Special Edition: Santosh Bakaya

Santosh Bakaya

“Our Mother is concerned” Conversations with Robert Maddox- Harle

Hush!

Oh, the nightmare again!
When, oh when would I get over these nightmares? Why are these skeletons making grotesque faces at me? Is it the result of the World’s Best Horror Stories that I had been reading – re-reading lately?
But, hasn’t the world itself become a horror story- with skeletons doing a grotesque dance- no feelings- no emotions- no sensitivity- just lifeless limbs flailing around in a withered, wretched and wicked world?
 Are these empty swings that I see? No, it is some weird contraption.
A redesigned guillotine? Or just my fertile imagination going into overdrive?
Who is that pale – faced woman with that eerie expression on her face?
What is she trying to convey? That apocalypse is just round the corner? That I need to flee with my possessions? Ha Ha! I am going down the bend, I am sure. What will I do with my possessions if apocalypse is waiting in the shadows?
But the shadows are so hazy. Even the contours are not visible.
Will the pale- faced woman soon disappear into the deepening obscurity?
She is eyeing me into silence. But I am hardly talking. Maybe she is a clairvoyant and has heard the turbulence within my heart? Should I scurry from her sight? She must have been a comely beauty in her youth, I can see that from her ravaged beauty.  But, her eyes appear to be sharp. She seems to be boring holes in me. Big, mammoth holes.
“Hole!” Said Mr. Polly…Oh Beastly silly wheeze of a Hole!”  Why do I keep imagining HG Wells’, Mr. Polly sitting on a stile suffering acutely from indigestion? I am sure I am going bonkers. But that pale- faced woman is really driving holes in me! Come to think of it, she has a slight resemblance to my mother.

 
In fact, the solicitous look of every mother. The concerned look of Mother Earth, worried about a dismal, dysfunctional dystopian world, which her clairvoyant spirit can foresee?  Is she concerned about the humans morphing into heartless hobos? Is she about to break into tears?
Why do I always keep hearing those emergency sirens? And those disembodied voices: Beware! Beware! Mend your ways, before it is too late!
There goes the emergency siren again!
Sirens blaring to remind us to resurrect our lost values- kindness, compassion, humility, selflessness and humanity? Hush! Why do I see a grey mass of clouds heading towards me with loud rumbles? One cloud looks almost sinister.
Is that a spaceship among the darkening clouds? What is it carrying?
 Aliens from some other world? What if they nudge away the humans from the earth? But, where are the humans? I can see no humans- only hobos- Desensitized and demonic. Sons fighting their fathers over property?
Sweet – talking them out of money? Sending their parents into old age homes?

 Soon the surroundings were taken over by skeletons doing a surreal dance with maladroit steps, and as another siren went off they looked panic- stricken and scurried away into different corners.

And as I gasped, the face of the pale- faced woman disappeared. But before she could vanish totally, I was struck by something.
Her wagging finger.  A finger of exhortation. Of beseeching.
My eyes darted here and there and stopped at a particular point where I could discern some movement.
A dangerous- looking scorpion was heading towards me. What did it want of me? Behind it was a snake slithering, with an awe- inspiring serpentine elegance.  
It appeared as if some creatures had broken free of a surrealistic painting and were scuttling around, trying to hunt for some hiding place, from where they could wreak havoc on the already beleaguered world.  A hundred and one thoughts started churning in my mind as to how I could save the world from the impending doom.  
Then above the thoughts floated some words:

“Imagine all the people
 Livin’ life in peace
You

 
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one”*   

I had slowly knuckled out the jagged specks of the nightmare, and now I was only dreaming with John Lennon of A brotherhood of man.
Ah!

* Song by John Lennon:  Imagine, 1971

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Setu, February 2025