Once upon a time in a land right here…
By Anjali Mehta
It all started with a promise and a series of wails. The promise was to my daughter to get her brother and her a little pet dog . However, astonishingly, getting a white pomeranian home did not result in smiles. Instead, it generated a lot of wails. Sugar, the puppy, wailed the whole night as he missed his mother and siblings and my daughter wailed the entire next day as she felt sad for Sugar. My son wailed in affirmation. Overwhelmed by the increased tear levels all around, we went and brought Sugar’s brother to our home too . Peace was restored. Somewhat. A friend asked me recently what bringing up two small pomeranians was like. My reply is that it is rather like a fairy tale. Here’s why :
The elves and the shoemaker : This story is about a shoemaker whose work was finished by industrious elves at night. In our home too, there is tremendous nocturnal activity. However, our two little elves seem to have a different brief - instead of fabricating things, they disfigure anything they can lay their little teeth and paws on by tearing it down into its constituent parts. They are quite relentless in this mathematical pursuit of subdivision. Almost everyday we wake up to find the room strewn with small bits of paper and little pieces of once identifiable objects. One of our daily morning chores is to see what all we can salvage from the mess and to determine if we are still financially solvent.
Sleeping beauty: A princess is woken up from her sleep by a health and life-giving kiss from a prince : Ever since our dogs have acquired the ability to jump up on the bed, we are subjected to sudden early morning kisses. I am not sure of the quality of royal kisses but the ones we get are dribbly, slurpy and delivered by hairy jaws teeming with germs. Though the good intentions of the little princes are never in doubt, the combination of the sight of sharp teeth and the foul breath make for an electrifying kiss, especially in the slightly defenceless state one finds oneself in the morning. We leap up wide-eyed and put the princes down back on the floor , all the while encouraging them to save their kisses exclusively for each other.
Rapunzel :The princess used to let down her hair from the tower for the prince to climb up: This story gets enacted out when I am sleeping with my head near the edge. The dogs creep up nearby and pull at my hair by the jawfuls. The end objective is not clear here though. I am not sure if they want to climb up or just make me bald.
Beauty and the beast: Belle, the merchant’s youngest daughter is given daily gifts by the beast in an effort to win her over: I, the beast ( devoid of advantageous assets like fur and whiskers, what else could I hope to be ? ) find small gifts near my pillow when I wake up in the mornings. One day the little beauties left some soft coir they had pulled from the mattress near my pillow. When my hand sleepily felt it , I naturally assumed it was my hair and imagine my horror when I discovered it was not connected to my head! I put on the bedside lamp and the horror intensified as I discovered that the colour was also different !In my not yet alert state I thought I had acquired some dreaded hair disease during the night. It took a cup of bed tea to clear the fog, identify the coir and put life back in a happier and truer perspective. Other, less alarm generating gifts have included half chewed artificial bones and filthy treasures from dustbins…..
Hansel and Gretel : The witch in this story lives in a house made of chocolate which is completely edible : Salt and Sugar suffer from the delusion that our house is edible in totality. Right from the chair, carpets, mattress to our clothes and belongings -they simply like to sample everything. All I can do is play the role of a harried witch rather than a hungry one !
All in all , we are in a strange and messy wonderland….with Tweedledum and Tweedledee keeping us guessing what their next scheme is going to be…..
By Anjali Mehta
It all started with a promise and a series of wails. The promise was to my daughter to get her brother and her a little pet dog . However, astonishingly, getting a white pomeranian home did not result in smiles. Instead, it generated a lot of wails. Sugar, the puppy, wailed the whole night as he missed his mother and siblings and my daughter wailed the entire next day as she felt sad for Sugar. My son wailed in affirmation. Overwhelmed by the increased tear levels all around, we went and brought Sugar’s brother to our home too . Peace was restored. Somewhat. A friend asked me recently what bringing up two small pomeranians was like. My reply is that it is rather like a fairy tale. Here’s why :
The elves and the shoemaker : This story is about a shoemaker whose work was finished by industrious elves at night. In our home too, there is tremendous nocturnal activity. However, our two little elves seem to have a different brief - instead of fabricating things, they disfigure anything they can lay their little teeth and paws on by tearing it down into its constituent parts. They are quite relentless in this mathematical pursuit of subdivision. Almost everyday we wake up to find the room strewn with small bits of paper and little pieces of once identifiable objects. One of our daily morning chores is to see what all we can salvage from the mess and to determine if we are still financially solvent.
Sleeping beauty: A princess is woken up from her sleep by a health and life-giving kiss from a prince : Ever since our dogs have acquired the ability to jump up on the bed, we are subjected to sudden early morning kisses. I am not sure of the quality of royal kisses but the ones we get are dribbly, slurpy and delivered by hairy jaws teeming with germs. Though the good intentions of the little princes are never in doubt, the combination of the sight of sharp teeth and the foul breath make for an electrifying kiss, especially in the slightly defenceless state one finds oneself in the morning. We leap up wide-eyed and put the princes down back on the floor , all the while encouraging them to save their kisses exclusively for each other.
Rapunzel :The princess used to let down her hair from the tower for the prince to climb up: This story gets enacted out when I am sleeping with my head near the edge. The dogs creep up nearby and pull at my hair by the jawfuls. The end objective is not clear here though. I am not sure if they want to climb up or just make me bald.
Beauty and the beast: Belle, the merchant’s youngest daughter is given daily gifts by the beast in an effort to win her over: I, the beast ( devoid of advantageous assets like fur and whiskers, what else could I hope to be ? ) find small gifts near my pillow when I wake up in the mornings. One day the little beauties left some soft coir they had pulled from the mattress near my pillow. When my hand sleepily felt it , I naturally assumed it was my hair and imagine my horror when I discovered it was not connected to my head! I put on the bedside lamp and the horror intensified as I discovered that the colour was also different !In my not yet alert state I thought I had acquired some dreaded hair disease during the night. It took a cup of bed tea to clear the fog, identify the coir and put life back in a happier and truer perspective. Other, less alarm generating gifts have included half chewed artificial bones and filthy treasures from dustbins…..
Hansel and Gretel : The witch in this story lives in a house made of chocolate which is completely edible : Salt and Sugar suffer from the delusion that our house is edible in totality. Right from the chair, carpets, mattress to our clothes and belongings -they simply like to sample everything. All I can do is play the role of a harried witch rather than a hungry one !
All in all , we are in a strange and messy wonderland….with Tweedledum and Tweedledee keeping us guessing what their next scheme is going to be…..
1 comment:
Awww! Loved the Hairy tales . Bring out more
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