100 Rays Of Son - 34

Another Mouse Tale

When I shifted to Bangalore after Rayyan’s PG experience, Rayyan had an independent room for himself for the first time. He was very busy working on his projects and drawing, so I left him alone without bothering him much.

Usually moms are scared to surprise teen children on laptop for the fear of catching them watching porn, which has never been my problem. I can say that I have never caught Rayyan watching porn so I am always free to enter his room anytime I want. Often I get to see animated movies or batman comics on his laptop. I do not knock on his door, because Rayyan rarely closes his room door. He was almost completing his animation course in Arena and was working hard, even ignoring his food at times. So I would often go there to give him a glass of milk or juice. Imagine my shock when I entered his room one day to see a mouse near his head on the curtain. It was climbing up and down as though it owned the curtain. I shrieked and scared Rayyan.

“What is it Maa?” he asked. I said in a panicky tone, “Move fast, there is a mouse near your head on the curtain”. I could see that Rayyan found this very amusing. He laughed out and asked, “So, what will that poor mouse do to me?” Just a year ago, a huge rat had got into his cupboard and nibbled many of his precious clothes. Instead of killing it, Rayyan had forced us to chase it out. Jerry had chewed a lot of wires and things, yet he was asking this question again. As I think over this I realize something else as well, “Do you know there was a mouse on that curtain?” I ask worried, “Yes Maa, I know it is there. It usually crawls up and down there and lives on my window. It is not troublesome at all”. I am kind of shocked and also fear for his sanity. May be too much of hard work has hurt his mental condition I think, but I stand there without much expression so that I can hear more about what is going on.  I get to know that there was this tiny baby mouse on the window and Rayyan left it alone there for quite some time now. Slowly, it became familiar with him and moved around freely. He occasionally gave it some bit of food as well. I say in a firm tone, as firm as I can manage because I see where this is going, “Rodents are pests Rayyan. You cannot have them in your room. They cause diseases and make the place dirty. Get rid of it now”. “No maa, look the window is not dirty at all. It is all clean. Moreover it doesn’t stay here all the time”. I check the window and find it clean and no trace of mouse shit or anything on the window or the curtain. After few more half-hearted words and sentences I leave him alone.

In a month Rayyan finished his animation course and he went to Dubai with my brother’s family for 40 days before taking up a job. Surprisingly he never told me not to trouble or feed the mouse. Since his room was open, the mouse was free to roam in and out of the house. It was not like a pet or something, but just loved that curtain or that is what I felt.

On the fourth day, my sister’s youngest son visited me. I found him shrieking in fear and saw that the mouse had ran out of the room and was going around him. I calmed him down, and soon it disappeared. Few days later it was out again near the delivery boy’s leg. It kind of looked like it was searching for Rayyan. I did not want to think like that because I couldn’t believe this and if it was not happening right in front of me, there was no way I would believe it ever. Later I realized that it comes out at the sight of jeans because I saw it near the jeans I had brought in after wash.

At that time, I was studying with Rama Mylapore who was my classmate. As we were discussing something I told her about the mouse. She wouldn’t believe it either and I felt so silly narrating this to her. After few days, she visited me to discuss few notes and papers we were working on. As she sat on the sofa, out came the mouse and started looking at her. She shrieked and had her legs up the sofa and was damn scared for sure. I realized what had happened because this had become a normal thing since Rayyan left, and Rama was wearing jeans. I told her, this was the mouse I was talking about and she need not be scared. It will go away once it realizes that she not the person it is looking for. By the time I finished my sentence, the mouse had disappeared again. She was in awe of what she had seen and said, “You are blessed to have Rayyan as your son. This is like Ganesha’s blessing for me”. The whole thing had shaken her quite a lot.

That was the last time I had seen the mouse. It was around for nearly a month after Rayyan left but then just vanished. I told Rayyan about his mouse leaving home and he said “OK”. That’s all? No asking questions, no regrets, not being proud of earning its affection? Nothing? I was confused again as I am always with Rayyan’s responses to situations. His love for animals is quite unique and different where he connects with them but never wants them to be with him forever.