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Bedtime Stories

 As I cerebrated upon the theme for this edition of the Network, my forehead morphed into wrinkled lines as my eyebrows furrowed up, due to the lack of evocation in my mind. I strained my tightening constraints, coercing my subconscious to lurch into its depths and unearth a glimmering thread lit up by my memories. However, my efforts were in vain as the only recollection of bedtime stories I could uncover was when my parents read stories to me. One vivid memory sparked my mind, but that’s it. All I could envision were blurry figures of my mom and I sleeping on her bed in our old home, as she read The Magic Faraway Tree to me, and I pleaded, “one more chapter please!”, engrossed within the fictional realm of moon-face and silky the fairy. Falling asleep in my mother’s arms as she patiently narrated the enchanting tales of the magic faraway tree, is what I thought my childhood’s bedtime stories were limited to. I falsely fell prey to the misconception spurred within the chambers of my own mind, that being read this story as a lullaby was the sole manifestation of bedtime stories in my life, its presence failing to surge ahead and conquer my life’s trajectory.


I failed to grasp the overpowering nature of bedtime stories and how their essence seeped into every inch and every aspect of my life, morphing me into the person I am today, without me realising it at that moment. Bedtime stories are like a seed planted in me, that grew into endlessly flowing branches, widening my horizons in a myriad of ways, exposing me to varying avenues and making me a unique, complex and intricate individual.


I am now an avid reader who gulps down words inked on pages relentlessly. Books, poems, and plays race through my mind constantly, living there rent- free.. At any given moment, I’ll begin narrating a sonnet or a paragraph that is close to my heart, breaking away from reality and descending upwards into the heavenly realm of literature. This love for reading all forms of literature stems from the stories that formed an essential part of my days as a child, as I could not go to sleep without listening to the beguiling tales spun by my mother.


Bedtime stories still exist in my life, their presence being omnipresent, turning from simple tales to more layered and multi-dimensional forms. Now, the bedtime stories I hear are the monologues conveyed by Ananya and Anoushka at odd hours at night, as I lay spellbound by their crazy acts and decisions peppered throughout their day. The bedtime stories I now listen to are the lectures Mihika gives me at 2 am after I tell her I did the exact opposite of the advice she gave me, as I fall asleep to her critical words spun in a passive- aggressive manner. The bedtime stories I listen to now are the lores of my imaginary friends, Sheldon Cooper, Leonard and Penny as they navigate through life with my silent presence always glowing around them on the screen of my iPad. I may not be ritualistically keeping up with the happenings of moon-face and saucepan man in their magical tree, but the stories that shaped me continue to exist in my life- only now in different forms.


From being a listener of literature, I have metamorphosed into a writer myself, becoming the person who bleeds ink onto bank paper, writing tales which will one day be read to a curious child like me, as she drifts away into deep sleep, easing her mind into a silken state of euphoria.

Comments

  1. Anonymous1 May 2024 at 22:49

    πŸ™Œ

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous2 May 2024 at 01:42

    Beautiful as always πŸ’—πŸ’—πŸ’— Your reflections are inspiring

    ReplyDelete

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