Yet Untitled 106 - Beer, Spiders, Robot Flies and a Zoom
A dream about dad in which he wasn't there
Dearest Yet Untitler,
I had a funny-scary-happy-sad dream the other day. Actually, the dream itself was happy and funny (only a little scary); I was sad only when I woke, because the dream featured my late father.
Here’s the setting of this dream - I was sitting in a patio of sorts, waiting for a zoom call to start (🙈). There were a serious amount of cobwebs all around, some with live spiders in the middle and others with no spider but these HUGE flies ensnared in them, wings splayed and motionless.
The Zoom call started and my mom came onscreen, holding a big tall glass of beer. She looked very happy. In the background was a familiar hillside cottage belonging to my parents’ friends Bunty and Shubhi, also known as The Plateau. I remember my parents always being happy here.
Now - I didn’t see dad on the screen of whatever dream-phantom device I was having this zoom call on, but I knew he was there. The call ended, without revealing its purpose or any other detail or context.
When the call was done, the flies in the cobwebs had suddenly retracted their wings and had become cuboidal and robot-like🤖. Suddenly, the Zoom call was no longer the main subject of my dream. Some mundane activity continued in this patio, where I had been wary and cautious of the cobwebs and their free-range spiders, a bit freaked by them. But now, the whole scenario was soaked in my dad’s presence. Suddenly, in the midst of these cobwebs and strange Zoom calls, I felt a sense of comfort, as if I was finally breathing easier after not having done so for years.
It’s years now since dad passed. Years. Coming up to four. I have missed him more than I admit. When I manage to have theses…connections(?)…I don’t question them too much and take what I can get from them.
That feeling of relief and well-being lingered after I woke. There was a tinge of sadness at the thought that perhaps this will be the best I get of dad for the rest of my corporeal existence, but that sadness vanished quickly when I dwelled on the feeling and realise that it in itself was a lot. It had heft, it had longevity. It wasn’t some vanishing butterfly of a feeling that made me wonder whether I had felt it at all. I can still feel it, like the memory of an arm that had come to rest on my shoulder, giving it a squeeze before moving on with its owner. Perhaps that’s what it was.
It sure felt like it.
I never saw dad once this dream, which, on the surface, had almost nothing to do with him. But by the end of it, I felt that it had everything to do with him.
It made me consider how much of how we feel about anything comes from us rather than the actual nuts and bolts of the thing itself. It makes me wonder - could I see my dad in the image of a hubcap stuck in a storm drain if I wanted to? After this dream, the idea doesn’t sound all that far-fetched to me at all.
This makes me think and bask in the comfort of thought such as…
I can see dad wherever I want.
Dad is everywhere for me to access.
Dad is here.
Thanks for listening,
Lot of love,
V
PS -
We visited the Tate Modern in London some days ago, which was hosting Yoko Ono’s solo show. If you’re in London, I highly recommend it - it’s tactile, it’s participatory and it’s on till the 1st of September. One thing about many of the installations in this exhibition was that the viewer completes the piece by engaging with it.
I feel that dreams are like such art that we complete by engaging with them once we wake.
Do you agree? Do you differ? Do you have a different way of seeing dreams? Hit me up either way:
PPS -
Do read YU 012, where I’ve written about another wild dream I once had:
Yet Untitled 012 - Of Umbrellas and Exploding Hedgehogs
My dearest Yet Untitlers, We are still far away from the rains here in Mumbai but the heat is already taking its toll. I saw someone faint at the Andheri passport application centre on Wednesday because of the heat! It isn’t surprising to me that I’m sending you a newsletter full of umbrella images.
Finally,
How beautiful to feel your Dad in this way.