Millipede and Magic Wand

My daughter opened the car window and put her head out. I started admonishing her, in a well-rehearsed motherly way, but she asked me to hear her story first. “Amma, I will open window and jump out, police will catch me in a net.” In a net!!! Some imagination, I thought. But she had more of the kind. “Police will put me in jail. Then I wave my magic wand and I become a millipede. There is a hole in jail and I will crawl out. I wave my magic wand again, I become Saanya. You open window and I will jump into the car.” She stated with her eyes glowing. She was proud of having thought it through. I was proud of her knowledge. She knew – well, something about arthropods at least, that they can crawl through holes, for whatever that knowledge is worth. And more importantly, she knew what police is all about.

There is something self-effacing about a millipede. I know nothing about them, except that they seem to have a whole lot of legs, which, paradoxically enough, don’t carry them far. Do they really have 1000 legs as the name claimed? I doubted without curiosity. They don’t bite, they don’t sting. They don’t make much noise. They (at least one species of them) curl into a ball at the least provocation. That is how they defend themselves apparently. In a fetal position with all their legs well tucked in, they wait for the predator to pass. What would I do if I turned into a millipede, I wondered aimlessly. I could roll into a ball, conceal myself in a little forgotten crevice, hide from genuine and imaginary threats. There is an escapist in me who craves for it.

“Amma,” a plaintive voice broke into my random fantasies. “But my magic wand is not working. There is no light.” “Yes, that is true.” I agreed.

“We need new batteries.” She surmised from the situation. “Can we buy it from Carrefour today? Please amma…”

Should I tell her that her magic wand is a worldly contraption which cannot really do magic? That any amount of “bippity boppity boos” will not change her to a millipede? That there will never be a big enough hole for her to crawl out?

I decided not to. I took the defunct wand from her hand and did a perfunctory wave. Nothing happened. I would not have minded a little magic in my life. A little incantation that can clear the muddle in my cupboards, kitchen, and mind…. a wand that would make my mirror say “you are the fairest of them all”……a magic brew that can make my little spelling struggler (who has problems spelling C-A-T and H-A-T) be a master of R-A-T-A-T-O-U-I-L-L-E and A-P-P-O-G-G-I-A-T-U-R-A. There are no limits to magic.

“Amma, we are home.” She woke me up from my reverie again. We bundled out of the car, me, her, bag, bottle, fairy costume, magic wand, unrealized magic, etc. I opened the door and a tiny glitter of stardust preceded us home. I looked around, a little awed. Perhaps we don’t need those new battery cells after all.