Recently, on a single day, two incidents happened, that could largely suggest that I’ve gone out of my senses. I don’t know if it is entirely my fault in these incidents. By making this public I intend to say that I am perfectly alright and well oriented! Description is mine; interpretation is choice.
Incident 1:
Getting ten people together is very difficult than setting them up on individual dates according to their taste! Trust me. All the colleagues of our lab had planned to go out for a dinner for the New Year (which was three months before, by the way). After three months of clashing dates, we finally landed up on some Wednesday. Apparently it got postponed too! We were planning to go on Thursday (the next day). I communicated this to one of my female colleagues and here is the conversation.
Me - “Hey, I don’t think we can go out on Wednesday, someone has got work”
She – “Oh that’s bad.. So when are we going?”
“I just thought we can go out on Thursday”
“Okay. I don’t have a problem.”
Wicked! I changed my mind. Let me see what she says. I would love to see the bewildered reaction on her face when she hears me!
“Hey I mean not the others.. only you and me. Can we go for dinner on Thursday?”
A happy sun rising, a garden of flowers unfolding, a thousand birds chirping, a million bells ringing, flying high high high in the air for the supposed “date” – not so fast buddy! On hearing the reply, someone was really bewildered. I suppose I must’ve had a mirror to see that person.
What I got as reply was not surprise, anger, confusion or happiness (okay the last one is too far!). It was humour! She laughed like I had just cracked the best joke of an entire lifetime. And what still baffles me is the reaction time! It was almost an entirely involuntary, heartfelt laughter.
Well I emptied the place as an emergency effect and before I went to my seat, people were talking about “Siddhart’s asking out mishap”. News travels faster than people. Thanks!
Incident 2:
After a serious debate like discussion on the differences between machines that can virtually see (as “see” in humans) and the eyes that can actually see, I came about to drink water. I was re-doing the highlights of the conversation in my mind and involuntarily started making animated gestures in the air.
The visual system has photon detector (both fists in the air, thumbs facing me), the neurons carry the impulses to the brain (hand moves towards me) and based on some synchronized activation of various cells (hand waving in the air), we reconstruct the images. In a virtual seeing scenario, the images are detected by detectors (both fists in the air, thumb end facing me) and the images are compared to an existing database (left palm stretched out, placing right palm over the left and removing as in “not matching…, next one pls; not matching…, next one pls”) where there is some kind of a template matching and the best fit is given as result. While seeing new things new information is added to both the databases (nodding head, as if I am agreeing to myself). But the catch lies in fool proofing the system (pointing finger in air, as when giving strict instructions). While the visual system is beautifully fool proofed (brows curved in, as in thinking) the machines cannot have the intelligence to match a horribly distorted face/object to the perfection that its database has. (Hands move in the air as in “there you go, gotcha!”)
Now do all this without reading the ones in italics. A student caught me doing exactly that, near the water cooler. She was decent enough to hide any expression she was ready to show in her face and walked off. I started walking towards the library, this time without any animations in me.
“She must’ve thought I am insane”
“No, I am not insane”
“I am perfectly well”
“I am perfectly sane”
“All is well with me”
Oh god! I forgot to italicize the last three lines; and so exactly I forgot to talk in mind. I was saying this aloud, not audible enough, but mumbling! I frantically looked around and noticed another student walking towards me. I smiled. She smiled back. Damn. Damn. Damn.
But actually this is funny, isn’t it?! Doing random actions in air, talking to oneself, students thinking I am getting weird...
I started smiling to myself and opened the library door. Do I need to say that people saw me smiling to myself? Well the library was packed and I opened the door so loudly (not expecting to see people at the neck of closing hours), that almost everyone saw me smiling to myself.
Effectively, a girl laughed when I asked her out, people saw me doing animations to no one, talking to myself, laughing with imaginary friends! Should I prove them that I am still sane? Whaaaaaaaaaa! Big deal! Well, that’s mind voice again. :)
