Piku has a habit of listening to bedtime stories every night. Most of the time his demand is to tell him a new story, and my stock has ran out.
Sometimes I try to trick him by telling a story that I told him 2-3 years back, but believe me - kids have a very sharp memory on this.
I might be able to trick him by sweet talking and getting agreed to listen to an old story again; but passing an old story as a new one has never worked for me.
So, a couple of days ago, I decided to tell him story of Ramayana in small chunks, so that I could cover as many days as possible.
However I failed to take into account the fact, that these stories work as lullaby for me better than him; and last night I was specially sleepy. In fact, I was dozing off already before I started.
So, the story wasn't actually a story as most of us know it. Here is an excerpt from the Sita's swayamvar:
"Then Lord Rama took Shiva's bow and held it with one hand. Then he tried to bend it a little" .... zzz .... (few seconds snooze here)... "and then he picked up the bow with one hand, and tried to bend it"
Then few more seconds pretending to trying to remember what happened next.
Piku got slightly confused (coz he was paying attention) "Papa, why did Ram Ji pick the bow up twice?"
I immediately covered up "No beta, he picked the bow up only once. I said it twice to make it sound nicer." That was smart, right? Given the fact that I was already drifting away in sleep, that was really smart (all hail self-praise)
"Ummm.. Ok. What happened next?" said not-so-convinced Piku. (Kid's way of saying "whatever")
"So, where was I? Oh yes, I remember. So, when Lord Rama took Shiva's bow and picked it up with one hand and then, and then, and then"....zzz.... "do you know what happened next Beta?"
"He tried to bend it"... though I couldn't see Piku's face when he said it, but I can very well imagine it now.
...zzzz... "Yes, that's exactly what happened! So, Lord Ram picked up Shiva's bow and bent it a little to string it. However the string was slightly short, so he bent it more. String was still short, so he bent it more.... and more.. zzz"
"Papa, you are sleeping, right?"
"No Piku, I'm thinking..snort snort... trying to remember"
"No, you are sleeping. I don't want to listen anymore"
... zzz .... snort...
Wifey tugged me slightly "what are you doing?"
"Huh.. yeah.. so, Lord Rama bent it more" - I said without knowing what Piku said... "and more and then it broke apart with a very very loud noise... zzz... "
"Hawww... what happened then papa?"
I think I dozed off for almost half a minute there.
"Papa?"
"Papaaaa..."
I woke up and said "The bow broke and the noise echoed in the entire production environment"
"Whattttt??? I don't understand Papa. The noise echoed where?"
"I said that when the bow broke, its noise echoed in entire world. Lord Parshurama heard it too and came there and angrily spoke - who broke my bow?"
I continued the story "Who broke my bow? I will behead that person"... zzz ... " and then Lord Rama replied - I did it by mistake, but don't worry; it can easily be fixed by providing correct path of the jar file in classpath."
That fellas, was the end of the story (because nobody spoke anything after that)!!!
