I got asked the other day what dwarf I felt the most connected to. After I had looked at my enquirer perplexedly and conducted my civic duty aptly by wondering aloud about all the lines of political correctness my friend had grossly surpassed, I was politely chastised to stop reading between the lines and just answer the bloody question already.
It was then that I realised that the reference was alluding to which one of the seven dwarfs in the ancient Snow White fable I felt I was most like. Seeing as I can never ever answer a query straightforwardly, I asked if the question was multiple choice. My friend told me to forget it and muttered something under her breath that sounded a little like “I should know better” mixed with a whole heap of curse words, but my other friend (who is a shrink by the way and I am still not quite sure why I feel the constant need to bring that up) has been telling me to let things go lately. So instead, I bit my tongue profusely and decided to go home and write a list of why I thought this exercise should have been multiple choice in the first place.
Even though I lead an amazingly exciting life, I somehow fit in the exercise when I (cough cough) had some free time and thought I’d share the results with you. Okay fine, I had absolutely nothing to do, so as soon as I ripped through my front door, I slammed my bag hard against my kitchen counter and wrapped my eager beaver fingers around my felt tip pen to release my maniacal onslaught by proceeding to scribble down my ideas on the half used serviette I had left near the sink in the morning.
I don’t think it’s possible to imprison yourself into a simplified notion of one personality group and when I think about it, the seven dwarfs in Snow White are just that, personality groups. I go through all the dwarf representations numerous times and often repeatedly in one day itself. Take this morning for example. I was happily Sleepy before an uninvited Grumpy pounced after I had realised that I had put my alarm on for a whole hour earlier, which lasted till about mid-morning when after scratching my head in confusion for the better half of a dawn, I felt Dopey for forgetting about the 24 hour format lessons I had promised mum I had learnt appropriately in Year 2. Then when I got home and saw my alarm unashamedly tauntingly flashing at me, a light bulb moment hit – my clock isn’t even in 24 hour format! So that was Bashful.
To top it all off, I have allergies early morning so waking up at the ungodly hour I did didn’t help my situation making me Sneezy all afternoon when I decided to self-medicate myself because I sincerely believe that being a Doc was my higher calling which meant that Happy was the only feeling left to experience.
I must admit, this was a tough one but I wasn’t about to let my friend win [because apparently I am quite competitive as someone very wise on this blog once told me – you know who you are ;)]. Then as I commenced reading down my list, my eyes glazed over in gleeful victory, the kind you feel churning in the pit of your stomach when it dawns that you may be on the outskirts of a very promising “told you so” victory because it was settled – my friend had lost. I had made six out of seven dwarfs in a little over half a day already and voila! That made me Happy. Score, 7 out of 7!
I tore the phone of its carrier thingy ma-gig and quickly punched in the numbers of my friend yelling maddeningly, “you lose, I win, you lose, I win. I made 7 out of 7”.
My friend who apparently DID have better things to do with her life asked if I had forgotten to take my Prozac again and about what the hell I was talking about.
I continued to give her a heated rundown and summary gawking at her inability to recall past events of only moments ago to which she dryly and succinctly replied “you need a shrink”.
Before I could barely get the “well the joke’s on you, I already have one” words out, I heard the dead end dial tone bullyingly boring into my right ear drum.
Anyway, it doesn’t matter – I console myself by knowing that I won, so there…
MP Sharma 