Reflection

Last night, no today early morning, I dreamt. Now that is nothing to be surprised about. Dreams are a recurring feature in my daily sleep routine. There are many days when I do not recollect what I dreamt about. Probably those days are when I wake up after a sleep and do not go back to sleep. Today morning, I decided to sleep on even after the alarm went off. The sleep later was not a deep sleep; maybe that is the reason why my dreams were vivid even after I got up from the bed.

The dream was a sequence, but what I remember is the portion just before I woke up. The scene goes like this....

I was at an office, seemed to be like a branch of a public sector bank. There was a small crowd outside milling around with a few security guards too (uniform worn by them makes me think that they were security guards). I handed over my jacket to one of the persons presuming that he would hang it at the peg in the doorway. However, I was surprised to see him wear my jacket. I got upset. The guard seemed to be an oldish looking man. I started shouting at him  as to why he wore my jacket and doesn't he know manners, etc.

The guy though did seem apologetic though he didn't apologise. That upset me more and I demanded an apology from him. This attracted the crowd towards the scene of the verbal assault that I was heaping upon the poor soul. By now some employee from the bank too came along and wanted to know what the commotion was all about. I explained in an irritated tone that the guard wore my jacket when he was not supposed to do so. The employee apologised on behalf of the guard and intending to reprimand the guards started looking around for him, but by then the guard had slunk away.

Now the incident ended there - that is, I woke up from my dream induced sleep. I thought about my behaviour. Am I like that in actual practice? Do I get upset at poor old souls when they make an innocent and genuine mistake? Why should I get upset if someone wears my jacket? Is my jacket more important to me than the fleeting happiness that it would have given the guard? Such thoughts assailed me for the better part of the morning.

I should watch myself.

Childish prattle and household dictionary

Year: Early 1990's
Place: Our home in Thiruvanmiyur, Chennai

A smartphone has a personal dictionary. One can add certain words with their unique spelling to the personal dictionary. Well, what is a personal dictionary? It is a word that has no listing in any dictionary anywhere and hence does not pop out to help us with its spelling, if at all we were confused.

Many apps may have one now; my knowledge of apps and other new technology is limited as my sons would attest now.

I have some personal anecdotes here to relate - the personal dictionary that comes about in any family whenever there are little kids around. These kids, in their childish prattle, invent words that don't exist anywhere and before long these words enter into the family vocabulary.

Whenever there was power cut, my elder son, then about 2 years old, would jump and run about in the house and move towards the main fuse box and on seeing a lamp not glowing (indicating that there was a power outage), he would jump up and down and with wide eyes exclaim, "Tiltan, tiltan". Probably his tiny brain joined the two words that we used to utter "current cut" and made it into one word. We don't know; and the beauty is neither does he remember how that word came to be used! Now of course, whenever there is a power outage, we just say "Tiltan". A word had been added to our household dictionary. Similarly, there are many words which have been added to our personal household dictionary which you won't find anywhere else!

Sample these:-

Baapu = milk
Babbai = bread
Bikki = biscuit
Aggam = water (how did this come about?)
Aggi-baggi = bathing (now this is another mystery)
Mammum = food (again a mystery as to its source)

These are the ones that I can recall immediately and that has entered our family vocabulary since. I suspect though that my wife may be responsible for adding a few! Of course, nowadays the use of these words is only when we have to play-act or tease someone.

I am sure, though, that my children would introduce it into their family when they have one of their own. Maybe some new ones will spring up that their kids introduce! Who knows....I am waiting to hear the childish prattle though.

Kids, are you listening??