Yours eccentric truly

Alarm bells rang furiously in mind. Is that guy after my money?. Not that I have much but he could be something is better than nothing. It all started when a friend of mine made a remark:”You are truly eccentric”.

Now what has my eccentricity got to do with unbalancing my bank balance? You see I have a theory about eccentricity. The difference between a nutcase and an eccentric is the bank balance. If the Ambani brothers or Azim Premji, run on the street tearing their clothes and pulling their hair they would still be considered eccentric If both mental and bank balances are upset then you are stark raving mad.

So when I was branded eccentric the sleeping paranoiac in me awakened and all sort of conspiracy theories about plans to deprive me of my material possessions flooeed my head (Paranoia doesn’t make me mad because it is just neurosis and not psychosis. Even with a paranoiac mind I will still remain an eccentric as long as the bank balance is okay.).


After sometime, the paranoiac decided to take a nap and was replaced by reflection. Am I really an eccentric? If yes, what are my eccentricities ? So after some brainstorming, I found a couple of quirks.

Quirk Number one: Burnt Toast. You may wonder what does a burnt slice of toast got to do with my being an eccentric. But if someone asks me “How would you like your toast?”, the answer is invariably “burnt”.

I just love burnt toast. The bitterness with the sweetness of jam is a marriage made in heaven. Even after being diagnosed as a diabetic and giving up on jam for ever so that I don’t get into a health jam, I am still madly in love with the burnt toast. I have realized that the love of a charred piece of bread is not due to the allurement of a sweet preserve. It is an undemanding love..

Threats and reasonings have failed to make me yield.. The wife bitterly complains that all that charcoal getting accumulated in the toaster have badly damaged it. “Get a new one i” is my answer.

“Dad do you know burnt toast can cause cancer? I read somewhere in some website” said the daughter.

“I can show you websites that say the earth is flat, there is no global warming and vampires exist” I said “ Would you believe them too?” The girl sadly shook her head and fell silent.

They say even smoking causes cancer and cigarettes pacets have a warning to that effect. But people still continue to smoke and only a fraction of them catch cancer as do lot of people who don’t smoke. May be they should have a statutory warning on toasters too saying burnt toasts can cause cancer. Let us see how many people who enjoy a burnt toast give up the habit. (Hello, is anybody else out there who loves to sink his/her teeth into charred bread or should I flatter myself that I am a unique phenomenon?).

As for my eccentricity No 2.........well. “With whom were you talking in the gym? There is nobody there. You have developed the habit of talking to yourself or what?”. asked the wife one day, ever eager to prove that I am nuts..

“What do you mean there’s nobody there? You got the multigym machine, the cycle, the weights. I was apologizing to the equipment for ignoring them for a couple of days” I said. My wife gave me a strange look and moved away..

Yes, if I don’t work out for a couple of days I feel guilty and deliver a short apology to the fitness equipment in my home gym.. It motivates me more to work out regularly if I treat the equipment as friends interested in my welfare and talk to them. It may sound crazy to you but do try it., you would not think of skipping the gym.. Talking to the equipment helps you keep physically fit, even if everyone doubts your mental fitness.

I also go ballistic if someone even touches my book shelves let alone take a book from them. For me books are my best friends and you cannot borrow a friend and anyone who tries it is my sworn enemy.

And what provoked my friend to call me eccentric? He just casually asked me which character from the books I read, I would like to invite for dinner. My answer was: “Hannibal Lecter”.

I told him I am a great fan of Thomas Harris’ cannibal psychiatrist. He first laughed but then I told him that I was serious and the good doctor Lecter was the kind of guy I would like to have for a friend. Then came the eccentric bit.
Believe me I am really serious about this, so don’t laugh. I am a great Lecter fan. My daughter even says that I am alarmingly similar to him in several respects.

Come to think of it, she is right. Both me and Lecter are polyglots who speak several languages, both have a passion for classical music, including opera, both of us are foodies and love to cook, though we don’t share the same dietary habits. There is one simple reason for this. I an a verse to eating anything that walks, crawls or flies. But I don’t grudge Hannibal his favourite protein. After all what protein is more abundant on terra firma than the homo sapiens?.

 

Satch8i when it comes to bread, black is beautiful. But white smiley on filter coffee? I don't like my filter coffee being tainted with white. It must be golden brown. Lot of people talk to plants. Is is quite a common eccentricity under the belief that it helps plants grow better. Brilliant logic if you chide the plants that don't give adequate flowers/fruits /vegetables, do they perform better?

 

Akanksha hope your DH didn't hire a detective to find out with whom you were talking. Oh dear I am scared of cleanliness freaks. My wife is one. She insists that the bedsheets remain creaseless. I think that is illogical.True every one of is eccentric from some perspective or other..

 

Jayasala 42 everyone has a sane and mad person inside us . I suppose the eccentric is a cocktail of both. But the problem is at times we don't even know which person is sane and which one is mad.Imagine saying "sorry window/ doorbhai for colliding against you". As for Chetana and achetana objects, there are ancient Indian philosophies that don't even make a distinction between the two. The Jains for instance. For them every object, even the minutest of them has a soul. So I suppose there is no harm in apologising to a door or window.i

 

True everyone has his/her own quirks. But singing loudly in public or chanting hanuman chalisa. Hope you haven't caused any accidents because of that.