The door closed gently behind me as I walked into the bedroom to join my wife and my nearly two year old daughter. My wife had wanted to show me how she had spent the day neatly arranging her cupboard and how presentable it looked. My daughter was trying to unsuccessfully explore the cosmetic filled part of the cupboard. Every time her little hand was close to the lipstick carton, my wife would deftly sweep her off.
My nearly four year old son was too busy playing with his blocks to realise that the rest of the family had migrated to the master bedroom. He loves the game so much that he can spend a week on the blocks without sleep, food and ‘Masha and the Bear’. After a few minutes though, we heard him cry loudly.
We thought he suddenly may have realised that he was all by himself in the hall and hence the tantrums. I was ready with my gyaan session but I was definitely not prepared for what caught my eye as soon as I opened the door.
Aslo Read : The Brighter Side of Life – Motivation 101 With Loy
My son was standing right opposite the door but strangely was staring at something on the wall beside the door. I followed his gaze to arrive at his stalker. My eyes nearly popped out as I saw what stared back at my son. From the family of crocodiles, one of their smallest members jumped around neatly ensuring the vacuum in his feet held him safe on the wall. I frantically signalled for my son to step back but he wouldn’t budge.
Suddenly from behind me, like the seventh reincarnation of Wonder Woman, my wife jumped at an opportunity where the reptile had turned around distracted and swept my son off his feet, literally! In the midst of all of the confusion and the swiftness, my daughter calmly walked out of the bedroom and between my legs as I continued to hold my gaze on our intruder.
In the meanwhile, my wife had managed to borrow the broom from the kitchen and standing at a safe distance, she kicked the broom in the direction of my legs. So intently focused was I on our enemy that the least I expected was a broom skidding across the hall and ending up kissing my feet. I jumped out of my skin, high enough to come face to face with the frog eyed reptile who let his neck move to match my jump.
That was it! The battle was unavoidable, the opponents undeterred, the battlefield ready and the weapon was in my favour, the broom. Very gently, I first opened the main door and started cautiously sweeping the lizard to my desired destination, outside my humble dwelling. The reptile made a dash toward the bedroom but I deftly hindered its way and manoeuvred it religiously to the main door.
Aslo Read : Judge and You Shall Be Blinded – Motivation 101 With Loy
Again my daughter calmly walked through my legs as if all was normal. My wife pleaded with her to come back but to no avail. Artistically, I used my legs to push my daughter out of the battlefield and into my wife’s arms. Opportunistically, the lizard swiftly moved to the backside of the main door. This time it stayed there. I felt for a second, it was playing hide and seek with me.
I started all over again this time successfully pushing it toward the frame of the door. Once there in a flash of a second, I closed the door! Our uninvited ‘athithi’ was ushered out successfully. This was followed by three victory kisses on my forehead by the admirers of my bravery. A little victory tribal dance followed.
Tired of the high energy dance, I fell to the sofa and reflected on the sequence of the events. My son was old enough to understand and hence was scared of the harmless lizard because he would have seen our fear about the reptile. My daughter was yet to experience it and hence was unperturbed.
Fear is a feeling about an unpredictable event that we may not want to face. The resultant behaviour is running away, avoiding, etc. As long as we do not have fear in life, we are ready to explore. Fear cripples us and stops us from achieving our potential. Put yourself in uncomfortable situations, do things that you are scared of. Do it once and you will realise that there was no need to be fearful.
