Well July21, 2011 was another a-little-EXTRA-ordinary day in my life. There was action, emotion and off course a dab of drama all blended to perfection. I had fainted in a blood group test in our cell biology laboratory. I generally have a horrible time in situations with needles and blood, especially when you have to pierce yourself (this reminds me only and only of the Saw series). Still when I recall the first sensation when my mind realized that it was put in a situation in which it had to confront its greatest fear, a chill runs down my spine.
When I walked in the lab I was totally unaware of the fact that the next 20 minutes that were going to change the day’s peaceful morning into turmoil. I had come to a crunch when the teacher said the practical’s name. My mind was totally horrified when the teacher announced that the practical of the day was a blood group test. I had faced a similar situation in standard 12th when we had this practical. But with time fears had deepened. They had become grave. I was feeling the turmoil inside me. Meanwhile my mind had started its procedure of an instant power cut. While the teacher was explaining blood groups, I was fighting the worst enemy I have ever met, my own mind, which had totally succumbed to its fear. The silence was the strangest thing. Round me the morning continued; teachers teaching, students attending classes, ‘akkas and annas’ running placidly about their business….. But to me all had shrunk to the dimensions of the lab, the people in it and myself engaged in my soundless struggle, plunged and reared enormous.
I could feel the power fading in my cerebral township. I breathed hard and deep, tightened my fist with all my strength to pump up the power supply but of no use. I grinded my jaws together (in order to defy my mind’s proceedings). I was already running on an emergency back-up power. But the mind was powerful. Fighting some 30 billion neurons, bewitched in their own over-whelming fear, is not that easy. Just like an entire city’s myriad and intricate systems like the transport system, the sophisticated communications setup, etc., are plunged into darkness by a single power outage, my whole conscious network of high nerve centers stopped. And I was dragged into darkness. I even did not realize when my shutters had closed. I had fainted. In my state of unconsciousness I felt like the struggle and anxiety and everything was just a dream. In the dream the battle continued. Here, it seemed that the dream was the reality and the reality the dream. But as it is said that sooner or later though we all have to wake up, I regained consciousness. As the power supply returned the blur vision cleared and I could see some faces glaring at me so inquisitively as if I was some alien creature and that my spaceship had crashed in their locality. But our lab teacher was smiling. His smile was like the one portrayed by the actor who played the role of Shree Krishna in Mahabharata. He was as cool as a cucumber. I faintly murmured him that I wasn’t okay with this experiment and I wanted to go to my hostel, looking apologetically at him as his class was held because of me. When my motor reflexes got a little stronger I got up and walked out the lab. I was a little toddling but I was greatly relieved that I escaped out of the room which then seemed to me no less than a dungeon and I was put to test similar to that in which ‘Jigsaw’ puts people (you have to cut yourself, bleed in order to live). It had similar elements of violence and psychological disturbance. I stood uncertainly for a moment detaching myself from the scene, from the morning, from the malignantly smiling teacher.
Consequently I hit the headlines that day in my department. Well to be true, I would say it was one of the embarrassing days of my life. As Preeti Shenoy in her book ’34 bubblegums and candies’ says that life is sometimes like a candy, sweet and tasty, but it is also sometimes like a bubblegum which you chew and chew, and the bubble you blow bursts out unexpectedly and you are left with a sticky mess, I have realized that people are too busy minding their own lives than to bother laughing at you. And hence I treat it like yesterday’s newspaper.
