

Cliff Richard pops up in Santosh Bakaya’s dreams with his summer holiday plans to bring her a happy and musical escape from the mundane.
Enjoy Morning Meanderings Season 2 with your hot cuppa and cookies. ☕🍪😊
Whenever I am bogged down by work, I seek escape routes.
One melodious escape route has always been music. It has always come to my rescue, feeding my gluttonous spirit.
Yesterday night, I drifted off into sleep — confused, worried, and scared. The house was a mess, my writing table was a mess, with papers of different sizes strewn around, book-marked books lying in a confused heap on one end of the table, and some diaries which needed to be discarded, clinging precariously to the edge of another corner.
I was on the verge of a de-cluttering spree — but who on earth ever decluttered a house of books? A house is a home because of books! I have always maintained. In our house, often there are three copies of the same book – my husband’s, my daughter’s, and mine! None can be discarded, so the clutter remains.
How would I sort the mess in the house? I almost started having second thoughts about the nature of the four-walled structure, I was residing in. Was it really a house? It seemed to have morphed into clutter. Unadulterated clutter.
The night changed all that.
There was no clutter around. To my absolute pleasure, I found myself at a party. Can you believe where? Cliff Richard was there, crooning :
“We’re all going on a summer holiday
No more workin’ for a week or two
Fun and laughter on a summer holiday…
We’re going where the sun shines brightly …”
“Are you not getting up today?” Someone was shrieking in my ear.
It was my daughter.
“I have already been in three online meetings, and you are still lying in bed like a – like…a – whatever! You defy description, mom!” She shouted and raced into her room for, supposedly her fourth meeting.
“No, I am not getting up. I am going on a summer holiday,” I said burrowing deeper into my duvet.
“Summer holiday? Are you crazy? It is monsoon now. Get up and see, it is raining outside.” This was my husband, Lalit.
Abracadabra!
He had morphed into Cliff Richard, and was singing,
“We’re goin’ where the sea is blue,
We’ve seen it in the movies
Now let’s see if it’s true.”
I don’t know whether anything else was true, but what was really the epitome of veracity, was the fact that this Cliff Richard fan was singing the song with great aplomb. He did not forget even a line!
“By the way, if I remember correctly, you had received a birthday gift of a set of four Cliff Richard cassettes a long time back, where are they?” I asked him, knuckling sleep kinks from my eyes.
“In a carton on the lowest shelf of the bedroom closet.”
“Okay, I am going to throw the cassettes away. I am on a de-cluttering spree.”
“Don’t you dare touch them; they have sentimental value for me,” he said, glaring at me, his voice softening only as he finished singing the song.
“For me and you
it’s a week or two
And a dream come true,”
This was a hint that de-cluttering could wait. There was ample time for that. Dreams were more important. So I threw myself back on the bed – ‘to sleep, perchance to dream…’ Of blue seas, and sunny weather.
Morning Meanderings is a musings column by Santosh Bakaya
Outside, there were only rainclouds and the pitter-patter of rain.
I drifted into sleep. This time Cliff Richard was singing:
“She’s just a devil woman
With evil on her mind
Beware the devil woman
She’s gonna get you.”
I threw away the duvet, and looked around, trying to find my moorings. It was not Cliff Richard but Lalit singing the song with an impish glint in his eyes. I shuddered.
Did he even point towards me? Or had my imagination gone into overdrive?
Click here to read all episodes of Morning Meanderings Season 2
Don’t Forget to Revisit Morning Meanderings Season 1
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