Oh, Man what a dream!

The heavenly abode was becoming a place of boredom for Him. With no soldiers to lead in wars and no bad demons to fight against, Ganesha was increasingly becoming restive. And to add to His woes, the pot belly was weighing down more heavily, hampering His movements. His ride, the Mouse had been voicing complaints about the increasing difficulty in carting around the extra burden. In all temerity, his ride even demanded swift action, though aware of His master’s handicap. 

The Doctors in the multi-specialty hospitals, wearing fancy coats, in Devlok have already lifted their collective hands, in despair. Ganesha dismissed their suggestions that He could visit Earth and consult with Doctors, for the nth opinion. He had grouses and reasons for refusing to do so. On Earth, nowadays only a handful of people cared to pray to Him and break the customary coconuts on the eve of His birthday. Students throng during exams, job hunters before interviews and all of them for any other special appeals. 

He was doubly unhappy that many of His idols were kept carelessly in the open and not housed in good shelter and the rituals of bathing, clothing and garlanding given a pass. This act of wanton neglect of believers left Him simmering with anger which only resulted in severe headache and sleepless nights. The fact that the prescribed medicines did nothing to kill the headache added fuel to His anger. His consorts could not find enough convincing arguments and reasoning to make Him understand that times have changed, and He too need to change. 

Their repeated lectures infuriated Him more and drove Him to direct His exasperation at a single source of know it all – Google search> and >Wikipedia>or> any other search engine. 

To divert His attention away from it all, He searched out the old records of past battlefield experiences to re-live and manage the throbbing, monotonous headache. The narrative had been closely supervised and only His close lieutenants were chosen to provide the source material after thorough vetting. He recalled showering His appreciation on these compilers for their monumental efforts, at that time. So He expected no bomb shells or hidden mines to surprise Him.

As He began reading the write up, His elephantine body started to vibrate and the nose cum trunk began to weave around like a windscreen wiper of an automobile. Such were the graphic details of the military exploits and reading about them now, filled Him with nostalgia and exhilarating thrill. He also remembered that these chosen compilers dared to forget the tradition of propitiating Him before embarking on this project. Though He had twisted their ears hard and made them to do 1008 push ups, He was not satisfied. In view of their efforts, He let them go off lightly.

On hindsight, now, He wondered whether more accomplished authors might have embellished the narrative and presented a better version!  He decided to ask Wikipedia to commission for a superbly written version, with additional inputs directly from Him, and pull down the existing one. After all, as a victor He could use the right/privilege to write or rewrite history, which essentially was His story!

Continuing to browse, He came upon the descriptive part on the ritual of smashing the coconuts to smitherns. He mentally thanked one of the lieutenants for having not omitted to describe to the authors how He ferociously smashed the heads of enemies, in the blink of an eye. Based on this narrative, the weak-hearted mortals had chosen coconuts in place of heads of enemies as their customary offering.  

A wry smile played across His face on thinking about the sincerity or lack of it shown by the current crop of job hunters, students and others who stood in front of Him and vowed to keep up their promises, if He helped them, this one time. Each had a different wish to be fulfilled and within a time frame.  He admired their business acumen in asking Him to grant their wish first and then wait for the promised coconuts offering!  He disliked them for giving Him a schedule, but in good faith, most of the times, granted their wishes.

When it was time to fulfil their commitments, they promptly forgot about the coconuts. He felt cheated when these people started using Google maps, to find alternate routes to avoid coming anywhere near the place, where He sat hoping and waiting. This irked Him more than their other acts. Lucky Me, they did not come back and ask for another favour to help them find the coconuts!

The weather, which was steadily worsening, gathering clouds, broke with flashes of brilliant lightning and an ear-splitting thunder. Jolted awake, the man shook his head in confusion and found himself in a near-dark room. His neck and body felt stiff, and his right hand had gone almost numb. He noticed the only light in the gloom was coming from the monitor screen. Coming to his full senses, he found the wireless mouse tightly held in his right-hand palm. Realisation struck him like a truck- he had snoozed in front of his computer, holding the mouse as though for his dear life. 

A daydream, but an interesting one, as long as it lasted – courtesy, the wireless mouse!