A Castle in the Air

She opened her eyes and found herself in an unknown land. She looked around with a bewildered look on her face…where was she…what place was this??How did she get here??She longed to go back to the comfort of her home…to the place that she belonged to.She was scared.She wanted to run away. She looked around her for help….and her glance just then fell on the surroundings…and she was struck….. spellbound.
Was it a land of fairies….yeah, it must be a land of fairies…There were colourful daisies all around.The fragrance of roses filled the air. A light shower was wetting her hair…falling down her shoulders. The greenery of the nature mesmerized her. The gurgling sound of the waterfall beside her added melody to the enchanting atmosphere. She felt like dancing….she felt like chirping away with the birds ….singing along with the humming bees. She wanted to remain lost and captivated there….she was enjoying her solitude…the bliss around her. She thought “How I wish all my loved ones were here…How I wish we had set up our home here…my brother and I could have wandered around the whole day enjoying the beauty of this land….life would have been an absolute bliss in this serene atmosphere. We could have enjoyed playing hide and seek in the fields yonder filled with gay sunflowers…why didn’t they come along…where were they??” She had heard her mother describe her of this land…her mother had promised that it would be a land of roses…her father had said that he wanted her to visit the land and experience the merriment that was in store for her there. They had assured her and soothed all her apprehensions….they had said that she just had to put forward her foot and she would be carried away lovingly to the arms of the surreal world that they were describing to her and she will be taken care of.So, this was the land that they were speaking of then….so surreal it had seemed then…and now it was there infront of her eyes real and filled with life. Why had she ever been so apprehensive to come here…how foolish she was….
She played in the rain like a child….she splashed away in the brook like a kid. She trampled along running after butterflies…she went back to her childhood. She just wandered around trying to take in all the beauty with her…capturing every single moment in her memory…She could suddenly sight a glimpse of a castle far away in the midst of the trees….conspicuously hidden in the back-ground. She sprinted towards the castle with her heart beating fast…she thought to herself…is this the place where I should stay…stay maybe forever. And there stood the castle …standing tall amongst the greenery that only glorified it all the more. But there was a strange thing that she noticed…the castle was not on the ground but was swaying in mid-air…..she was awestruck ….wow a castle in the air.How could that happen….it was surely a dream. Dusk had started to fall outside….tiny stars had started to glisten in the sky above. The walls of the castle glinted like diamond in the dim light….she could not wait to discover the interiors of the castle…she groped around with baited breath for an entrance to the castle and after a few minutes of impatient search she finally discovered the entrance.The entrance to the castle was a door carved in it ..which almost camouflaged with the walls of the castle….There were tiny diamond shaped stones studded along the rim of the door which alone differentiated it from the walls of the castle.She pushed the door open and stepped into the castle..... The floor of the castle was laid with velvet carpet and almost melted under her feet…the roof appeared as if it was ornamented with brightly lit chandeliers all over….Tall curtains adorned the walls…and artistic sculptors and intricately carved furniture filled the space….giving altogether a magnificent feeling.
She then looked at the roof of the castle completely enthralled by the beauty and unable to take her eyes off the surroundings ….and her heart almost skipped a beat.The roof of the castle seemed to be falling down with alarming speed right on her….for a second she stood there her feet rooted to the castle floor unable to believe what was happening…and then she realised the roof of the castle was falling….yes, it was falling right on her. She ran for her life…she groped for the door and just ran out as fast as her legs could carry her. It took sometime for her to realise that she was there standing out under the sky safely away from the castle….she turned a frightened glance towards the castle and saw that it was slowly perishing right infront of her eyes.The roof was falling taking along the walls with it….stone by stone the castle was coming down.Tears flowed down her cheeks…she cudn’t believe that all the beauty that she had experienced was going away right before her….she cried and screamed for help but in vain. The castle was going down and she had to witness it standing there…she could not save the castle…she could not do anything to stop it from falling into pieces. She looked around for help…half-hoping…half-expecting and to her surprise she saw that all the greenery and the nature that had captivated her was vanishing one after other. She didn’t know where to go…she was aghast…she quickly closed her eyes with her palms …she could not take it anymore…she could not see everything disappearing just like that….grabbed away from her in a jiffy.
After a long time she opened her eyes half scared of what she will witness infront of her…and found herself in her bed room. It was dark ….and she could feel the cold wind outside coming through the open window. She stared at the ceiling blank for a while and suddenly felt relieved to find herself in her home. Beads of sweat had piled up on her forehead. She got up and stood beside the window and felt the cool breeze against her face….the dream still fresh in her memory….was it a night-mare…or was it an enjoyable dream. She cudn’t decide…It took sometime for the events that she had gone through to sink in her head. She then remembered what her mother had said…the land that we are talking of is definitely beautiful…but don’t build castles in the air!!Yeah, so it was…’A castle in the air’….I had built ‘A castle in the air’…she smiled and thought to herself!!

Phew!!

Now just imagine this. Your day starts off with you realizing that you have overslept by half an hour and you really need to rush to office since you have a meeting right in the morning which had been announced the previous day. And the mail that had the announcement had been sent by your technical manager so this helps you imagine the sharpness of the dagger hanging over your neck even more clearly.You rush to office skipping ur breakfast and are stuck in a traffic jam ….the vehicles do not seem to budge an inch from their places for hrs together.You feel u are caught up in the world of tortoises for eternity with some blaring music playing in the background providing entertainment to the tortoises.Anyways, you finally manage to reach the fly-over near your office somehow and you decide to walk down to the office instead of being stuck in that stationary frame for another half an hour.
Just when you are thanking God for having made it to ur work place just in time for the meeting a local school bus passes by with school students happily waving at u from the bus’s window happily and blissfully enjoying their trip to school totally oblivious of the external world outside their homes and schools.And all of a sudden there is a splash and u see muddy water all over your dupatta sprinkled on it as if it was some holy water sprinkled on you blessing you to survive the dagger.You finally reach ur floor in that shabby condition cursing your fate and see that the meeting has already started.Without caring about the dress you just barge into the conference hall hoping against hope that there would be no Diwali celebrations for you in store there.As a blessing in disguise you are informed that ur tech manager has not yet joined the meeting and will be joining in another five minutes.
Just when you are heaving a sigh of relief and thanking your fate for showering so much kindness on you your technical manager arrives smiling and reports that there is a bad news…..the project is called off.You go back to ur place after the meeting totally lost…not understanding how come u didn’t feel the pain when the dagger fell over ur neck.Calling off the project wud mean all the efforts that had been put by u and ur team over the last one month had been watered down…..washed clean.And it wud also mean a calm after the storm (Yeah! I guess in corporate world the calm is usually felt after the storm not before)…that is u wud be sitting idle for a few days till the next assignment commences. And after having such a bad start of the day u decide to talk to ur fren hoping to derive some solace. But u discover that u have left ur cell at home in the hurry to get to office on time.Now u even fall short of curses for cursing ur fate.
The whole day goes off in you and ur team members predicting as to what could have been the reason for the closure of the project and brooding over it.At the end of the day as planned by u earlier u decide to go and shop for the Rakhi gift for ur brother keeping aside all ur worries.You enter the mall and notice that u have just half an hr on hand after which the mall will close down and in that half an hr time you need to hunt for a decent t-shirt.After rummaging around two floors of t-shirts which included a few oscillations between the first floor and the fourth floor of the mall u finally pick up a decent looking t-shirt when there are just about 5 min left for the shop to close down. Dog tired and famished u congratulate urself for having remembered to buy the gift and for having accomplished the task successfully after one whole week after Rakhi.You reach the billing counter and give the t-shirt for billing.Then you fish for ur debit card and a hundred odd things come out of ur purse except for the debit card. (I really sometimes think that my purse is also as magical as those dinner plates of Hogwart’s school which gets filled on its own from time to time).Anyways after a through search of ur purse you discover that you neither have the card nor money on u and suddenly the memory database of ur memory throws an alert message reminding u tht u had left ur card in ur mom’s purse the last time u had gone for shopping with her.
Getting out of the half-closed shutters of the mall aware of the smiles of those ten people standing behind you in the payment counter and having noticed the wide grin of the person at the counter u walk out of the mall.
Phew!! What a day….Lol :))!!