‘Knock, knock, knock, knock on the door.’ It was my beloved wife. She woke me up. My bed tea was ready on the dining table. She helped me to find all my paraphernalia for my usual jogging along the parliamentary road. I left home sharp at six in the cascading sun beams. My jogging companions added me the necessary gumption in my endeavor to be healthy, wealthy and wise.
The Venus had disappeared after protecting our calves, goats and our nocturnal dumb friends; fruits for the people, fertility for women. The moon was a sliver in the far sky. The sun has just begun to take his diurnal duty.
We had our usual pleasantries at our rendezvous near the parliament round about and dispersed. We, the habitual joggers, are keen observers on one hand and on the other; animal lovers to the hilt.
After my usual jogging feat, I came home in a hurry and in the same breath got ready to go to the office. Latha, my beloved wife put my lunch packet on the back seat and before the redline, I came to the bank. Day’s work made me indescribably fatigued and on my return, my comfortable bed lulled me to a sound sleep. I have read,heard and seen many an animal behavior in Road From Elephant Pass by Nihal de Silva.
One could read about the true world of animals from the sloth bear to crocodile, from the sharp eyed hawk to the orange minivets in it. Jungle tide, Madolduwa and many an avian description always soothed my weary mind. I have had my fill of enjoying nature of the animal world than any other friend in my peer group.
It was very recently that two of my worthwhile friends at the University of Kelaniya, Sithara and Rasheema gave me two wonderful books on animal behavior to read and know the most interesting findings by some animal enthusiasts. All the animals are not alike.’ They told. I read them in one breath and almost all the animal readings made a cinematic graphic in my mind. I retired to bed to enjoy the God given rest with FREUD in mind.
Next morning, my wife knew no bounds to her laughter when I went to the kitchen for my bed tea. I had to answer a barrage of questions over my unusual cacophony in my sleep and I told her what happened to me in my dreams. She attributed it to my over estimation of Freud’s theories on the analysis of dreams and my soft spot for our dumb friends.
This is the gist of the matter. I saw an incredible dream. From my childhood days, I have been a serious somnambulist and a dreamer. Somnambulism is a deeper phenomenon than a mere dream according to the veteran psychiatric Dr. Rumi Ruban, my constant guide in interpretation of dreams.
In my dream, I was doing speed walking along the sidewalk of the Diyavanna Oya sanctuary in Sri Jayewardenepura, Kotte, Sri Lanka.
The wonder is that my dream gave two versions. One, day vision and its night vision. In the day vision, a huge wild elephant was being attacked by a jungle fowl with a very reddish crest on its head. It was attacking the huge legs of the elephant with its sharp beak. It was palpable to me that its attack didn’t make any serious injury to the largest vegetarian in the world. But, it made a concerted effort to do some physical harm. In the night vision, the same jungle fowl was comfortably sitting on the head of the elephant. The elephant was swaying its trunkin a relaxed mood. The jungle fowl was making a singing tone and the elephant was making a triumphant trumpet. A real symbiotic relationship was discernible in my dream.
If my memory serves me correct, in my dreadful dream, I saw two venomous serpents entangled in a do or die struggle to own the dense jungle for own use, to live and thrive. In a closer look, I identified them as a long cobra and a dreaded viper in its beautiful drape. Vipers are always in my mind because of the beauty of their skin.
A wonderful gift of nature! To my utter surprise, in the night vision, they were in a very romantic love making in the pouring moonlight. ‘It is incredible.’ My wife who knows much about vipers and cobras quipped. Once she was in a school in Monaragala, she has had seen such serpent behaviour.
In my next cinematic dream reel, I saw a very beautiful duck comfortably in her beautiful plumage basking in the sun of morning glory. My wife said that she had read the story of ‘THE LAME DUCK.’ In 1956, exactly. Since then I also look at the duck as a lame creature that she couldn’t make any survival attempt without anyone’s help.
Believe it or not, the duck in my dream made a sudden quick jump exactly onto the very head of the giant elephant. I thought that it would forever live and thrive on the elephant’s grey head. But, to my surprise, this most compassionate duck quacked several times at the top of her voice to the other lame ducks to mount on her riding monster. The best part of the dream is that it started fluttering its immaculately white feathers, continually. The dream does not end there. I saw a heard of buffaloes grazing lethargically in a green pasture with a muddy layer in an ugly manner. They were a scattered lot, with no aim at finding a better meadow.
In a muddy puddle I saw a paddling of ducks secretly watching the shining duck on the elephant’s head fluttering her wings.
Oh! A beautiful flower just unfurling its petals in the wetland, but very slowly its petals falling off one by one! The dream reminded me ZIMRI by JOHN DRYDEN.
In that poem ZIMRI made a political party and later on he was deprived of its leadership. Man and nature are always combined.
I crawled interior into the jungle in my dream and saw a skulk of foxes hunting after a nest of rabbits. It was in the day vision. But the same jackals or foxes were playing hide and seek at night. They have been doing in their animal kingdom forever. Not only these peculiar animals, but also there was a great many variety of animals in this kingdom. My all-knowing wife attributed this dream infliction on me to being a couch potato all my life since TV made a major advent into our society.
At the tail end of the dream I heard a cock a doodle do from the red crested jungle fowl that was surveying the whole landscape with not her fowlish eyes but from borrowed hawk eyes in a bygone era.
The happy go lucky members of the avian world were singing melodious songs floating and running under the blue vault.
The million dollar question is that this poor Piyadasa is inescapably entangled in dreams and nightmares.