‘Idiosyncrasies’– the fun and pain of them!

Idiosyncrasy is an eccentricity or a peculiarity that one has and often times it even characterises him. You and I and for that matter all of us, may have idiosyncrasies unknown to us but they may be quite apparent to others including our family members. These vary from person to person in degree and or in kind; some could be briefly amusing while a few could be quite irritating to others. As a part of social coexistence we all tend to live with the idiosyncrasies of one another.  I would like to present before you a few of these that I happened to experience over the years. Superfluous to say, you need to check with people near to me to get a feel my own foibles.

An uncle of mine used to have this peculiarity of irrational cleanliness. He used to tail the domestic helps who were filling the vessels with drinking water to see if they are scratching their head or other less acceptable parts; picking their nose or touching any dirty or dusty objects including their own clothes en-route. It was customary for the maid filling drinking water from the municipal tap to stand with her thoroughly washed hands two feet away from her body in the air as if she was blessing the earthen pots around. Once out of curiosity I asked her why she stood in such an awkward posture, she replied philosophically that uncle directed her to stand that way so that she would not touch anything including her clothes. No wonder despite my uncle’s generous offer of a new saree as bonus for any maid completing one year of uninterrupted service, I heard no one could ever claim that!

My friend’s grandfather had a peculiarity of smelling every food item served to him keeping it as close as possible to his nose to detect if it was fresh or stale. He used to eat only those items that passed this ‘nasal test’.

A cousin of mine has this habit of picking up the eating plate from the fully set dining table, take it to the kitchen tap and rinse it vigorously in the running water. When I asked why this strange thing, his wife told me he doesn’t trust anybody on this and told me conspiratorially that when he tried to do this in a five start hotel where they all went for a buffet, the manger objected to it. When she sprinkled coriander leaves on a dish, he was quick to ask her “have you washed the leaves properly?” She got a little wild and replied “Why on earth do you think I don’t wash the leaves before using them in food?”

I have a friend who always believes that the others do not have the capability of comprehension. Whatever he tells he would repeat it twice or thrice and tries to take confirmation from others that they have understood it fully. He would invariably start off by saying something like this; “listen…listen…listen…”The matter doesn’t end there; he even believes that they do not have the capability to execute things. So he finally ends up doing everything himself.

I know of this lady who used to walk up and down the house even while talking to guests and pick up even a small speck of paper from the floor. Her attention was always on the floor trying to find out the next bit of paper.

There is an aunt of mine who has this strange way of agreeing with what people told her. For an untrained ear it sounds like complete disagreement but if one were patient enough, one would realise that she was in agreement with what you say!  She would hear you out and would retort “that’s not the thing!” and starts repeating the same statement as if it was her statement. For instance if you ask her “Isn’t the sky blue?” she quickly retorts “That’s not the thing” and continues “the sky is always blue”

I am not sure whether you have observed while working in offices, that some bosses have this madness about language correction. They take satanical delight in mauling the drafts of letters or notes sent for correction. Once a friend of mine had this kind of a boss who used to brutally strike down all sentences in a draft note put up for approval with red ink and write down margin comments covering every bit of space on the paper.  My friend got frustrated one day and sent a note with just the salutation and the subject leaving the entire page blank with signature at the end. The boss was furious and demanded what was the meaning of this joke to which my friend replied “anyway you would strike down everything and rewrite, so better why not you draft it yourself upfront? It would save us time and frustration”. It seems the face of the boss turned cherry red putting the red ink bottle on his table to shame!

An uncle of mine called me over to a temple near his house for discussing something urgent. When I rushed there I found him sitting in the ‘Mantap’ near a corner and he looked quite upset over something. There was a sprinkling of people sitting all over and silently praying. I greeted him, sat down and asked him what the matter was.  Suddenly he began “I raised you with love and gave you what not? “ “Is this what you do to me?”  I was perplexed and looked around in horror. The devotees opened their eyes and were getting curious. “What sin have we done that you are putting us to so much of pain?”  By now the devotees got to the conclusion that this must be a case of helpless parents and a heartless son and started gathering around us. I got to my feet and told them to stay cool as it has got nothing to do with me. My uncle recovered and said “Nothing to worry! He is my nephew and I was expressing my feelings to him about my son who works in Mumbai and who promised to visit us on Diwali but cancelled his trip now due to office work”.  Guys! just to clarify; my uncle has this peculiar but annoying habit of imagining his wrongdoer in the person opposite him and expressing his feelings in full blast. He generally doesn’t mind or care about his surroundings or the plight of the person in front.

I am sure we all experience these foibles in people around us in our daily life. These could amuse us when we are not at the receiving end, but could put us in a spot when we have to swallow them. Let us realise our own eccentricities and try to mitigate if not eradicate them as these could make us a butt of ridicule at home or office or the subject of a silly blog!