Disclaimer: The events described in this post are not fictitious, but real. Any similarity to any person is true. If my description of the said persons/events sounds fictitious to you, that is merely coincidental. I assume no responsibility for it. Why should I??
I was walking home last night after a puzzling encounter with a professor. He seems to be suffering from Multiple Personality Disorder or something. Nothing else can explain the wide variety of behaviours up his sleeve. This prof would be the best fit for the title bestowed by Mahesh on Anoop - "Navarasa Nayaka". Suddenly, I realised that many other people around me displayed mysterious behaviour, and I thought it nice to share my observations with you. Almost all of us behave differently in response to events, but some behaviours and triggers are mysterious. Read on.
Irritata Lingua Differendum
Some people switch languages when irritated or angry. Reverse engineering principles help you know when they are irritated. Let's start from home. I have never known Dad to speak English with me except when there's somebody around who doesn't know Malayalam. Or yeah, except when he's annoyed with me. He scolds me in English. I don't know why - it's just mysterious. I don't think he knows why, either. If he says "Monu, come here", I know I'm in neck-deep trouble. Another indicator is calling me by name. He's called me by name maybe 5 times since I was born(and one of those was during my naming ceremony). He does it only when he's seconds away from strangling me for some brainless thing I did. Therefore, I better take the first flight, train, bus, cycle or rocket leaving Bangalore when he says "Sreejith, come here". Totally unexplained.
Amma is different. She can scold me in chaste Malayalam for hours together(No kidding. Once she scolded me so long I slept off twice in between and she was not done yet when I woke up). But when she switches to Tamil, it's bad news for the house-maid, vegetable vendor, broomstick seller, etc. Not that she doesn't know Kannada. Just mysterious why she would want to scold only those people in Tamil. I can already hear something like "Sreejith, what is this?" with some fluent Malayalam prose interspersed with bits of Tamil in the background, therefore let's go post haste to the next section.
Irritata Chronoma
Some people react mysteriously at certain times. I've been with some of these people for hours preceding the said behaviour, and I can vouch that it was not triggered by an event.
I have a friend who is now married and living in Bombay with an equally puzzled husband. While in college, we used to study long hours together with other friends at the public library in Malleshwaram. Usually, she was the life of the gang(still is), joyful, jolly and unbelievably funny. But every couple of weeks or so, she had to get her batteries recharged or something. She would go all depressed and snapping at all of us, until we backed away with hands raised above our heads. She would be fine in a few days, only to repeat the cycle. One of my friends told me something scary about the moon and behaviours that made me shiver in the hot sun on a terrible May afternoon. Mysterious.
We had a teacher in 6th standard. She was the favourite teacher in the whole school, very friendly and lively. We were a class of boys and we played numerous pranks and all that, but never got punished for it. She was that cool. Except that she would stop talking to the class a few days at a time once in a while. She used to talk and laugh with other teachers and all, but refused to talk to us. She would come to class, read out the textbook and leave. No smile, nothing. Some of us even went into minor depressions when that happened. Not me, though. Unsolved to this day.
There was a conductor on a BMTC bus that plied near my home. I loved the trip on that bus back from school. I used to wait for that bus everyday, missing the one that came 10 minutes earlier. Almost all days I travelled on that one. Yeah, almost. Somedays the conductor used to cuff me on the ears and push me out of the bus after looking at my bus pass, and somedays he would grin widely and talk to me until we reached my stop. I never unravelled that mystery.
Functiona identity crisisum
Some people experience identity crises while attending family functions(What else would explain the question "Tell me, Mone. Who am I?"). Especially the old people. They would then ask me to identify them. For example, at a cousin's wedding last year, I was approached by a man who looked vaguely like my grandfather's third brother(I don't know whether he was my grandfather's third younger or third elder brother), and asked me to identify him. As I started sputtering and babbling, pretending to choke over a cup of palpayasam, he started laughing. Mission accomplished(This is much worse with elderly female relatives. If you do not correctly identify them, they tell the whole gathering of the obnoxious thing you did to their clothes when you were only a month old. And you stand there with a sheepish look on your face and a cup of palpayasam in hand, amidst the peals of feminine laughter. It's unnerving. Fortunately, they also mention your age at the time of the said incident. Else just imagine!!) I undergo so many of these identification parades during each family function, that I think these people start fighting among themselves(Me first!! No, me first!!) as soon as I walk into the hall. Mysterious. Why do they do this?
I can think of many more mysterious instances, but this is reasonable length for a post. Will tell you the rest later. Have you noticed such mysteries anytime? Please tell us on the comments section.
Stay safe and stay healthy until next time.
Ciao
2 comments:
Very very well narrated!!! After reading this i could relate few of them to my experiences as well... Your 6th std teacher... coincidentally, my 6th class teacher was very similar!!! And my mom calls me with my name when she's angry... n i guess i know the reason why... May be, tey try to induce a sense of fear with that tone and warn us to be prepared for whts coming next.... While you have a professor with multiple personality disorder, i have someone who has "short term memory loss" coz of which i sometimes get lucky and escape his badgerings....
Thanks Divya.. Yeah ur right.. My dad's tone when he's angry is blood-curdling.. :D
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