Hippo-cricy!!

“Brayyyy…Brayyyy”
I was sure I heard these sounds as I lay in deep slumbering sleep, tired after a tiring day of doing nothing. The last thing that I had wished before dropping down was a sweet dream to liven my insipid sleep. As I tried to settle back into my sleep, labeling the sound as manifestation of my near empty belly, I heard it again and this time it was a lot louder.
“BRRRRAYYYYYYYYYY”
Waking with a start, I rubbed my eyes to see what was going on. There seemed to be a giant blob of fat in front of me which on further clarity resembled a big hippo, in fact, it indeed was a big hippo!!!

“Wassup dude, long time no see?!!” it suddenly spoke up to me.
As much as I was surprised with the big hippo standing in front of me, it’s talking actually didn’t startle me. In fact, it seemed very expected and soon I realized why. It wasn’t real… merely my mind spinning haywire in terms of its dream choice, making me wonder what I had for dinner!! Was it something similar to what happens in the movie Inception?! How I wished I had watched the movie to realize what to expect from now on! In spite of this being a dream, I didn’t want to sound discourteous to the hippo and replied.
“I am good dear Hippo, was that you making the sound?”
“Indeed, didn’t you recognize it?” the hippo now came closer and settled down beside me as if ready for a long conversation chewing something it held in its hand!
I knew asses brayed but I didn’t know hippos did the same and I didn’t want to offend the hippo comparing it to an ass!!
“Don’t worry I won’t be offended” it suddenly said with a twinkle in its eye.
“How did you know what I was thinking?” I said with a fresh feel of fear suddenly inside me.
“I am a product of your brain so I know what you think” it smiled gently.
Just as his words began to relax me he added, “and before you begin feeling less scared of me; let me tell you hippos account for more human mortality than any other mammal”
This time I wasn’t scared, after all this was some deep hidden encyclopedia trivia that I must have read sometimes in my school days!! But I thought to myself about how hippos look so gentle that there is no way you would expect such ferocity from them anytime.
“Ain’t it so much like humans??” the hippo kept chewing and continued to read my thoughts.
“I know we are bad, we fight amongst ourselves, we don’t care for other creatures, we destroy nature” I had recently seen Avatar again, so wasn’t so hard for me to state all that. The thought of Avatar brought a curious question in my mind “Was that your cousin from Pandora that charges at Jake Sully in the forest?”
The hippo ignored my seemingly silly query and suddenly seemed to grow old with wisdom as he looked at me straight in the eye “It’s much more than an overt display of evilness that your kind posses, in fact it might not be evil at all. Just a subtle inadequacy that is still as dangerous as those libelous actions”
Technically I was still asleep and even while awake, such deep thinking zips over my infantile mind!! The hippo didn’t mind my ignorance and continued with his thoughts.
“How many times you fail to thank someone who help you but slander others at a drop of a hat if they fail to do the same. How many times you wish the world from your friends but fail to provide a trickle of faith when they need you. How many times you detest people talking about you behind your back but don’t respect others and do the same. You harbor ill will against fellows, crib about them to others but put up a fake smile once they approach you. You want to be loved but don’t show slightest……”
The hippo seemed to be going on and on making me feel if this is how my wish for a sweet dream had came true. The moment I thought it out, the hippo stopped.
“It has been a long conversation my friend, time for me to go” he turned and began his gentle walk back to the unknown with a small nod of goodbye.
As he walked into the nothingness in the vortex of my brain, he spoke out a quiet question to me “What do you call someone who wishes for a sweet dream and cribs when his wish comes true?”
“Sweet dream?? Wish comes true??” I thought confused and then suddenly I realized what the hippo had been chewing all the while he was talking to me - a whole bunch of sweet potatoes!!
My eyes opened from the sleep and I had a strange aftertaste of sweetness in my mouth and the answer to his question. I whispered out the answer to myself as I woke up
“Hippo-crite”

Swept Away!!

The sweet taste of water can only be realized when you are absolutely parched for water and similarly the best feel of the holiday can only be felt after you have practically killed yourself at work. So after a grueling work-schedule in the past month I finally got a week worth of break and a chance to visit my alma mater. Unfortunately, the lack of access to internet during this time made it nearly impossible for me to have a peek at my Google reader and catch up on everything that I have missed in the life of my blogging friends. Doing that is my topmost priority right now and makes me realize how much I actually I miss this seemingly simple task. While there have been a whole lot of things that I had wanted to post all this while but the dearth of time had really made it difficult to pen things down, in short, I had been a bad blogger! But now with a trip back to my home country I know what I will be talking about this week as nostalgia is the only paramount feeling on my mind. Especially as it probably was also my final visit to Manipal (at least for a long time). So here is a short list of things that I loved and managed to relive in this short stay:

THE BEACH: “The Sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.” So said Jacques Cousteau and he couldn’t have been farther from truth. Having never seen the sea and the wonderful beaches before starting my college life, I was completely mesmerized with my first view of the vast unending expanse. There is an unearthly calmness in the chaos of the waves that always draws me towards it. If you still haven’t been to a beach, you don’t know what you are missing!! No surprises that every evening I knew where I was going!!

THE FOOD: Food was the thing that I most often complained about in my college life but that was just from the college mess. Outside, the place is replete with some awesome food for all the tastes. Northie, southie, veg, non-veg, you name it and you got it!! So all the time that I was there, I was running from one restaurant to another to make sure that I grab all they had to offer in the short time that I had!!

THE MONSOON: Rain and Manipal are often spoken in the same breath. When it rains, it really pours down there. While there was not very much excitement this time around with the intensity and the amount of rain that I got to witness but it was good enough to remind me of the good old days when umbrella used to be your best friend!

LOVE: The last but surely not the least on the list. This was the place where I found love so the best part of spending time in Manipal is when you are spending it with your sweetheart. Sipping smoothies in afternoon, watching the sun melt down in the evenings on a lazy beach and idling away time under the starry sky..just wished that every holiday of mine was like this!!

So while work pulls me back to my usual monotonous existence, this is me getting swept away in one final wave of nostalgia!