Ramblings

What is madness actually? People tend to use the word as an insult; ‘You’re mad!’, ‘He’s mad’, but the truth is madness is the salt of life. People who are totally sane, the ones who acknowledge the limits and what is impossible don’t move the world forward (well almost). It’s the ones who are slightly mad, who know the risks but tries for the impossible who catch the world by its neck and pull it forward. Only once the madness is committed, the society incorporates it into itself and it isn’t mad anymore.

Enough with philosophic ramblings and stuff….. I’m glad to say this but a lot of people we live with, especially kids, are mad. There are two books I’ve read recently, ‘Surely You’re Joking Mr Feynman’ and ‘I Too Had A Dream’, both I feel are written by slightly mad people who were courageous enough not to be ashamed of it and made a heck out of life. There’s only one thing I can say, kudos for those mad people who move the world, I hope one day I can contribute marginally.

P.S I know MM is going to murder me for this :D

To the Mad one :)

 

This blog was conceived when two utterly mad people decided to tell the world what they thought of. And it was written because we, as humans are not-so-good at expressing certain things through words (spoken).

“When we think of madness, we think of a psychological disorder that usually lands one in a hospital or in a shrink’s office. I used to connect “mad” with  crazy people in mental asylums, clad in uniforms, screaming and receiving electric shocks [ an image from some stupid old movie]! But as I got older and wiser [yea, right!] I came to the break-through discovery that we are all mad in some crazy way or the other” –MM

Well aren’t we all mad ? Not in doing crazy and adventurous things but in doing normal things like making plans for the next vacation and dreaming of being a film star/ superhero etc. If you pause to think about it, all of us live for a small time that’s peanuts for earth and we’re not possibly going to leave anything behind. Yet here we are, doing things, dreaming, loving, learning as if it’s never going to end. That’s by far one of the most crazy things I’ve seen !

There’s another face to this also. If we are so inconsequential then why do we worry so much about money and big houses ? Why are we so much committed to being successful that many have stopped enjoying what they do ? Humans are so much capable of thought but incapable of a little retrospection. When are we going to realize that doing what you think is right, whatever may be the outcome is the thing that’s going to count ?

Movie Madness

I have had so many laughing fits, done so many crazy things and gone totally wild, mostly with my friends…..but never once has it been with an adult before. Yesterday night was an exemption, because yesterday, I had a crazy, full of fun night with not 1, not 2, but THREE normal and alive adults! (If my writing seems funny today, it is only because I’m still recovering from this shock.) I was out at the movies with a friend, her parents and my mom (yes! My MOTHER!). My madness radar should have detected a crazy night the moment I came to know that our movie tickets were black, but due to technical errors, it did not go “beep beep’’. If you are at the conclusion that our tickets were bought in black, my friend, you know nothing about madness – they were literally black! My friend and her parents had bought the tickets from the movie theater, and when they found them a little wet, they went straight under the hot iron (the tickets silly, not the people!). They came out dry and crisp all right, just completely black, all 5 of them! But what’s a minor hitch like burnt tickets in the’ great scheme of movie nights’? We went ahead to the theater with our ‘’black tickets’’. So far, so good. THEN, I don’t know what started it, maybe it was the talk about our tickets, but just as we got into the lift, I and my friend got a laughing fit attack! The element of shock in this story comes now- my mom too started laughing with us! Soon our giggles turned into a very loud, uncontrollable laughing fit (so what’s new?) and two guys (one red shirt - one blue checks- both cute) started staring at us. The red shirt guy finally (probably after gathering the courage to talk to three lunatics) asked us “Eh….enjoyed the movie?’’. In between giggles, my mom managed to tell them that we were yet to watch the movie, and the weird looks on their faces got us laughing even more. My friend and I wanted to show our tickets to the poor, confused (and cute) guys, but a little voice in our heads stopped us (the knowledge that my mom was with us, not our “good girl conscience’’.)We somehow managed to get out of the lift and hand over our tickets to the ticket checker. Our story gave the ticket checker and others around him a reason to start a laughing fit, and we went inside to watch the movie, leaving behind our infectious laughter.

The movie was a tragedy, the usual about a girl falling in love with a guy dying of terminal cancer, and while everyone in the theater was dabbing at their eyes (there’s just something about a super cute guy dying that gets to you), I was laughing in my mind, thinking of our “black tickets”, our laughing fit inside the lift and above all, the fact that all of this happened with ADULTS!

Possibilities

How close do we come to being mad every day ?

That particular feeling you get when you see something and wonder what will happen if you do something crazy. 

Didn't get me ? Suppose you're home after a busy day and you decided to relax with a cup of coffee, just when you sit down you see a set of beautiful ceramic tea cups and you wonder “what would happen if I threw them on the floor ?”. 

Mind you, I'm not accusing you (or anyone) that they want to destroy things but some things have been forbidden since you were five and not long after you start wondering 'What would happen if I just did that !'. 

That kind of thing (contrary to popular and well propagated beliefs) is common among people. 

I had my first experience (ahem …. don't call a psychiatrist) just before writing an exam. I was waiting for the exam to begin when a thought surfaced 'what would happen if I just skipped everything ? Suppose I calmly walk out ?'. I did want to write the exam and was prepared but it was so novel, so surreal that you wonder if it's even possible. It is little like having a pyramid in you backyard and never noticing it till now. After that most people I asked recounted having similar experiences (more wild tough).

Laughing Fits

Laughing Fits

Everyone knows what a laughing a laughing fit is-It’s a state when you start laughing like crazy for absolutely no reason. It’s when you roll on the floor laughing with no hint of stopping (mostly over something that others around you may not find so funny). You want to stop-your stomach aches, your sides ache, your face aches-but you just can’t stop- once you get it, anything and everything seems funny. I say without much regret that I’m a frequent victim of such laughing fits. Here are some of those as I remember them. But remember, they may not seem even remotely funny to you (as is the nature of a laughing fit). But here goes! –

I’ve had my biggest, longest and most dangerous laughing fit when I was at summer camp once with my best friend and her sister. It was our last day at camp and we had returned from the longest hike possible, wanting to just collapse in a heap in our sleeping bags and hope that our aching bodies were just a nightmare. But being the last night at camp, there was a dance party at the KPRD hall ( Khana Peena Rona Dhona hall. Don’t ask me why it’s called that- we just had khana and peena there.). So we partied with whatever energy we had left in us (which was reserved for the Herculean task of opening our sleeping bags and crashing into it) and left the hall wanting to hibernate for the next 10 years, only to find a rain storm outside, sounds of which had been drowned by our music and howling. About half of our tents were blown away and we were asked (by our insensitive, overbearing counselors- no less) to “share and sleep in the remaining tents”.

Put 9 really, REALLY tired, cranky, dripping wet teenagers in one soggy, dirty tent; throw in some cold, wet sleeping bags, a few mosquitoes, and you get the most pleasant night you can imagine-complete with kicking and shoving, swearing under the breath and cursing out loud. It was then that came the laughing fit (thought I’d forgotten about that?)

I can’t remember what and who exactly started it, but my friend’s sister and I just started laughing. The others asked us what the matter was- and we laughed. They asked us again- and we laughed. They warned us to stop- and we laughed. They swore they’d break every bone in our bodies once they could gather the energy to get up- and we laughed clutching our stomachs. They begged and pleaded us to stop- and we laughed wiping the tears streaming down our faces. They shut up and let us be ( cursing all the while)- and we laughed gasping for breath. They somehow went to sleep (now subsiding to quieter swearing under the breath)- and we laughed, begging each other to stop.

I don’t know when it happened, but thankfully, the torturous fit finally ended and the two drained out victims (poor us) drifted off to sleep.

We woke up the next morning sleep deprived and zombie like…..and found last night’s survivors talking about us and having a laughing fit of their own! And this time, we were the ones left swearing and cursing, begging them to shut up and let us sleep.

Most laughing fits happen when you have someone else, a “laughing buddy’’ to laugh with. My partner in crime is one of my closest friends, Appuchi. We have had so many uncontrollable laughing fits that our friends are scared that if we even look at each other, we’ll start yet another one. One such laughing fit almost landed us in deep trouble. Our school’s Principal or “Princi’’ as we call him, was in our class for offering his weekly dose of shouts (“stupid idiot useless’’), warnings (“I’m telling you, you will regret’’) and threats (“I’ll kick you out of the school’’) to no one in particular, when some other poor soul unsuccessfully tried to stifle a giggle. This was enough for Princi and he grabbed the huge protractor from the teacher’s table and started yelling the oh- so- familiar “Laughinga? I’ll break your bones. Idiote. I’ll kick you out of the schoole.’’ The sight of Princi, a rather funny looking man, with a huge protractor in his raised hand, shouting in heavily accented English was more than enough for Appuchi to feel a laughing fit coming up. She pleaded with her eyes, begging me not to start. I nodded and put a finger on my lips. The next thing I knew, Appuchi was covering her mouth to stop laughing, and in the effort, producing weird unrecognizable sounds. It took me only a second to join in and soon the weird unrecognizable sounds became louder. One look from Princi and we both simultaneously turned them into coughs, a technique mastered after years of practice. Thankfully, he didn’t start on us, because we wouldn’t have been able to control our laughter any longer! To this day, just the mention of it gets me and Appuchi laughing again. But it has also made our other friends label us a dangerous combitnation!

When we think of madness, we think of a psychological disorder that usually lands one in a hospital or in a shrink’s office. I used to connect “mad” with  crazy people in mental asylums, clad in uniforms, screaming and receiving electric shocks [ an image from some stupid old movie]! But as I got older and wiser [yea, right!] I came to the break-through discovery that we are all mad in some crazy way or the other. I’m not talking about the serial killing, self destructing or stalking kind of madness; just normal day-to-day kind of madness. Doesn’t your obsession with chocolates, shoes, shopping, or that particular guy or girl make you mad in a weird way? Are you not mad for saying aloud those movie dialogues [which you laughed at with your pals] in front of the bathroom mirror? What is it but madness that makes us do crazy things on impulse? Ok, enough with the rhetorical questions and on to my point – We are all mad. In fact, I think its our madness that keeps us all normal. So this blog is a place where you can blog about your madness with other mad people and put down your confessions of a mad mind [ how much more cliched can I get?] . So spill the beans, fellow ‘madders’ [that’s a word I just made up, but apparently, there’s some subtropical tree with that name found in South America – like I even care, yawn] and go crazy. Stay mad, stay normal.   

P.S First post by the co-author