Father Vs Mother (Youngest Daughter Makes Special Appearance)

On the List of Things I Think I Have But Haven't Technically Been Diagnosed with, insomnia is also included. It's currently 5.08 am, and after seeing countless episodes of Oswald (the lovable but idiotic octopus), the theme song of which always makes me sleepy, I am still awake, so the obvious solution is to give up sleeping altogether and make myself  a cup of coffee. If I sleep at 6 am again tonight (today?) and wake up at 4 pm tomorrow my mother will actually stab me. Quite possibly unnecessarily and repeatedly. 

My best friend, who has been staying at my place for the past three days, is fast asleep beside me. She is a fashion major, currently working on her portfolio, and yesterday she fell asleep with her right hand in the position of holding a needle. It was rather adorable, which makes what I almost did to her poor, unsuspecting sleeping stance even meaner. But you will soon see, my mother is to blame. Not I. 

Not I…not me? I don’t know how to English.

Anyway, do you know who snores? Papa. My father is a precious cinnamon roll, but man does he snore. His pattern is not even the same throughout; it keeps changing as the night progresses. And how do I know this? Okay. Hold up (OHHHH….HOLD UP!!!! Was High School Musical 2 even a real movie?). 

What you’re probably thinking right now is, wow, Kapoorni, I love you, you devilish beauty!, which is cute but a little irrelevant I am afraid. What you should be thinking is, Er do you still sleep with your parents you gigantic oaf the answer to which is sometimes when I remember the time I read the story of ‘The Human Centipede’  even though I knew it would freak the hell out of me. Whatever, it’s not like I am an almost 19 year old, about to go into second year of University, who is still afraid of the dark.

And clowns. 

My point is, man does my dad snore! My mother is probably used to this by now, and has devised a rather sound but a little questionable system for this. The second my father starts to snore (albeit soft at first) my mother’s sharp ears catch it even if she is in a deep sleep herself. It is rather remarkable (and somewhat frightening) how quickly she reacts; swiftly her hand flies to his face and she lightly smacks him. Round 1, Mother emerges victorious. All is peaceful. Father shifts a little in his sleep. The signs, they are evident again. Round 2 is not far away. Ah, it beings. Father commences a different pattern of making sounds. What will Mother do? All wait with baited breath for the opponent to strike again. Not missing a heartbeat, Mother chooses a different weapon of choice this time, and lightly prods Father in the back, while perhaps letting out an angry growl to drown out the enemy’s sound. Father is thick skinned when it comes to Snore Battles, and (although now silenced) registers no knowledge of the physical abuse he is suffering at the hands of the mother of his children. Round 3 begins with Father snoring in an extremely rare and a little concerning manner. Mother, now tired, thinks about letting her Substitute Candidate play a few. The Sub doesn’t need to be told twice; or even once, for that matter. As soon as Round 3 begins, the Sub is on it. Father undergoes sudden attack by youngest daughter. She neatly elbows him in the stomach, sometimes accompanied by battlecries of “Papaaaa yaar shhh pleaseeeee”. The game continues, neither opponent gives up. Next Morning: Mother and Father wake up with no recollection of nightly battle. Meanwhile, daughter learns that assaulting someone if they snore is what social convention dictates. 

(Too Long; Didn’t Read - Family normalises abuse, then wonders where youngest born gets violent tendencies from.)

Recollections Of The Times I Had Very Little Or No Chill At All

If you asked me exactly when I realised I blow things out of proportion, I wouldn't be able to answer you. I think it occurred to me around the time when my sister was playing Sims when she knew it was my turn, and I pulled her hair and maybe also punched her shoulder, that I might have some sort of an issue (I still maintain she fell down from the chair on her own; I cannot help but be muscular and magnificently strong). I think that is when it dawned on me that perhaps I responded to some life events in a...somewhat different (for lack of a better word) manner.

It all began when I was a young, young child on the cusp of girlhood. Wait, what? No. I remember I was like four, and I had this obsession with blood. I craved it like the goat craves that mineral.

I blame my parents, who are doctors, and who have no sense of private space. Often times folders marked as 'Images' on our computer were filled with photographs from gory surgeries. Imagine a four year old stumbling onto these (not that I still don't, thanks guys), and the sheer trauma faced therein. So I had this newfound fascination with blood (which is pretty ironic, because I gave up studying biology in 11th grade because the sight of blood made me queasy by then) and I didn't know what to do with it. Until one day it burst forth with gay abandon. Several times, actually. I remember whenever somebody was hurt, or someone even talked about someone being hurt, I always had one question on my lips:

"But did it...bleed?" I would ask quietly, in a breathless gasp, standing on my tiptoes to sneak a peak of the delicious bloody wound. It was actually much creepier when I did it in my mother tongue ("Khoon...khoon aya kya?"). To be fair, it's pretty darn creepy any way you put it, I am sure I looked like a sick, twisted kid fresh out of a horror movie. I completely forgot about these incidents, until a few years ago when my sister gently asked me why I used to be a maniacal sociopath as a child, for which I had no answer.

In case you're wondering, this serious condition has no official name yet, nor have I been given the medical attention I require urgently, which is why I am unable to stop these urges, even during University. To this day, I continue to have very little, or almost no chill at all. I recently tutored someone who wanted to learn Hindi. I was teaching her how to ask for directions, like how to say "Where can I find ____?". The sentence I chose to illustrate this point was Where can I find the hospital? which, to me, seemed pretty normal - don't get me wrong, I've had my share of scary hospital visits, like the time I had a soft tissue injury in my right elbow (unsuccessfully tried using labrador as horse, got thrown to the ground and stepped on by own doggo) or when I got high on laughing gas (got earring stuck in ear - true story). To be fair, the day I got high on laughing gas as an eight year old was easily one of the best days of my life, though I creeped the ~hell~ out of my parents. My point remains, inspite of these lovely and numerous trips to the hospital, I still view it as the nice friendly place where I get to drink coke in the sunny courtyard whilst my mother tends to her patients, but I forget that most people don't; hence how I freaked my student out a little by suggesting the holy palace of blood a.k.a. my favourite place should be the first thing she should learn  how to say.

The most recent incident of M.H.A.N.C.A.A. (Me Having Almost No Chill At All) was last December. During my psychology 1A degree examination, we had to answer a question on conditioning techniques. I was writing about operant conditioning, and needed an example for positive punishment (in simple terms, decreasing undesired behaviour by presentation of aversive stimulus). I wrote the very first example that came to my mind, which I realised (only after submitting my answer sheet) was slightly, if not completely, questionable : Positive punishment, example: spanking an infant while potty training him or her. First of all, not only did I write the word 'potty' in my degree examination, the implications I linked with it were somewhat debatable. It is a wonder I have managed to pass Psychology at all, and now that we are on the topic of Wonder Woman, here is what I have to say about it:

1. it is an excellent movie
2. I may or may not have seen it several times already
3. it is an EXCELLENT movie
4. Bill Wurtz is a God

The 4th point wasn't related to the movie but I felt like pointing out that Bill Wurtz is indeed a God.