My Thoughts !

Now a days, I'm becoming very much absent minded. Should blame my work pressure & personal problems I guess. Things like losing bike key, losing the house key was happening for sometime. The peak was going to office without switching off the stove. I kept the milk vessel in the stove to heat it and completely forgot it. I locked the house and went to office. I knew it only when the security in our apartments told me when I returned by 11 pm. The milk completely dried out and the remains started of a fire inside the vessel. The flames were 3 feet high. Our neighbours noticed the fire and immediately told our apartment office. They quickly brought a ladder and reached our kitchen window and turned off the stove with a stick. The fire was then put off with an extinguisher. I was thinking how lucky. 4 feet above the left burner was the wood work for Aqua Guard & shelf and I used the right side burner. My neighbours were at home and they noticed the fire. The office persons were able to find a ladder.

Apart from losing a vessel, there was no damage at all - I thought. I was wrong. Terribly wrong. Somehow it created a mental barrier in me against using the stove. I stopped cooking! I couldn't overcome it for almost one and a half months. I know this is all bull shit and I have to come back to normal somehow. Few times I'd make up my mind; go near the stove to prepare coffee; stare it for 2 mins; and then come out of the kitchen. Even on weekends either we ordered food for lunch or Viv cooked. I didn't know how to come out of this. This friday, we were talking about the plan of going to Anu's house for lunch. She was not feeling well for the whole week and said we'll have next week. Then suddenly I did this. I invited her and everyone for a lunch on saturday. Dinesh, Chaithaya, Anu & Jo said they will be coming.

Today Viv went to office; Kich went home, so no one was at home. I bought vegetables, cleaned all vessels, and kept everything ready. But I couldn't start cooking. Jo & Anu came. I was talking to them and a parallel thread was running in my mind - should I ask them to cook? It was like getting into a cold river on a early morning of a winter. You know that the water will be freezing cold. You know that the moment you get into the water, you'll feel the chillness for a less than a minute and then you'll be fine. But still, you can't get into the water just like that. Thoughts will be running in your mind like should I swim or go back home and take a shower in hot water. With all these thoughts, at a fine moment, you'll close your eyes and dive into the water. For me, getting back to cooking was very much like this. With all my thoughts that I'm not going to make this time also, I lighted the stove and kept the cooker with dhal. Then I felt ha! thats it. The next one hour I was enjoying it. Yes! I'm cooking again. Yes! I'm cooking again. Yes! I'm cooking again.

I know that I'm not an invulnerable guy, at the same time I've expressed a good amount to mental strength a lot of times. Esp. when Hughes turned down the offer and left us jobless, I was surprised by the way I reacted to the situation, comparing to others. I was in Bangalore and seaching job. I was very particular about my job. I never wanted to enter a consultancy company and the nature of job I'm going to do was also important. To worsen the situation, after few months, my dad decided that its a waste of time and asked me to come back and join teacher training. I can't really blame him. Sitting in a remote village, all he knew was software industry is no more a prospective one after the dot com bust & 9/11 attacks. The ordeal lasted for 6 months and finally I got a job without sacrificing my job requirements. (Jobs infact. Got two offers at the same day evening) When I looked back how I was in the past 6 months, I've handled the situation pretty well. Back in those days I've even gone to an extend that Me and Ganesh were discussing the possibility of starting a corporate training center!

I don't understand this. If I can handle the darkest days of life so easily, what made me so weak that I can't handle this stupid just-nothing thing?