My Best Man....

I am being followed… its pitch dark, there’s a deafening silence around.. nobody I can call, nowhere I can go.. I quicken my pace.. my heart ricocheting off my ribs. I look around and I’m still not alone.. I break into a run, I am running for my life.. I turn around and its still there, right behind me. Suddenly I’m grabbed from behind and pushed to the ground. I fall.. fall through an abyss of dark, dismal shadows. My screams are caught in my throat, I’m choking over my breath. This is it.. I think I’m gonna die… I crash down to the bottom of the abyss onto a wet pillow and a disarray of bed covers and sheets. Terrified, shaken and wide awake, I sit up on the bed trying to get a grip on myself and the lonely darkness I feel within me. One of my worst, recurring nightmares…Its 3 AM and a couple of glasses of water and an hour of sitcoms later I am still shaking. The rest of the night passes by as I toss and turn in bed, coaxing, threatening and pleading my brains to shut off & let me go to sleep. Before I know it, its morning.. time to face another day, and for once I find no strength, no enthusiasm in me. I just wanna curl up and hide from everyone and everything around. Everything seems to be going downhill, and there seems to be absolutely nothing I can do about it..

My phone rings and I distractedly pick it up. “Princess, are you okay? I couldn’t sleep last night. I dreamt that you were in some kind of trouble. I know you are going to get irritated with your old man, but just humor me this time, ok? Is everything all right?”

My old man, my Papa.. All at once I find myself a five year old in cutoffs and a blue tank top, standing on the bed, screaming at the top of her voice “Papa, I’m scared.. there’s a monster under my bed..” All at once I see him rushing into the room, lifting me off the bed, into his arms. I go back in time to the feeling of being the world to someone .. more important than the intricacies of daily life – career, money, primitive and irrelevant traditions, more important than ego tussles, and everything else. I remember how he sat up the whole night by my side, talking to me, re assuring me, making sure I slept well, abandoning his much awaited, yearly Toddy and sea food get together in Kerala with my uncles. All at once, I am transported back in time.. I am sitting on his shoulders, the next morning, and we are in the paddy fields surrounding my grandmom’s house, happily chasing dragonflies.. the sun on our excited, laughing faces, the cool breeze fanning through our hair... “I would never let any monster come anywhere near you. You tell the monster that the next time he hides under your bed. Ok?” “Yes Papa!!.”

“Yes Papa!!.” I hear myself say and smile. All at once, the day doesn’t seem very difficult anymore. I know I mean the world to one person and I cannot let him down!!