Fear Factory

There’s something that I share in common with the famous fictional Prof. Robert Langdon. 

No…it’s neither religious iconology nor his love for dead languages. Neither do I have Cordovan loafers or a signature Mickey Mouse watch to match. Not his eidetic memory or his un-paralleled swimming skills either. In fact my memory has always been as dusty as the old soda bottles in some Abdu Bhai’s paan shop and if dropped in water, I might as well just go down gurgling and sit there ogling at the piranhas getting thrilled about my arrival…

Ever felt the fear of being stuck in crammed-up spaces? 

This is the part where I empathize with Langdon. It is this fear of enclosed spaces that has always haunted me ever since I could remember. Elevators, basements, crammed dentist cabins and even spa cubicles scare me. I have tried this so-called psychological self-counseling therapy during such claustrophobic stints. It sure is useful to a certain extent, until the moment you start humming some loony tune too loudly attracting the weirdest looks from anybody suffering from the ill-fortune of being near enough at that moment. Well…nothing like having some company while being stuck in an elevator! Surely a life saver. The more the merrier. But getting stuck all alone is a different story.

It was around seven years back when I was pursuing my first job with a company in Bangalore... Fridays were quite an affair back then. Fridays also meant a relaxed dress code. To add to it, it was Employee Appreciation day... the day of awards, recognition, kebabs, mocktails and DJ and I had worn my favorite black denim pencil skirt, a pleated flowery top and brand new stilettos to work that day. Feeling very pretty about all that jazz I was headed up to the roof-top cafeteria to join my colleagues for lunch when all of a sudden the elevator I was in lurched to a deadened halt… I hadn't been subjected to such experiences for a very very long time and had reverted to trusting elevators around that time, when this breach of trust occurred! For a moment my brain halted blank... I was without company and my own dismal expression reflected on the elevator wall scared me all the more. Scenes from all the horror movies and every elevator prank I've ever watched reeled in fast forward mode within my head. I waited… with bated breath. 

Upon slightly regaining composure, I located the emergency call button and pressed it. But as we all know, emergency call buttons in elevators are never meant to work. The sound-proofing was so total that I had no clue as to what was going on in the outside world.

Minutes ticked on. My brain had stopped working. Panic set in. I tried knocking hard. No response. I tried calling out loudly. No response. What was going on? Was it fire? Earthquake?... My cell phone appeared to be totally dead and devoid of signal too. Full Faraday cage effect was on... time was ticking on... and then having completely lost it, I tried with all my might to prise the elevator doors apart. Surprisingly.. they separated effortlessly! 

I could see that the elevator was stuck between two floors which scared me even more. From slightly above I could hear random garbled voices of people making sane conversation in the lobby. Relief started trickling down my senses. My instincts urged me to somehow get out of that boxed up space… After removing my footwear and throwing them out through the open space, I raised myself up using all my energy and scrambled out of the stuck elevator on all fours. Crawling out and looking around through my curtain of hair and topsy-turvy glasses I could somewhat make out the horrified expressions on the faces of people who were seated on couches in the lobby, chatting, probably expecting an elevator technician to step out instead of a pair of flying stilettos, followed by a female employee scrambling out in such a weird pose… A reality check on the civilized foundation pillars of corporate decorum internalized over the years?

          I remember putting on my sanest expression, which would have made me look as if this was something very normal (the usual non-conformance-to-protocol drill?) that I did on a regular basis whenever I was jobless. Slowly picking up my footwear and looking utterly unconcerned I walked leisurely to the stairs. Barefoot of course!  The moment I was out of prying eyes, I just set off, nearly running all the way up the stairs to the cafeteria, embarrassed like hell and panting heavily. I remember that I could hardly eat or drink that day as all my appetite had evaporated when the adrenalin rush had set in.

Around four years later a similar experience manifested while I was going up in the elevator from the parking basement to our apartment. I was accompanied by my two year old then...

I was about to get panicky when there was no response even after a period of around 10 minutes, when unexpectedly my mind advised me that it was not prudent to act silly in the presence of my toddler. What if I plant a totally new fear in her subconscious mind, which as of then looked totally free from any such fears? She looked happy in fact that we both were stuck inside together and was giggling on seeing me fiddling with the useless emergency call buttons and the dead elevator phone. She was apparently picturing the entire episode as a game of hide-and-seek. After around 15 minutes the elevator sprang into life and started moving up. My daughter chirped she was feeling ticklish. I didn’t quite know what she meant by ‘ticklish’ but all the same felt assured that she would not be repeating history years from then, in some unknown elevator... in front of unknown faces... in some unknown place and time.

Some remarkable phobias I came across, to name a few...

Lachanophobia- Fear of vegetables.

Mottephobia- Fear of Moths.

Abibliophobia - Fear of running out of reading material.

Dementophobia- Fear of insanity.

Pentheraphobia- Fear of mother-in-law.

Ballistophobia- Fear of missiles or bullets.

Alektorophobia- Fear of chickens.

Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia- Fear of the number 666.

Aurophobia- Fear of gold.

Coprastasophobia- Fear of constipation.

Technophobia- Fear of technology.

Spectrophobia- Fear of ghosts.

P.S - I think I am abibliophobic too!

Robert Langdon: A fictional Harvard University professor of religious iconology and symbology, who suffers from claustrophobia; a character created by the author Dan Brown. 

Pic Courtesy: Google