You think you are dumb?

How many of you have looked at the back of your sunscreen bottle and noticed a CAUTION note?
“For external use only”, most of the bottles say. Every time I read that caution note, I wonder to myself, ‘Which kinda idiot thinks sunscreen lotion is edible and consuming it is how you protect your skin and it’s tone from the sun?’

‘Probably the same type of idiot who thinks the best way to booze, while the liquor shops are closed, is to drink hand sanitizer’ I would reply myself. How many of you have read, “If it irritates your skin, discontinue using it” at the back of a sample product?! Major facepalm, right?! I mean, how many douchebags out there persistently use a sample product in spite of it giving them a gory rash? Ridiculous!

The moment I mentally laughed at these things, my brain got a cue to pick up a ladle, dig deep down into a mound of unforgettable embarrassments of my life and coercively pour it all over me until I am racked with a sambar of awkward-thrika  and a poriyal of numb-akka. Basically, it would tether me to a seat in a luxurious, empty theatre, and play all the awkward situations of mine in a screen too obtrusive to ignore or shut my eyes at. That was not new to me, because it was part of my night-time routine – brush my teeth, wash my face, go to bed and let my brain do the one thing it does with such alacrity which is to remind me of all the moments of predicaments without respite.

This time, it filtered my memories and brought forward only the category that was labeled “Amazing memory power” (CAUTION: The label name is inclusive of the quotes. Yes, my brain loves sarcasm and satires). Through those memories, some facts were forced to my awareness. I am a person who walks right into a room, suddenly stops in the middle of it, wonder why I came to this room in the first place, and head back. There was this one time when my mom asked me to drop the trash bag in the bin on my way to the shop. So, with the trash bag in one hand, I picked up my shopping bag with my other hand, dropped it inside the bin, and walked to shop. The duration it took for me to realize my action was too late for the poor shopping back. My mother scolded me worse than when I got bad grades (BTW, what’s up with Indian mothers and their obsessiveness in collecting shopping bags?!). Some of my friends think I am too much of a scene-party or a bad friend for not replying to their texts. They have no idea of how I open their text, exit to do some urgent errand or something, and forget to reply later. They do not know that I am neither a scene-party nor a bad friend, but just a fractional Sanjay Ramasamy. Over and above, let’s not go near the images of me searching for the pencil I had used to make my hair bun (more of a kondai) or me loitering in my home during a power outage with the help of the flashlight from my mobile, that I am searching aggressively, in my hand. All I can say is, yes, I admit it. My memory power is as huge as Amy Jackson’s importance in the movie Theri, as amazing as Chandler’s hairstyle back in college and as efficient as salt in kesari. After this memory enforcement and embarrassment reloaded, I will not laugh at those stupid jokes I make that are as dumb as me.

But then, speaking of inoperative stuffs, any idea how handy and utile my brain could be during exam times? Let me break it down for you. I had a habit of having conversations (mostly contentions) with my brain, sometimes mentally and sometimes aloud. [To, all those people giving weird stares like the one in the picture below: do not pretend like you don’t know what I am talking about. For the rest: I assure you I am not developing any personality disorder.] I would give a bunch of reasons as to why I should do something, and my brain would put forward a number of contradictions for why I should not. Well, the same thing happened every time during my exams.

The previous day, when I had, at last, opened my book to read for the next day’s exam, my brain always had something to say.
“Don’t waste time reading that. You have already read it.”
“Yes, but that was 2 years ago – in my 12^th grade.”
“Who cares! You already know it. Don’t waste time in this chapter. Start the next one”
I flipped to the next chapter.
“Are you kidding me? This chapter is literally the back of your hand”
I moved to the consequent chapter.
“Okay. Who are you trying to fool now? If you did not know it already, let me enunciate it to you – even if you read this chapter for a week, YOU WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND IT. So act smart and skip this”
Next chapter.
“Skip”
Next chapter. I skip.
Half an hour into the succeeding chapter, I solve 5 sums at the first attempt, perfectly.
“Seriously? Give me a challenge. What am I? A kinder gardener? Flip, child, flip”
Next chapter is theory.
“As if you will read it without falling asleep within 15 minutes into it, remember everything tomorrow and write the correct answers in the paper instead of cooking up the entire thing”

The next day, during the exam, I read the questions and anticipated answers to peek out for at least a few. But nothing happened. In spite of finding some nice souls who looked as clueless as me, I was stressed and dismayed. In the interim, the only viable thing my brain did was sing songs like “Oodhungada sangu”, “Oda oda oda dhooram korayala”, “Give me some sunshine”, “Aaoge jab tum”, etc.

Besides, my brain wasn’t the only part of my body with attitude. My eyes refused to be open for more than an hour during a lecture, my heart demanded food every time I was bored or the instant I smelled delicious food, even if I had JUST finished my meal, my hand worked fast only at the last 10 minutes of an exam, my foot decided to be rickety only when I wore heels in public, my mouth uttered the most awkward things when a cute guy was at earshot, and above all, my limbs withheld movements especially when I crossed the road at the wrong time. And all this happened Every Single Time. I had an OCD for the way I ate my Oreos and a strong belief that only my mom can find the other sock. But we all know who is responsible for these ravages as well – the guy up there. (Brain. Not God).

In conclusion, I would like to say, all of us have such weird, inconvenient, al dente truth about ourselves. And blaming our brain for our stupidity is certainly a normal thing. Sometimes you might wonder if you are in the initial stages of Alzheimer’s or if you have an eating disorder. You might Google your “symptoms” and end up gawking at your mobile as a dramatic thunder BGM plays in your mind when the displayed results say you have cancer. But it is okay. It is okay to be absentminded, forgetful, and dumb, sometimes. It is okay to be who we are and seek to assuage by delegating some responsibilities of our actions to the brain. After all, I am sure our brain and our creators (mom, dad AND god) are appalled at the way we have turned out. Now, this much into the article, if you are thinking ‘why am I reading this?’ you know who to blame. (Brain again. Not me).