Life Rolls
My Fear

During my school days I had fear on various things, I would attribute this is films. Let me go one by one.

Railway Track Switch fear: I use to go to school by electric train from Chromepet to chepat. To reach the road we took a short route by crossing a rail road track at 2 major points. These 2 major points had track switches where trains often change tracks. But After seeing the movie “Yadon ke barath” I literally avoided rail way lines for about 3 years fearing I would be stuck in the switch. I use to take the steps about an extra mile walk.

Cow Fear: This fear came to me after watching the movie “komatha engal kulamatha”. I started to believe cows to be a very intelligent being. I came to this strong conclusion after seeing the cow stopping a train by carrying a red signal lamp in the movie; also cow in that movie had great interrogation ability even Mossad or KGB or CIA failed to posses. It was able to find bad buys by just looking at them, it would nod its head left to right with its bells jingling, and so when ever I saw a cow, I was worried it would find the bad guy in me.

Quick Sand fear: In 70s and early 80s there were tons of movies which often ended a villain’s or heroine’s life in quick sand. They will be buried into the slimy slush with some mind blowing strings and shenai musical sections. The last thing to go in would be the hands. in madras during rainy season pot holes were quite common. I feared all this pot holes to be quick sand. All of them looked to me as though there were waiting to gobble me in no time. In fact my school back pack had a small sized rope, just in case if I fall in one of them I can use it to come out. I used to drop a wooden stick to first check if it is quick sand, I would jump over pot holes of any size. I must have pursued my jumping ability at that time to be another “Annavi”.

I had many fears during my school days. At a point of time I was more or less like Tenali, “mAdu bayam”, “train track bayam”, “pothakuzi bayam”, “pAmbubayam”, “nattuvAkiLi bayam” etc. However as time passed I was able to over come most them.

However, There was one more big fear that is yet to be cured but well contained; I was not like every other kid when it came to "speech".

Much More to come…