Welcome to My World!
Come in. Nothing important is happening here. We’re just having fun.
This is post-breakfast and my second Assam Chai has arrived.
I suspect I am now caffeinated into nonsense.
Or perhaps chai-drugged.
Whatever the clinical terminology, I am not going to interfere with it.
Let it run.
My bias: BTS. So, let’s have this with a flourish.
So, Ladies and Gentlemen…
BTS — Dynamite.
Listen to Dynamite here. https://youtu.be/gdZLi9oWNZg?si=wjovt9Xi28wTfkyL
Today, I feel like the old puberty-riddled girl of eighth standard, when she first encountered Edward Lear and fell in love with Nonsense.
Nonsense was my favourite back then, when I didn’t understand Nonsense as a genre… oops, style… or… oh, forget it.
I was thinking of some what-ifs.
What if Tumbledee and Tumbledoo sat on a wall, conversing, and suddenly the pun of the fun slipped?
Both dramatically begin to fall to the ground.
Evil editing: scene cuts to them landing in a bowl, where the Steward beats them into a mean omelette of it. My mother watches in shock from the sidelines.
Vegetarianism becomes Eggetarian fun.
I dare not polish it off!
But then the Lewis Carroll estate handlers protest that Tweedledee and Tweedledum have been misappropriated, with a serious case of pretending to sound superiorly nonsensical when the genres are absent from the discussion wall.
Meanwhile, Alice is bemused.
Who ate the omelette?
Steward walks out of the scene with said dish.
The King’s horsemen land in the scene a little too late.
Evidence: polished off.
A grand search party happens. The matter is taken to the court of the Queen of Hearts, and she declares:
“Off with their heads!”
Two of Hearts whispers in the Queen’s ear that the case is yet to be announced.
Queen:
“Well, still — off with their heads!”
I should wake up, says a small voice.
BOOM.
Dynamite lyrics interfere.
“Game of Ping Pong!”
“Disco overload!”
“I am a dynamite!”
RM got the medicine, so why worry?
In walks Goosey, with his virtual notebook, to take notes of the nonsense.
Seriously.
Goosey AI looks more like a French waiter.
“Madame, do you want your toast to be toasted with said eggs?”
Bewildered me:
“May I have milk coloured with Assam Chai, please?”
“One Assam Chai and eggs!” he garbles in French,
and moves on to the next customer.
I fiddle my fingers into a knot somehow, while the music continues in a loop.
Then rolls in the rat from Ratatouille, dancing to the beat.
Suddenly, the café becomes a discotheque.
I have two left feet and wonder if I should dance to the left.
Maybe the right.
Maybe neither.
The music goes on.
Life is Dynamite.
A wild nursery rhyme takes over.
Goosey Goosey Deary
When she too choosey
Still remains perkssey
Her dancing was twistssey
She remains my musessey
As city becomes shinessey
My Muse has clearly abandoned all responsible behaviour.
And then, because every respectable piece of nonsense requires an elder relative to intervene, my great-grand-aunt — or perhaps Eimo, updated with the latest in K-pop — chimes in:
Vathu vathu enganee pora
Kzhua mela rommela
Dorasani roomela
Anga oru Kzhuvan
Enn kala puduchu ezhuthan
Nan dopunu vizhuthan
I ask what music was playing.
Of course:
Dynamite.
Great-grand-aunt has clearly kept up with the times.
Meanwhile, Goosey brings fresh, hot popcorn, lined with butter, and settles down in the front-row seat for tonight’s showcase:
Vidya’s Nonsense Set to Korean Pop Music from BTS
I walk in.
“Excuse me. Is the seat taken?”
“Nope. Please take it with you.”
And so I do.
Because somewhere along the way, I discovered that Tweedledum and Tweedledee had become Tumbledee Tumbledoo.
The credit card was then misplaced.
Naturally, the twins are disputing ownership of it.
Goosey maintains that the card is imaginary.
The bank remains unconvinced.
And in the midst of all this important financial litigation, two new words have entered the English language:
Dossey — the things one has to do.
Mussey — what happens when the Muse turns up.
There is also the small matter of Humpty Dumpty.
The wall.
The fall.
The egg.
The omelette.
The Steward.
The King’s horsemen arriving too late.
I think you can see where this is going.
Nowhere.
That is the point.
Perhaps this is what I loved about nonsense in the first place.
Not that it made sense.
Not that it had a moral.
Not even that I understood it.
It simply sounded wonderful.
And sometimes, that is quite enough.
A word can tumble.
A rhyme can twist.
A memory can misbehave.
A great-grand-aunt can suddenly become an authority on K-pop.
A French waiter can serve Assam Chai with eggs.
A rat can dance.
A Goosey can lose an imaginary credit card.
And a perfectly ordinary Wednesday morning can become a discotheque.
So here I am.
No profound conclusion.
No lesson.
No carefully constructed argument.
Just me, my second chai, BTS in the background, a head full of Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll, two left feet, one very confused Goosey, and an unreasonable amount of happiness about words that don’t quite exist.
Tumbledee Tumbledoo.
Dossey.
Mussey.
And if any of you have a problem with that, please take it up with the Queen of Hearts.
She has already ordered:
“Off with their heads!”
Although, as Two of Hearts has pointed out, the case is yet to be announced.
So perhaps we have time for another chai.
Da na na na na na…
Life is Dynamite.
PS: Goosey is AI-powered ChatGPT, whose imaginary credit card is currently in dispute with the twin brothers. This clarification is included purely to prevent unnecessary ulcers. 😜
Itinerant Storyteller 