Dangerous thoughts

Dangerous thoughts

The movement of the greyish lizard on the roof woke him up. It was one o’clock in the morning. He had been working till twelve o’clock that night and after sleeping for only one hour, he was awakened by that creature. Why can’t they sleep and let others sleep! He was very disturbed and that had been happening to him since some nights, he was unable to sleep.

What was disturbing him? The answer was not to be found. He started feeling hungry.

Not to disturb the others, he went stealthily to the kitchen to eat something. As he took a piece of cake from the fridge he imagined his mother telling him that it was not good to eat too much. He used to feel so hungry those days. His head would ache to the point of explosion. Something was simmering in his head and he did not know what to do and how to cure it. After moving to the nearby table, he started eating the cake like a hungry wolf. It seemed that he had been hungry since days and the cake had come on time to save him.

“You are becoming really fat Braham!”

The voice of the mother echoed in the kitchen. But she was fast asleep and it was only his consciousness that was telling him that his mother was preventing him from eating. He was free to eat and at the present moment, there was no one to prevent him from doing whatever he wanted.

On his way towards his room, he heard his mum snoring. He peeped into the room as the door was open. She was sleeping peacefully and yet was making so much noise he thought. How could she prevent herself from being alarming? It was her duty to be so after all. Braham could not be left on his own even at the age of thirty. The age was ripe for him to get married and have children and yet for his own mother he was still a kid.

Braham returned to the kitchen and found a bunch of bananas welcoming him. Sitting down peacefully, he ate them all one by one. It was a pleasure to be doing something like that in the absence of others. Usually it would be difficult for him to eat so much in the presence of so many mouths in the house. But at that hour of the night all his brothers and sisters were sleeping like logs and he could do whatever he wanted to without any fear.

After drinking a glass of water he belched loudly. He could have awakened everyone in the house. Fortunately it did not happen. A strong urge to eat more was still in his mind. When he would be at home, he would eat without paying attention to the quantity. At times it would be the contrary and he would not feel like eating at all. Then only light meals would be gulped down. Even then the mother would be worried and tell Braham to eat. But eating more would mean heating something in the microwave oven and that would awaken everyone in the house for sure. He could not afford eating anymore. He had to think about something else to do. His head started aching again and he starting pacing up and down the corridor.

It was so unusual! Things that were happening to him were strange.

He was tired! Opening the door of his room, he went directly to relax on his bed. He could not sleep. Fortunately it was Sunday and he did not have to go to work.

He switched on the computer and tried to do some research on the net. There were loads of works for him to do. His course was so demanding and sleepless nights were in fact blessings in disguise for him! The search engine was on and in a few seconds his expected subject was about to be found. Suddenly he started feeling restless again. The material displayed on the screen did not seem interesting to him, and even the idea of saving it did not attract him. His mind was racing and he could not control it.

The computer was switched off and Braham went outside to breathe some fresh air. He took a chair to sit in the open air. Despite the cold weather made him shiver,he did not leave the spot. He wanted to watch his thoughts in silence. Only complete loneliness could allow him to do so. It was good to be far from the madding crowd for some time.

Too many thoughts were travelling in his mind; his courses in Business Studies were growing tougher every day, he had to get married as he was becoming older every day, his brothers were jealous of him and he was suffering every day…

Each thought came and went away in the twinkling of an eye in order to leave the floor for another thought. He soon realized that those thoughts were the problems that he has been facing since some days. How could all those problems attack him only on that particular night? Deciding that he would find time to think about solutions to his problems, he went inside and lay on his bed trying hard to sleep.

The mother’s voice woke him up this time. It was six o’clock, time for him to go and buy bread. It was such a pain for him to fetch breads so early in the morning while his brothers and sisters enjoyed their warm beds. It was a sort of injustice according to him but he could not voice it out as his father had already assigned that job to him. Challenging the father meant inviting troubles. Without protesting, he got up and went out.

On that particular morning, there was something fishy going on. As he finished buying the bread he saw a group of youngsters ogling at him. He was used to see them at that hour but on that day it seemed that all of them had been gathered to hatch a plan against him! Or perhaps it was all his imagination. How was it possible after all? Without bothering anymore about them, he moved towards his house.

Once at home, he sat down for breakfast. He was still thinking about his ‘to do’ list for the day when he heard his younger sister swearing at him from the opposite side of the table. Why was she swearing at him without any reason? When he asked her about it, she simply denied him and left the table. Perhaps her mood was not okay on that day.

After helping his mother a bit in the kitchen, Braham proceeded towards his room in order to prepare notes for his courses for the following day. To his astonishment, he heard his brother and sister criticizing him while walking in the corridor. He could not hear what they said exactly. To avoid creating a scene he preferred to go ahead.

Braham worked very hard for the whole day and he went to bed earlier than usual on that night. He hoped to sleep tightly for the whole night but that was not the case. He was awakened by a nightmare in the middle of the night. Drops of perspiration rolled down his spine and he soon started feeling hungry again…

Just before daybreak he managed to sleep a bit and was feeling a bit better but he was worried. At work, he could not concentrate on anything and he kept thinking about how he had started to wake up and eat at night. Perhaps it was becoming his habit. He decided to stop it at any cost.

Time had finally come for him to go to his courses. He was really shocked when the clock showed three o’clock in the afternoon. Cleaning his desk very quickly, he arranged his belongings very nicely in his bag and prepared to leave the place. But he noticed a few colleagues staring at him in a strange way. He could not understand what was wrong with him and why people had started looking at him in such a way. Finally, he left.

Days passed and Braham’s life had become very complicated. He could not sleep at night anymore. All sorts of thoughts prevented him from concentrating on his work. He had become plump due to overeating. On particular days, he would not eat his main meals and would only have light snacks. People around him would whisper strange words about him and he did not know how to prevent them from doing so. His own brothers and sisters had become his enemies. His life had become miserable and he did not know how to solve all those problems…

People around him were all planning to harm him. Nobody wanted him to live peacefully. But what could he do? His head would keeping aching for the whole day and he knew very well that everyone was behaving oddly in order to steal his peace of mind from him. Those thoughts that kept haunting him were also his enemies. They did not let him live in peace and harmony with his own mind. His mind would not obey his order, it was rather the slave of the medley of thoughts.

At night Braham would keep walking in the corridor. Members of his family had started complaining about that. When he would complain to his mother about the negative attitude of his brothers, sisters and other people, nobody would believe in him. His own mother did not want to listen to him and had started feeling that her son needed to visit a psychiatrist soon! Braham was shocked and he could not understand why his own mother was not ready to listen to him? What was wrong with her? At times she would pretend not to have heard the conversation of her children who were demeaning Braham. Braham was disheartened to see that his mother preferred the others to him.

When he went to seek the help of his father, the son was told he needed help. It was the most difficult period in Braham’s life. He could not bear it anymore! Nobody was willing to listen to him. Gradually, he started to be absent from work on a regular basis. He neglected his courses. In order to avoid his brothers and sisters, he closed himself in his room for the whole day. He had even stopped going out to buy the bread early in the morning.

The assortment of thoughts was his only companion. They never let him alone and yet he felt so lonely. At times he was uneasy to remain cut off from the people around him but he wanted to be alone.

Braham turned obese after some months. People started teasing him at work. His brothers and sisters would mock at him as he had given up the habit of taking a bath on a regular basis. He would stink and dark circles had formed around his eyes due to numerous sleepless nights. Life had become meaningless for him. Soon he left his job, left his courses and started living permanently in his room. His mother would shout for the whole day in order to get him out. He would come out mostly in the absence of the others to avoid seeing the other members of his family who could not bear the bad smell of his clothes.

Everyone knew that Braham needed to visit the psychiatrist as he was surely showing signs of severe psychological disorder. But Braham had become so adamant that nobody could convince him that he was mentally disturbed. Believing that he had so many enemies in the world outside his room, he would spend hours planning how to seek revenge from all those people. He decided to go to the police station in order to seek protection.

A policeman soon came to pay a visit to Braham’s father. Braham had gone to the police station in his locality in order to complain about his brothers and sisters who were against him. The father was so shocked that he could not react in front of the police officer! Later some of Braham’s friends came to his house. They had come to see him as he had phoned them to come. As soon as he saw them, he began to tell them about how his own relatives had become his enemies. His parents were so embarrassed on hearing these accusations and yet they could not react as they knew that their son was mentally unstable.

It was decided finally to take him to the nearby hospital by force with the help of the other members in the family. Braham started shouting like hell and all the neighbours came out of their houses to witness the scene. There was no way out as the parents wanted to cure their son.

Once at the hospital, it was made clear that Braham was suffering from a severe depression and the absence of medical care could bring him to the threshold of madness! His parents were very frightened. They wanted to save their son at all cost.

The psychiatrist befriended Braham and he started questioning him to know about the reasons of the depression. After a very long conversation, it was concluded that Braham had gone through too much stress because of his courses. The patient was invited to pay regular visits to his psychiatrist who prescribed some strong medicines.

As time passed, Braham started listening to the advice of his parents and he paid regular visits to the hospital. The state of his mind started to improve. People around him had started to become kind to him again. His brothers and sisters were also growing pleasant day by day. The thoughts haunting him day and night were decreasing in number. Soon he realized that he needed to control his negative thoughts instead of letting them control his mind. He started to practice meditation…