Powerless bed-wetters

NANDAGOPAL Rajan

IT'S RAINING back home. The downpour hasn't stopped this week. Sister calls up to say it's "as dark as dusk at 3 in the afternoon."
"Here, it's as bright as noon at 5 in the morning," I counter. I go back to sleep.
It's a difficult task, since you have to position yourself exactly in front of the cooler – it's more of a blower when its 44 degree C outside – to catch the full draft.
Then it happens. It's the silence that hits you first. It's only later that you realise we are into another power cut. You try to dream about that cool picture of the waves lashing the Mumbai seafront you saw in the newspaper today. No, it doesn't work.
The hot beads of the sweat slowly become a steady flow. Your life juices are slowly being drained. "Good, maybe I'll melt some body fat this summer."
Nice thought. You slowly drift back into slumber. Floating atop a plantain trunk in your village pond. Nice cool green water all around you. It's all wet. "Wake up, you are in a pool of sweat."
So much for the wet dream…maybe it will rain today.