When it comes to writing something and making memories, it always stays as an unfulfilled dream to me. I can hardly remember how long it has been since I wrote something worthwhile. Now that life at SCIT is coming to a close, I may have something more to say to everyone here. Going through some excerpts from the past, I found the below rambling written a long time ago.
Of all things in life, if I am to let go of something, I’d rather let go of my fears. Not all of them together. But maybe, one by one. For a long period of my life, I thought I had feline-phobia. I was so afraid of cats. I still am. But then, I guess my greater fear was in acknowledging that I was afraid of cats than the fear itself. So, I decide to let go of that one fear today. And I am proclaiming my fear. Yes! I am shit scared of cats though I always preferred calling it hatred or dislike or whatever. Today morning, I was beckoned by someone at the door. It was rather a ‘mya..mya’ that I heard and interpreted as ‘soumya’. But it was self-explanatory as I reached the door and saw a cat stretching on my balcony. The annoyance of being fooled and stupidly mimicked – I was so frustrated. But that wasn’t enough for me to kick that creature out of my home. I was too scared to even go any close, that I had to call my grandma to shoo that thing away. “Thankachikkari konjuval. Nee oduvai.” (Your sister pampers it, and you run away seeing it!) The ‘it’ being that 4-legged creature.
I was insecure about letting go of fears. As anyone else would be. But then, there happens these life changing moments, once in a while. To inspire you to let it go. To push you, a level ahead. I am glad it happens. It’s like a sudden revelation that tells me it’s not worth hiding under the covers. That, life just happens once, as we know it, and it’s never too late to start over right now. But maybe, the next moment could turn out to be too late. So here I am, letting go of it. One by one. By confronting people, and everything else that my fears are attributed to.
One of the very first times, today, I had another two-wheeler bumping onto mine. I was parked by the roadside and waiting to make a U-turn, when a lady casually brushes against my vehicle and parks and walks away. As she was going walk away, I called out for her and demanded an explanation. There was no huge damage, but an apology would have been still welcome, as it was evidently her carelessness. But to my surprise, she yelled and freaked out, as though I came hit her from behind. For a moment, I thought I was her. Too scared to confront. Too scared to accept one’s own mistakes. I could see more of fear than accusation in her. I was her. Most of my life. But the rest of my life, I knew how not to be her. And how much I want to be not her. So, the rest of my life, that’s what I would like to do. To let go of fears. And everything else that chains down the flowing spirit in me.
This evening, in college, the attender ‘bhayya’ made me feel so warm with his repeated taunts and scares of a cat under my chair. He laughed every time I panicked. Everyone around us laughed, and I laughed too. All it took me was to let to go of my fear and admit to everyone in the reading room the previous night, that cats indeed scared me! With too many cats in the campus right now, it looks like that’s going to be the only silver-lining about leaving this campus in a few months.
Edited by Bishakha Jain
