Hey Dad! Meet My Mom by Sandeep Sharma, Leepi Agrawal Page A

up panting heavily. My eyes fell on the watch close by. Just 15 minutes of sleep. In totality, for the last 5 days, I had just slept for around 2 hours. That ‘dream girl’ of mine was giving me a real hard time. ‘Who was she?’ ‘What did she want from me?’ ‘If dreams have meaning than what did she symbolize?’ Oh! I think I need my medicine.
    I took the medicine and then saw my reflection in the mirror. My reflection was showing a guy who was almost 5 years older to me. Dark circles below my eyes were getting darker with the passage of more and more sleepless nights. I was suffering from insomnia. I was afraid to sleep, I was afraid to see that horrible girl again in my dreams.
    In the meanwhile my relationship with Myra was getting tested harder. She had to bear my mood swings every second but she didn’t lose hope, she was the only strength I had in my hard times. My mom was continuously suggesting that I consult Dr. Uncle for these problems and get the medicine I had been taking all this time changed.
    Actually, these nightmares were not new to me. A few years back, I had met with a fatal accident. That day, God had showered His pity on me; otherwise there were no chances for my survival. That accident affected my mind much more than it affected my body. The scars on my body slowly faded with time but the scars on my mind remained. I started to have nightmares. I started to relive the accident every night. Those were so real and so horrible that I had to consult my uncle for medical help. My uncle, Mr. Sharad Taneja, was a psychiatrist. He studied my problem and using some hypnotic sessions, he tried to fix me up. He tried to erase that accident night from my mind. He gave me some medicines too for future use.
    Although this psychiatric help had worked for me in the past, it ended up leaving a feeling of guilt within me. I felt inferior because I hadn’t been able to fight my inner troubles by myself. My mind had played some tricks on me and I was totally shattered. So shattered that I had to rush to take psychiatric help! I felt like a loser.
    That feeling of guilt was still within me. I wanted to fight it out alone this time. I didn’t want to rush to anyone for help. I was not a loser any more. I had Myra with me and that was enough for me.

    ‘Let’s meet up for coffee. ’
    ‘Sure. Where?’
    ‘That’s a silly one. At Maya’s, do we ever meet anywhere else for coffee?’
    ‘LOL.’
    After a sleepless night on Saturday, this cheerful prospect on my mobile screen could be the only reason for an instant smile on my face. Myra’s message took away the laziness of the Sunday morning and filled the day with joy for me.
    Before taking a shower, I searched my private drawer for taking out my secret mate of the past few days. I pulled out a cigarette from an entire Wills packet, lit it and puffed the smoke. All those sleepless nights had given birth to a smoker within me.
    I took a short shower, got ready within minutes, took the car keys and rushed to pick up Myra from her PG accommodation. As always she took almost an hour to show up, so to kill time I decided to smoke a few more cigarettes.
    My thoughts were occupied with the two girls of my life. One was Myra and the other was that ‘dream girl’. I noticed the smoke coming out of my mouth; it floated up to kiss the sky but disappeared in the path itself. I exhaled once again, and a similar thing happened, the smoke disappeared just like it had never existed. I did it again, the smoke started to rise up but this time it didn’t disappear; my pupils dilated. The smoke took the shape of the ‘same’ girl and started to stare at me. My body straightened automatically. The shape started to come down. My body froze. The ‘girl shaped smoke’ was now in front of my eyes; that ‘girl’ smiled and then vanished into thin air. Behind it, Myra was standing.
    “You smoke?” Myra asked.
    “Occasionally.” I tried to behave normally. I wanted to