My
cosmonaut grand daughter
I had a strange dream last night
– my granddaughter and her husband came to wish me goodbye. With tears in my
eyes, I blessed them and wished them a safe journey.
My grandson-in-law was posted to
Astro City and they would be living in a space craft. I was very concerned
about their welfare and curious about what their life would be like.
Grandson-in-law assured me that he was being given a very comfortable furnished
spacecraft with two rooms, a bath and kitchen.
“What about cooking vessels etc?”
I asked, Granddaughter said that she would not need them as they would be
eating only readymade frozen chappaties, dhal, rice, vegetables etc.
“But”, I gasped, “How can you eat
then day in and day out? Won’t you feel like eating fresh vegetables?”
“But granny” she explained
patiently, “how do you think we’ll get fresh vegetables? There’s no place to
grow them. Moreover, cooking vessels etc will start floating in the air because
of weightlessness. Of course, we have an oven in which we’ll warm up the food before
eating.”
“But my child,” I protested.
“What will you do the whole day with no cooking or cleaning?” “I’ll read books
grandma. I will also create an atmosphere of love and affection for my husband
and then he’ll be able to concentrate better on his experiments.”
“Will you have friend’s child?” I
asked, feeling sorry for the fun loving child who was fond of parties and spoke
for hours to her friends on the phone.
“Don’t worry gran. There will be
other wives in the other space crafts. We’ll have kitty parties and gossip
sessions. I’ll knit shawls for your and if there’s nothing else to do, count
stars.” “But my dear,” I persisted, “What about your education your father has
spent on? Your dancing, music and painting”. “Oh grandma, what’s all that compared
to the prospects of orbiting in space? Next time you meet your cronies in the
temple, think how popular you’ll be while other grandmas brag about US or UK,
you can talk of “Astro City.”You know, I can talk to you from there! Who knows,
we might bump into Indra or Vishnu, who are said to be living somewhere up
there!”
R-r-r-ing.. went the doorbell and
I got up to let the maid in. “Memsahib,” she said “do you know – all the taxi
drivers and bus drivers have gone on a strike today! How will you go to work?”
“At this
rate,” I mumbled to myself, how can my granddaughter ever hope to go to
space!
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