I am an emotional wreck. If the character in a movie violently dies, my tear glands start pumping up tears from the
air and starts generating renewable energy. Whereas when it is comedy I will
make sure your eardrums blast with my laughter. It will be so explosive that
after you watch a movie with me and go home my laughter will still ring in your
ears and you will regret your decision to have hung out with me. Any emotion,
be it happiness, grief or anger is expressed by me and my maternal family in
its extreme form. The way anger of my relatives usually pans out, we can rightly
measure it on a Richter scale. When they yell you can actually feel the tremors
in the neighborhood.
Even though anger dominates any
other emotion in the family, I am slightly different. Laughter mostly dominates
my moods. I can remember jokes heard in movies or told by my friends during
meetings and get myself into a situation wherein I struggle to control my
laughter. I am, but wired to find a funny angle to situations and do not keep
myself sad for long periods of time. I just keep the tears for the pillows, laughs
for the ones who deserve it and stay far away from negativity. It isn’t easy
but with determination it evolves.
If science develops a device that
modulates emotions it would be a breakthrough for my family to be sane with
each other and the rest of the people destined to be around them. I would buy
it in bulk and distribute it an act of benevolence for Christmas. My anger
outbursts are not very common. My laughter never hurt anyone. My sadness is
fortunately short lived. I do not stew in regret. Basically the algorithm which
runs that device should be inspired by me. Okay enough self-praising for now; I
need a device to control that actually :D Even my boss tells me to stop self-praise.
It is not even appraisal time, she thoughtfully added.
Last week I was on a cleaning
spree when I dug out my son’s toy bin. Expectation was to find everything from
shoes to food bits from 2011. However, I was in for a surprise. At the bottom
of it was a comb, which belongs to my Papa which he was frantically searching
for while he was here in September with me. He had to settle for a new comb,
which we bought after his precious comb which seemed to have been handed down
through generations was lost. Ever since, he had been dissatisfied with the very act
of combing hair. Finding it was a eureka moment for me. Immediately I took a selfie
with the comb and sent it to our family group captioned ‘Look what I found!!’. The
group witnessed an outpour of sentimental emotions about the comb, tears of joy and one earth shattering revelation from
Papa - ‘It is the closest to my heart’! And here I am, stupider than
the stupidest, thinking vainly that I was the closest to his heart!!! My heart broke
into a thousand pieces. No problem, in December when I meet him I will breakup
with him.
Coming to think of it, have you
noticed that some people actually value objects and situations more than we do?
I wouldn’t even notice if my comb was lost (because there are hundreds of them
at home, you know, just in case). Papa wouldn’t notice if his shirt was ten
years old, but I care too much about what I wear. I search for sense of humor
in people I meet and get along better with them, whereas Papa prefers knowledge
and sensibility. He hates lame jokes and wasting time on small talk, whereas
that is what I live for.
So coming back to that device I was
talking about. I know what you are thinking. Don't gift it to me.