮಗ, ಮಗಳು, ಅಜ್ಜಿ, ತಾತ … ಹೀಗೆ ನೂರಾರು ಸಂಬಂಧಿಕರು; ಜೊತೆಗೆ ಶಾಲೆಯ, ಕಾಲೇಜಿನ ಸಹಪಾಠಿಗಳು, ಕೆಲಸದ ಸಹುದ್ಯೋಗಿಗಳು, ಅದಲ್ಲದೆ ಅಕ್ಕ-ಪಕ್ಕದ ಮನೆಯವರು, ದಾರಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಹೋಗಿ ಬರುವಾಗ ಸಿಗುವ ಹಾಯ್-ಬೈ ಸ್ನೇಹಿತರು… ಅಬ್ಬ! ಅದೆಷ್ಟು ಜನ!

ಆದರೆ ದಿನದ ಕೆಲವು ಕ್ಷಣಗಳು ಇರುತ್ತವೆ – ನಮಗೆ ಯಾರು ಇಲ್ಲವೆನ್ನಿಸುತ್ತಾರೆ, ಯಾವುದೂ ಬೇಡವಾಗಿರುತ್ತದೆ – ನಾವು ಎಷ್ಟು ಒಬ್ಬಂಟಿಗರು ಎನ್ನುವ ಕಹಿ ಭಾವನೆ ನಮ್ಮ ಮನದ ತಿಳಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಬೇಸರದ ಅಲೆಗಳನ್ನು ಎಬ್ಬಿಸುತ್ತದೆ. ಅದಕ್ಕೇ ಇರಬೇಕು ಮನುಷ್ಯ ಇಷ್ಟು ವೈಜ್ಞಾನಿಕವಾಗಿ ಹಾಗು ತಂತ್ರಜ್ಞಾನದಲ್ಲಿ ಮುಂದುವರಿದರೂ ಎಲ್ಲೋ ಒಂದು ಕಡೆ – ಆ ‘ದೇವನಿರುವನು’ ಎಂಬುದು ಒಂದು ನಿಶ್ಚಲ ಸತ್ಯ, ಎಂದು ಇನ್ನೂ ನಂಬಿದ್ದಾನೆ. ಜಗತ್ತಿನ ಎಲ್ಲಾ ಸಂಬಂಧಗಳ ಬಂಧನಗಳಿಂದ ಮುಕ್ತರಾಗಲು ನಾವು ದೇವರ ಮೊರೆ ಹೊಕ್ಕುತ್ತೇವೆ!

A bad dream

I had a bad dream yesterday… it’s been sometime since I’ve had one of my weird dreams where all sorts of characters from various walks and periods of my life get mixed up… but this was almost like a nightmare – you see I was about to be killed! 😦

It looked like a reality show setting – there were a group of us in a house – most of them were known to me but I could identify just one – a colleague from office whom I’ve hardly spoken to! The show was about how one by one, each of us would get killed and the killer would be one amongst us. Apart from me there was another pregnant lady in the team. We were all sitting around a sofa and discussing who it would be next and there was a scary knife lying around. I kept repeating why does it have to be a stabbing – can’t it be something else?!! Funnily none of us seemed inclined to kill or to die and we all trusted each other. We were discussing how was it that the organizers or whoever was controlling the show would know if we didn’t kill. Then that colleague I mentioned said he would volunteer and cut himself and throw in a shriek so that it looked like someone was killed and then we would all run away from the house.

Accordingly he cut a deep gnash in his hand and shrieked and a couple of others shrieked too… all of us looked out of the French windows to check if anyone was spying on us. Not finding anyone everybody rushed out… I suddenly realized that I had the knife in my hands and it would carry my fingerprints. I decided to wash it and throw it away before making my escape. As I went in I noticed that one of my ex-teammates, who did not particularly like me, was getting into the house behind me – I didn’t have time to wonder. As I went near the kitchen I suddenly spotted a female – a stranger who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere and was working in the kitchen like it was the most natural thing to do! As I went closer, she hissed – give the knife to her – meaning the ex-teammate who was behind me. I said – ‘what??!’, she hissed more fiercely – ‘I said, give the knife to her!’

With a shock I realized that I was the target, I was about to be killed! I remember shrieking ‘NO!!!!!!’ and rushing out through the French windows into the lawn outside. That’s when I woke up with a cold sweat! I realized that the fan was not running and the power was off. It was uncomfortably hot and my heart was thudding against my chest. My hands instinctively went to my baby and I was afraid that someone would harm me and my baby 😦 It was sometime before I could console myself that it was only a dream and the baby was safe. Phew!

I wonder why I had this dream – I haven’t been watching any scary shows on TV – all I watch is the Indian Idol and a harmless fun family serial – which isn’t even the typical saas-bahu types! I’m reading a book which isn’t particularly scary or grotesque. I guess, strange are the ways in which our sub-conscious mind works… I just hope I don’t have any more of these scary dreams keeping me awake at nights! 😦

Re-discovering joys of childhood…

Now that I am at home and my granny is here too, one thing I wanted to do was re-discover some childhood joys in the form of the games that we used to play as children – one of this was Chauka-baara – the very own desi version of Ludo you could say. It is a game that can be played by a minimum of 2 players and a maximum of 4 players and can be played in 2 versions – one shorter version with just the inner 5 X 5 matrix of squares and the longer version with the bigger 7 X 7 matrix of squares. The game is accordingly played with 4 kavade (small conch shells – the desi form of the dice) or 6 kavade in the respective versions. The score is counted by the number of shells which lie with their open face up when all of them are tossed together. All shells with their open sides up is a chauka – amounting to 4 in the shorter version and 6 in the longer version, while all shells with their closed side up is a baara – amounting to 8 in the shorter version and 12 in the longer version. That’s how the game gets its name!

The game is most exciting when played in the longer version with all 4 participants – that’s when there’s lot of fun and competition involved. Everybody takes turns tossing the shells and get started by moving their respective coins from their home squares. The individual path to be followed is as shown in the picture – each participant takes a complete peripheral path before they can get into the inner square. But there is one catch – each has to kill any one of the other’s coins to be able to get inside – this happens when someone’s else’s coin is in a square and you get the required count during your turn to take your coin to the same square – you then kill that person’s coin and that is replaced to his home square. Then again the squares with the crosses are the resting squares where nobody can kill each other’s coins – all the participants’ coins can rest in these crossed squares. Confusing? Not really! 🙂

Once you have made the maiden kill then it is easy – you just concentrate on getting all your coins into the inner square, following the path mentioned and reaching the Goal square – marked in green. What makes the game interesting is when everybody has had their maiden kills and can get inside – the game really heats up then – there will be a spree of killings and getting the ready-to-reach-goal coins to go back to their home squares! 😀 There can be another interesting twist to the game – once you reach the innermost 3X3 square (I’m not quite sure if it is the inner 5X5 square or the innermost 3X3 square – anyone with the correct info – pliss to correct me!) and you happen to get 2 of your coins into the same square and you score a 2 on your next turn, you can bind them together (gaTTi) – from there on they will move together but only on scores of 2 or multiples of 2. And of course now your rival’s coin can actually stay in the same square as your bonded coins, but the moment you score a 2 – dishkyoom!, you can make the kill! 😀

The participant who manages to take all his coins from his home square to the Goal square first amidst all this drama, is of course the winner! The others can continue to play till just one last fellow is left who is the loser. Well, I suppose I have covered all aspects of this particular game here – any of you readers remember anything else differently – do share it with me! 🙂