Second Prize again. Unintended and serious. No humour, not even a fleeting pass made at it. Still, how it managed I cannot comprehend neither do I want to. Just kept typing and this is what came out.


I like nonsense -- it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living. It's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope...and that enables you to laugh at all of life's realities.

-- Theodor S. Geisel, a.k.a. "Dr. Seuss"

The human mind is an ensemble of imagination and creativity. We derive some of our most original innovative ideas out of directionless pondering. Our carefully cultivated conventions of rationale, logic and reason nod in collective disapproval at some of our aimless thoughts.  Still, they emerge in an invisible trickle in our hours of leisure and spiritual freedom. A welcome respite from the daily drudgery and resounding monotony in our lives, these delicate droplets of fanciful notions gift us with insight. We enrich ourselves unknowingly in their presence.

In the name of 'Nonsense' the rational mind wards off challenges from the inviting appeal of imagination. The idols of calculative logic, motive and profit avoid confrontations with the raw instincts of supposition and imagery. Childhood is the time where our imagination runs wild, sometimes stumbling over the hurdles of hard-baked realities of the adult world. In those days of fertile fancies our minds shoot up the horizon and soar like a kite defiant in the face of a storm. Adults inculcate reason in us and through the turbulent times of adolescence we finally 'survive' the threats of imagination. The teenage years of a man's life sees the last of these fanciful flights and with approaching adulthood we bury the corpse of our caprices.  

Sometimes though, the human intellect, dextrous as ever, finds alternate avenues to amuse itself silly. Who can deny the blissful experience while we indulge in 'baby talk' with a toddler? Who can resist an enticing dance floor, promising to cleanse us of all our immediate anxieties through the sweaty exhaustion of untrained gyrations? Who can tell me, why we scream our lungs out at a rock concert even when we are careful of our volumes in informal parties. Why do we feel light inside after we have a hearty laugh at the silliest of jokes from our friends. Why do we like to 'entertain' our guests with unassuming cordiality and candour when it is much more than a couple of pegs that dares inebriate us. This is because we enjoy our moments of 'mindlessness'. It is unadulterated fun for the mind. The brain gets tired of calculating profit all the time and it revels in 'fantasies' and 'nonsense'. Chess is a taxing game but swimming liberates from within.

Fantasy lures the pot-bellied, mid-life crisis ridden 'baniyaa' to fantasize his evenings in Paris with a teenage beauty queen. The raging hormones of a teenager find ex-pression in his discovery of lust. The most loving and committed of partners steal an occasional glance to appreciate passing nubility or machismo. Sexual fantasies are no exception to the asexual ones. They are the methods of the mind to escape the constant demands of reality and indulge in reverie for a fleeting moment.

'Nonsense' is a sedative which switches off the mind to its workload. It seduces the dormant fertility in us to resurface and recovers our simple joys. It recharges our mind and soul and reinvigorates our sagging senses. Our fantasies, when isolated from the rigid ideals of 'established morality' gifts us with salvation and deeper understanding of ourselves. The flight of the mind is to be relished. It is not to be bound by chains of ethics and compulsions but treasured for its ability to conjure bliss out of nothing. The faculty of the human mind to 'fantasize nonsense' should be celebrated and revered as it elevates us to higher level of sagacity keeping within the domains of 'permissible human follies'.

I therefore completely support the fragment of thought propagated by Dr. Seuss in his lines glorifying 'nonsense' and 'fantasy'.