dreams, smashed crow heads and morning walks

Last Thursday night I dreamt that my wet hair came off in great clumps as I combed it . I wept helplessly trying to comb it carefully, but the more I combed the more it came out in handfuls .

I didn’t remember about it in the morning because early in the morning all my thoughts are centred around my morning walk , which till fairly recently took on the proportions of an impending disaster inasmuch as it interfered with my sleep cycles ..

I normally walk around the eastern lake in the Dhakuria lakes complex .. It is a major walk from my house , across a very dirty approach littered with garbage, fish scales , rotten vegetable peelings , small white polythene bags with yesterday’s leftovers in a yellowed pool burst spill, dragged across some yards by curious crows, often dead moles , once a dead crow with a smashed head, innumerable plastic bags , trash, other detritus and what I abhor most , rags . Therefore one has to pick one’s way carefully through all this debris till one is on the road and able to walk into the lakes .

On Friday , before the sun came up the water was a dull molten grey – green reflecting the sky and the surrounding greenery and thereafter as the sun came up , the wind chased the water into shimmering golden eddies catching the first rays of the sun which almost hurt the eyes with their brilliance - the lap lap thwack of the oars from the boat teams was oddly soothing . I don’t know about others but my mind is a total blank when I walk and therefore I did not remember my dream .

It was only later when I was washing my hair that prompted a recall and I unconsciously toweled my hair gingerly checking to see that the hair was not falling off in clumps but I remembered a dream I had long back when we were holidaying in Kochi when I had dreamt that the sole of my foot gave way as I pressed it, like something gone soft and rotten and I could feel the bone through the cheesy flesh – I still shudder when I think of it – AG the Irreverent One said it was too much squid and ishtoo and the appmas which had not agreed with my mongrel constitution .

At times I am prescient - but nothing untoward happened – my feet didn’t rot – my circulation is fine despite my being diabetic , but yes , the clumps of falling hair are worrying me a lot .


If Wikimapia is to be believed the circumference of the Eastern lakes takes 3639 steps to be covered – so therefore on one part of my walk I take 3639 steps and then some more to reach home .