One thing she enjoyed the most, however on summer evenings, unlike school days, was watching television uninterrupted. On school days TV time was rationed. But, lo, again during vacation she couldn’t watch it as uninterrupted as she wanted to. Why? Because of the biggest villain — the POWER CUT!!!
Power cuts were a daily routine during that time and li’l Alice hated it more than anything when it ate into her TV time on the National channel. The soap operas would be telecast only for a few hours, that too only till 10 at night. How insensitive on the part of the electricity board!
As there was nothing else to do during “the hour”, the whole family would take a trip upstairs. It was especially pleasant when the moon was out. They would carry a mat and lie down watching the skies. Sometimes, Appa and Rachel tried to figure out the constellations and then Rachel would go into raptures about the wonders of the universe. It was her secret wish to work for NASA. Although, all these things were beyond Alice’s comprehension she still listened to it keenly.
At other times they would play a word game...something like a scrabble but without the board. Appa would start with a letter from the alphabet, then construct a word and with the last letter the next person would construct another word. This game helped li’l Alice to learn a lot of words and often, she was awestruck at the number of words others around her knew. This was also the occasion for Rachel to do her verbal parade and Alice was always jealous when she did that, as Amma and Appa would appreciate Rachel more....
“Honorificabilitudinitatibus” said Rachel with all the pride of a sesquipedalian. “She sells sea shells on the sea shore... “ shouted out li’l Alice in an attempt to outdo her sister. “That’s not a word Alice...” said Rachel “ that’s a tongue twister- don’t you know the difference? Duh!” “Then you should be using words people use...” replied an agitated Alice. “This, for your kind information, my dear sis, is something the great writer Shakespeare used”. That felt like the unkindest cut of all to li’l Alice. Mustering her wounded pride she declared “I’m not playing with you anymore” and left the arena.
Although Amma was asking them to stop the argument and not to be silly, Alice refused to join the game. She wanted to go downstairs but was too afraid of the dark. So she settled herself in a corner observing the stars while the others continued with the game. To her amazement she saw something moving in the sky. Forgetting that she was angry, she ran to them and pointed out a shooting star plummeting through the sky. She knew that her mom considered it as ill luck but Alice secretly believed that it was lucky.
In her excitement she uttered her wish aloud. “ I wish I could travel on a shooting star and reach the moon”. She had always loved the Frank Sinatra song “Fly me to the moon...” her father played on the tape recorder. It had opened a universe of possibilities to her. But to her dismay, Rachel began with her argumentation - with her rockets, NASA, Neil Armstrong and the scientific impossibility of Alice’s whole project. Although angry with her sis once again, Alice knew that Rachel is right and remained quiet. There was a smile on li’l Alice’s lips, however, and slowly did a “moonwalk” when no was watching cause in her mind she was riding on the shooting star from one planet to the next in a jiffy. Power cut was not a bad thing at all after all li’l Alice realised. It could make her “dream-magine” at least and she laughed!
