Jahan was still in her deep sleep after a long grueling day of physical labour in the fields. The harvest season has begun. Late August marked a severe drought in Tajikistan. In fact, the minute she put her head on the pillow she was gone into the “la-la” land.

She dreamt, that the fields, her only source of income, were blazing on fire. In disbelief, with terror and tears in her eyes at the same time, she started running from the scene. Puffing, panting and sweating she managed to reach the banks of a nearby river… when suddenly her ALARM went off.

Still feeling her racing heartbeat, Jahan slowly opened her eyes, and for a moment got CLEARLY CONFUSED, where she was, what has just been happening… It was still dark outside. Ahhh! A deep sigh ran through her beingness. Thank God, it was a dream!

Still lying in bed, Jahan started thinking about today’s tasks to be finished in the fields, when suddenly she realized that this WHOLE PIECE running in her dream state was not just a dream. She could actually smell the smoke. She jumped out of bed, looked through the window: “Oh no!!! The fire is real!” The blazing ball of light was slowly approaching her house.

The next thing she knew, she was by her nine year old daughter’s bedside:

“Asal, my darling, wake up. We have to leave the house right now”, Jahan’s voice was full of panic.

“BUT MAMA, I AM HUNGRY. Can you make me some pancakes first. You promised last night”.

“I will sweetheart. BUT right now, YOU HAVE ZERO CHOICE. You need to get out of bed. Our fields are on fire. We have to hurry up.”

Asal, still not fully convinced about her mom’s excuse for not making her favourite dish, continued to be adamant :

“Mom, I NEVER LIKED YOU & I ALWAYS WILL. I want my pancakes now.

It was SERIOUSLY FUNNY to listen to the conversation of the two under these grave circumstances. Witnessing how the world of childish naiveté filled with innocently BEAUTIFUL PAIN and the brutal reality collided, Jahan’s heart got filled with immense pain. She felt SWEET SORROW for her little one, not grasping the reality yet.

The smell of the smoke was getting stronger. It is not the time to think or philosophize about life. Her ONLY CHOICE right now was to lift her daughter out of bed, take her into her arms and evacuate the house as soon as possible…

PS This piece took shape this morning, as part of session#2 writing workshop, led by Medha Shri. We needed write a story with a given prop “ALARM”. Then every two minutes, Medha Shri would give us oxymorons (capitalized above), that we needed to interweave in our writing. It was quite a challenge for me, I must admit!!! To be honest, I still don’t know if what I’ve penned down makes any sense at all…:) and now that I think of it, maybe my whole piece had to be about the alarm clock itself… hmmmm… anyway, too late now:)

PPS. For the  SHORT SENTENCE 2 min exercise to answer the question of “what is it, that I have enough of?” in one word, one sentence, one paragraph.

1.    Everything.

2.    I truly have enough of everything.

3.    Staying true to myself and putting my hand on my heart, I must admit I have enough of everything. I just need to appreciate all I’ve got on a daily basis (which I mostly do), so that natural human tendencies of greed don’t kick in. In fact, it’s all a matter of perspective. I am eternally grateful & indebted to the Divine and Swamiji for everything. My life is indeed full of abundance. 

#osdotme