yamanai ame da neeee

Monday, May 11, 2009

Clara's hair is tied up, but a light breeze plays among the grey wisps at her temples. The strands are iridescent, for by now the clouds have all gone. It is a beautiful day.
'You know this is a dream,' Clara says.
'What do you mean?'
'You and me, together in New York?' She cuffs him playfully with the back of her hand. 'You must know I died long ago- a Jewish woman in Berlin in those days, married to a Jewish professor. In your heart you know that, yes? You know we're not really here, and it's only a dream?'
Ulrich says,
'Yes, I know.'
But he cannot leave it there,
'It's a dream, Clara, but it's not only a dream. There is far more to us than what we live.'
He speaks with unusual passion.
'Life happens in a certain place for a certain time. But there is a great surplus left over, and where will we stow it but in our dreams?' (own emphasis)
Clara stares into her lap. She says,
'Those children of yours are imaginary.'
'I have a real son, who is even more imaginary. These ones stay with me, and makes me proud.'
A butterfly alights for a time on Clara's floral dress, and then takes flight again.
'When I die,' says Ulrich, 'they will put me under the ground, when even those with eyes become blind like me. I will lie with an eternity of dreamers, breeding visions that will flicker on the surface - and the children of my daydreams will roam free.'

-Rana Dasgupta, Solo

8:56 PM