Calvin and Neil...

My 5 and somethn yr old cousin is extremely imaginative.
With each passing day he is gaining experience too vast to be controlled and rationalized by the machine fitted sumwhere inside his head and as a result he has brought my favourite comic strip character “Calvin” to life! He talks,walks,acts exactly like calvin,making up stories and imagining himself to be in a setup non-existent physically but hundred percent present for him; and he knows details of every nook and corner of his set, of how the latest model cars are moving about on the road, how the taxi-s and auto-walas are being indignant , how the buses are creating a commotion and how his car, wid himself in the driver’s seat, is stuck yet again in heavy traffic!
He (Neil) is obsessed these days with this kind of play and ends up spending hours in his designated position, imagining, thinking, observing and perfectly playing his part. There’s a certain observation I’ve made—while calvin ends up in a spaceship and on some strange planet with dinosaur like creatures for aliens, my neil prefers Calcutta roads, especially the ones he frequents as he goes to and returns home from school, and you’ll find him in the new car his dad’s bought or even in an aeroplane!!! Yes, he does include runways on which there are traffic lights that remain red for hours, as opel corsas and wagon R’s and taxis have their fair share of hullabaloo and as he is forced to take lunch or dinner. So, even if it delays the flight he is piloting he can at least be somewhat sure of it not running…er..flying away in his absence!
The striking similarity between the comic character and his real life manifestation is motion and commotion! Motion as in calvin’s space craft, neil’s airplane or maruti ; commotion as in calvin’s aliens, neil’s rowdy taxis and traffic lights on runways! However, I am yet to realize what is my brother’s hobbes,but I have a very uncanny feeling that it might as well be myself! I am the only physically present at the spot being who has been a part of the fantastic plays he directs, and I am being overflown by emotions as I write this cos now I can rarely give him time and family issues are such that nobody is bothered, on my maternal side, about either him or me…
Neil has been an essential part of my life and I of his. We have loved and craved for each other and I hope we continue to do so until ,and even after, he finds himself a hobbes or the planet calvin’s already on…who knows, neil might be the saviour captain calvin has been awaiting for years now…or a female hobbes maybe, or a best friend, or a new means of transport, or a film director…