Monday, July 8, 2019

My Phobia My Friend


“Hippopoto-Monstro-sesquipedalio-phobia” is the word for “Fear of long words”. Sounds absurd right?
Well, by definition phobia is an anxiety disorder that causes irrational fears. There are many crazy phobias in the world, but the latest and also the stupidest on the list is “Namophobia”, which is the fear of being without cellphones.
Three years ago in UK, a bunch of demophobics – i.e people who fear being in crowds, joined hands to come up with a solution to address their fear, which we now know it as “Brexit”
Jokes apart, phobias are serious but therapies do help if one can afford. So my option is either try to work around or make peace with your phobia.
I went for a second option. Well I have a phobia towards an imaginary friend. Not mine, but others imaginary friend.
The first incident happened when I was six. It was a Sunday night. I was playing with my friend at her house. It was just me, her and her ancient-looking granny in the house when the power went off. So we lit the candle in the living room and sat on the chairs. "If there was the power we could have played catch," I said. "We still can. See” she picked a ball and gently rolled straight into the dark room in front of us. I was confused, but after a few seconds, like a scene out of some bloody horror movie, the ball came out of the darkroom rolling towards us and stopped right at my feet. I asked her in a shivering voice “Who is in there?” she said” That’s my friend Kaya. Oh…you can't see her. Only I can”. I had a strange reaction to the situation. I fainted. I was down with fever for a week and when I woke up my mother told me that the family had shifted to a different town and I asked: "Did they take kaya with them?”
The second instance when I was forcefully made aware of someone’s imaginary friend happened 7 years ago. My friend left her 6-year-old daughter to me to babysit for a few hours. We played for some time and then I opened my laptop to work and she sat down to do some drawings. After some time she held a paper in front of my face. The coloured sketch showed a man and a girl holding hands and one more girl standing a bit far from these two. Though the sketch looked bit ominous, I said “wow, that’s nice". “This is you” she pointed to an eerie figure of a man. "This must be you," I said pointing to the girl next to the man. She said “No. I am here and pointed to another figure standing far”.
“Oh. So who is this?”
“That’s my friend. She likes you”.
“That’s sweet. Have I met her? What’s her name?”.
 “Her name is Kaya. Oh, you can’t see her”
Blood started draining from my face.  “Sweetheart do you and your friend mind if I go out and make some calls?” After an hour my friend Anita met me at the door.
“Are you crazy? You have called me 14 times. “Sorry. It’s serious. Your friend has an imaginary daughter”. 
“What?”
“I mean. Your daughter has an imaginary friend. “Are you insane?” she asked.
 “Your daughter is the one with an imaginary friend. Not me"
"It is quite natural to have an imaginary friend at that age for a girl. I don't know why that freaks you out". “Samy. Come out we are leaving.” Can I request Samy to take kaya with her, please?
Last week, I came late to home, but right in time to tuck my daughter in. So I went to her room and lied down next to her only to hear her shriek "Go away, you are crushing my friend”. I quickly got up and said, “I don’t see any toys”. “Not toy. It's my friend”. “Honey. Where is your friend?” silence “What is her name?” no response. “Is it Kaya?”. “I like that name Daddy”. And she turns and asks “Did you like it too?” Unlike before, this time I had no escape, I had only one option – to embrace my Phobia.  So, my dear Toastmasters and guests, I am not sure she is here, but if she is, I present you “Kaya”.

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Flight of Fury

I came back from vacation two weeks ago. Two weeks is what it took me to come back to normal after the traumatic flight travel. You know what is bad about flying in economy class? Its everything. But It is super bad if you are sitting next to those young parents with kids who look like they are in constant battle throughout the flight trying to calm their kids, cleaning their mess while they themselves are covered in vomit. But the worst part is when you are one of such parent. So two weeks back I was in that worst position, as I flew with my twins to Sydney.

To avoid flying with kids I proposed alternatives to my wife. Like for example I upgrade to business class and the rest come in economy, or probably sailing, or to leave them in India till they can travel on their own. Yes, my wife thought the same that I was joking. So I did not tell her my other idea of dressing them in dog costume. I asked my doctor brother in law to give some sleep inducing medicine to kids, so that I survive the flight. He was against it, because as per him, the kids may sleep during the flight but will get very cranky later. So, I asked him to give those to me, so that I get knocked out while they are cranky in the flight. Now my wife was against it.

Finally the day I dreaded arrived, we loaded all our suitcases in one car and sat with kids in another car. Now why one car dedicated only for the luggage, is because we got 40 plus 7 kilos for each of us including kids. We were 5 of us were allowed to carry quarter of a ton.  So to make the most of it, my wife packed everything her eyes laid on. At least this is one relief of not flying in first class, because my wife would have packed half of the city in to it.

After checking in a ton of suitcases and dancing in front of the security, we sat in the flight only to realise that one of the cabin luggage was checked in by mistake. The one that had diapers, tissues and extra pair of kids cloths. Immediately we started doing what any other sensible couple does, we each try to prove that the other did this. Naturally, as a woman, my wife has photographic memory, so the argument was settled in less than a minute and everyone in the flight hated me for what I have done.

As if my twins understood that we don’t have extra nappies and pair of cloths, they immediately got on their mission to drink and eat more than they do when they were on land. We had 5 hours ahead of us for a change over, and two rapidly filling diapers. Thankfully the race between the flight and diapers was a tie. We managed to buy some diapers and essentials in Singapore, before boarding the next flight to Sydney. But the problems were far from over. My son has motion sickness, so he kept throwing up on me once in a while. Apparently that’s what the kids do, they vomit everywhere except in the air sickness bag that is provided. Both kids got restless in the flight, despite the entertainment we provided and they did not let us sleep throughout the night. The nine hours seemed to have taken forever, as if I was stuck in a ground hog day.

When we landed in Sydney, we all were looking like zombies. We just wanted to reach home, get freshen up and sleep for sometime. But as the luck would have it, we spent an hour in the airport waiting for a suit case that was left over by the airlines in Singapore. We had practically ticked everything in the immigration checklist like dairy, wood, medicines, illegal weaponaries everything that is there in the list. But when the security officer asked me to open a suitcase, my son weakly steps ahead and starts throwing up. The security officer looked at us and says, okay just take your bags and leave. That moment, I was so proud of my son, I thought if only I was a drug dealer this act could have been so justified.

We arrived home bit later than expected, but it took more than 2 weeks for us to get back to normal. 
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A Long List of Shortcomings


Below is the speech that won me first place in Humorous speech contest in Toast Masters.

A Wise man once said “If you want to know your flaws / shortcomings, point one of your wife’s flaws and she will point ten of yours”. But I say why to risk pointing even one? My dear Toast Masters, Contest chair and guests, last night I asked my wife to point out my shortcomings. I know it sounds like turkeys begging for Christmas. But I had my reasons to do that. I was working on a “self-deprecating humour speech” and as a first step I wanted to list my short comings. I sat for hours, but I could not think of a single one. I was both happy and sad at the same time. Then I thought, who could be better than my wife to tell my own shortcomings. So last night, after putting the kids to bed, I asked my wife if she can help me with this. She got so thrilled. She got so excited, that I got terrified. It was a long night for me. The astonishing part was the fluency on the subject, that she took only one break, to brush her teeth in the morning. She just wanted to help, that’s it. She also wrote a speech reference for me.(Prop: Releasing a lengthy roll of paper with lot of words in it).

 It is quite exhaustive with date and time stamp and dates back to our first meeting. I will give you few examples

  • Cant remember things. True, because she gave tonnes of examples for this and I don’t remember any of them.
  • Cant find things…No….This list is full of husband stereotypes like cant’ remember, can’t find things, doesn’t do dishes, doesn’t’ take care of dogs…wait that’s not true… coz I love dogs….and…. we don’t have dogs!!… Oh sorry…its not dogs its kids. My mistake. Must be true then.
  •     Wastes money on unnecessary items. This is about the Google Home I bought home. I was not happy with that either, because every time I ask a question, I get two responses. The second response is always from…any guesses??… from Google Home. I returned to the store and got full refund when I sighted that this box is not as accurate as my wife. Don’t believe me!! Sunday morning, wanted to play cricket, I asked “Okay google, what is the weather like”.
  •    “Doesn’t know how to argue”. Argument is a multi-dexterous skill that involves recollecting past events and linking to the present events and building a case on it while one is angry. Unfortunately evolution skipped this skill for men. So I don’t want to argue, I don’t remember when I have won. The last time I won an argument, I was made to believe that I had won an argument. Honestly,I believe we men have more odds of winning a lottery than winning an argument.

So let me not follow the script and share with you just two of the interesting shortcomings.


1)      Why do you care, you are not going to go out!
2)      28 degrees, sunny, Parramatta

But that morning was wet. For me, because I spent scrubbing the bathroom tiles.

Anyways, in the morning, I woke up late with a slight headache. Not sure why. I took a quick shower, and when I came out, I was surprised. Because my clothes were pressed, lunch was packed and the kids were looking clean. The best part was my was all cheerful and happy. That made me realised, it is very easy to make your woman happy. You just have to listen, pay attention… sometimes. Sometimes she might just have a point.

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