It is a Sunday morning, lazy, quiet and totally unwilling to get up from the bed. Alone in the room and on the bed, I curled up and dozed off again.
I felt the tap on my shoulder, quite a tap, I must say, which woke me up and I wondered what I wanted to do to have been woken up like so? And I remembered I had to do diabetes check on Moma. I did and it showed 98, this after she gave up taking dia pills, against doctor's orders. Need to check again post prandial.
It occurred to me as I thought over the manner in which I woke up that perhaps there is some part of the brain that is always awake, no matter how fast asleep you are. Like the internal clock of a computer system, which keeps running even when the system is shut down. This clock, not just a time keeper, is also a fully functional reminder and alert system. Is there more to it? Or, is that all?
What about the time I heard the voice inside asking me to walk away from it all and learn from the world first hand about the world from the people of the world. Which part of the brain spoke? Question is, are there many such parts of the brain? If so, apparently they're are all disconnected, disjointed and latent, only surfacing when some conditions are met. The brain in that case is like a house divided.
What about the other day when I heard a voice asking me to shut up as I was waxing eloquent in my harangue against gods, worship and such. Mother was watching a video of Lord Venkateswara and the hymns to the God were playing loud in the silent spaces of the house. Through the music and the Sanskrit slokas I voiced my distaste of this form of worship and I continued in this manner as I walked out of the room. There, at the threshold I distinctly heard, through the sound of my own voice, the word in Hindi 'chup' which translated means 'shut up', when my mother tongue was Telugu. I froze right there, forgot what I was saying, turned around and looked at my mother. She was lost in the devotional rapture she was experiencing before the video. She couldn't have said it, for it was a male voice. Curious, and thoroughly disturbed, I asked mother if she heard anyone speak. 'Only you talking like a nastik (disbeliever). Then I told her what I had heard in my head and she remarked: 'this particular hymn was my father's favorite; he was a devotee and even translated this piece into Telugu which is heard in the temples even today. Maybe he was scolding you.'
I did not know what to make of it all.
