Fear Itself

Young Neelakantan, one of the current crop of JUDE ughhs (undergrads, for the uninitiated), has recently done one of those godawful Facebook survey/test things on fears. "Which of the 62 commonest fears do you have?", it asks intrusively, and then proceeds to list a set of fears that I am VERY hard pressed to believe are common at all (fear of silk; fear of "being myself" in company; fear of flowers). But this reminded me of a conversation I had with a an acquaintance--who, frankly, is a bit of an obnoxious prat--while walking back to our dorm from the local Mexican and Indian/Pakistani hub, Moody Street.

Rimi: oi, let's walk through this cemetary. It chops off a good twenty minutes.
Friend: What???
Rimi (raises voice slightly over evening traffic): Let us walk. Through. This cemetery.
Friend: are you mad! It is 11 at night! Cemetery!
R: But...what? Waitaminute, you'd rather walk uphill, downhill, then uphill again for twenty extra minutes because you're scared of walking through a cemetery?
F (emphatically): YES!
R: why?
F: I mean, I am not scared or anything. It's just not sensible.
R: common zombie precaution, you mean? On the same level as looking right, left, then right again before you cross the street?
F: (walks firmly past cemetery gate in steely silence)

After a few minutes of sulky silence, walking along the cemetery wall.

F: so you are not afraid of anything, eh?
R: plenty many things.
F: but they're all cool fears, I bet. Like being afraid of being kidnapped by aliens, because you're so special aliens would totally want to kidnap you.
R: (raises a silent eyebrow in the barely-lit darkness)
F: (not noticing eyebrow) or, or, maybe you're afraid of not getting an A in an exam. (flaps his hands) "Oh my god, I have got a B plus. Oh my god! What will I do!"
R (mildly): I'd probably go sit on a grave under the blood moon to feel better. Or jump from a fifty-feet cliff into a shark-infested lagoon. You never know with my kind.
F (moving away from a little): what do you mean, "my kind"? Are you... special... in any way?
R: (allows a moment's silence in fond remembrance of company that actually understands such basic irony)
R: I mean cool, fearless folks like me.
F: I bet you're afraid of cemeteries and darkness too.
R: I'm not.
F: so you would go into that house (points to empty ill-kept dark house overlooking the cemetery) all alone right now?
R: no.
F: aha!
R: because that would be trespassing.
F: would you at least do that jumping into shark-infested sea from a high cliff thing?
R: no.
F: hah!
R: because I am sensible, and I do not use that word as a euphemism for cowardice.
F: that's just...
R (calmly): but most importantly, because I have absolutely no need or desire to prove my assumed fearlessness to judgemental fools who measure bravery by idiocy. Goodnight.

I notice I am losing my temper oftener these days. Old age will out.