Friday, September 19, 2008

Walking Down Memory Lane... Part 1

Lately, i have been reminiscing my childhood days a lot. Though,i am not a person with a photographic memory, my childhood days are quite vivid images. And my brother's recent visit to Australia has rekindled my treasured old memories as we talked quite in detail of our mischievousnesses:p So i have decided to inscribe the wonderful moments of my childhood in my blog. As i was thinking on a good starter, my friend today was presenting a lesson on frogs which instantly rung a bell. And i suddenly realised, that when i talk about my childhood 'my unexpected incidents' with frogs are inevitable.

Even, till today frogs are my greatest fear. I think i can still maintain my composure running into a snake or a tiger but not frogs. Even, the very sight of them makes my knees go weak (doesn't have any romantic connotations). Till, now the feelings remains the same and i can't figure out whether i'm scared of them or just repulsed at them. But believe me when i say i can puke at their sight and the feeling is indescribable( i mean it's really reaaaaallllly horrible). I think i have batrachophobia (phobia of amphibians)
Since i was brought up in a village, frogs were common visitors and my mum even believed that frogs bring fortune (like mahalakshmi or whatever). And we grew up surrounded by this ugly creatures and i have no clue on how i developed a phobic of them as all the elders in my family could 'pick' the frogs from the floor and throw them outside. Even, my sister who is two years younger than me would play golf with them (No..i'm not exaggerating.. k. She would hit the frog with broom and there goes the frog flying..eeww). Despite of all the 'brave' people around me, the frogs always picked me as their victim and i just don't know why (my brother says that i have some kind of unsettled karma issues from previous birth with frogs).
The first issue (yup..there are few 'issues' with frogs) was when i think i was 6 years old. It was a morning and out of the blue, i woke up early (fateful day:p) and came out of my room and realised nobody was awake yet. So being too lazy to go back to my room, climbing the bed i decided to lie down on the floor in the kitchen. And at that time i had super curly hair( thanks to my dad who wanted to make me to look good and 'fashionable'..arghh). So, as i was lying down this damned creature was hopping around and god only knows what it thought looking at my hair, hopped onto my hair. And the poor creature was TRAPPED in between the curls!!! And i, with my eyes closed was thinking my dog was pulling my hair till i actually felt my hair was 'jumping'. Alarmed by that, i flicked my hair and realised that actually it was a FROG!! And what else..I screamed my heart out and woke the whole house. And god knows how many times i washed my hair that day.
And after numerous incidents with frogs, my fear for them was diminishing as i was no longer climbing up chairs and tables at the very sight of them. But then, it happened again when i was 16 i guess. As i was studying in the kitchen at night alone, the creature was hopping around and settled nicely under my study desk. Since it was a rainy season, too much of mosquitoes were around and can't bear that, i sprayed the mosquito aerosol without thinking about the poor frog which was feasting on them. After a few minutes, i just bent down and to my horror, the frog looked sooo pathetic (actually it has always looked pathetic) and was ...COUGHING!!?? I have never seen a frog coughing (i don't really look at them closely) and it was so obvious that it was suffering and can't breathe and looked like it could die anytime. And believe me...the image of the frog gasping was soo awful ..even now i tremble thinking about it. I was so clueless that i started crying and was praying hard that it shouldn't die at least not in front of me. I was saying sorry (!) to the frog. And my brother who came in was so shocked to see me crying that he actually thought i was crying due to the difficulty of the maths question that i was attempting (i used to cry when i don't get an answer). And when i told him about what had happened, he bent down and was shocked to see the coughing frog. Knowing me, he sat down facing the frog and started describing every single gesture of the frog which made me cry more and by that time i was already trembling. Not being able to bear that, i ran to my bed and closed my eyes praying for long for the 'well-being' of the frog. And the next day, no 'corpse' was found and till today i don't know what happened to my victim.
After that, things like this was happening now and then. But i'll just move to my last encounter with frog which was 5 years ago. I was on bike with my mum pillion riding. And on our way back i just realised that i wasn't wearing my helmet, so i just casually put on my helmet without checking it properly and yeah u guessed it right...there was a little frog inside the helmet which i suppose went inside the helmet on the previous night and 'travelled' with me from home to the market. And me being ignorant as usual didn't realise that something was crawling on my head. It took me a while to realise that it was actually a frog..and what else? I freaked out and my bike almost skidded from the road and i was screaming to my mum who pulled off the helmet and 'released' the frog. And clearly she was so pissed off as i put her life at stake because of a frog. And for a week from that incident, my family never stopped raving about my 'bravery' of dealing with a frog while riding bike to whoever visiting.
Well, that's my story of frogs. My friend after presenting a lesson on frogs in the class today assigned a homework which reads "The World of Frogs". I think i have answered that question very well indeed. I'm pretty sure even after five years from now i'll still be having some weird stories about frogs as i still have some 'unfinished' business with them.

Adieu..

No comments: