Snakes.

If there is one phobia that overwhelms all others in my life, it is my fear of snakes. I have no clue how or when it started. Confessions are in order here - I am sure you have seen those movies where someone wakes up screaming from a rather nasty dream, all covered in sweat, which is later dabbed off by his oh-so-loving girlfriend. I have experienced the former, NOT the latter and snakes have almost always been the culprits.

I am told that various freudian interpretations exist. Here is one which has often had friends sniggering.

I have stayed in a house surrounded by a small garden for most of my life. Garden snakes, both poisonous and non-poisonous, were often sighted around my place, especially in the colder months of the monsoons and winter. The stories of Gokul's dad killing a cobra or of my 2-year old kid brother closely examining another are stuff of legend at my place. Just a few days back, I heard another one...

My brother (who survived the above mentioned incident :D), came home to an empty house one evening a few days back. Usually, with no one else at home, he proceeds to choose a random room in the house to dump his stuff and head out to meet his friends. On this fateful day, he chose my parent's bedroom. Thankfully, he at least bothered to put on the lights before entering the room. Surprise-surprise!! There he was!

Brown in colour, and a good 3. ft long, the snake lay coiled up in front of my parent's cupboard. If it were me in that situation, I would definitely have used my expert snake taming abilities involving a flute and lots of milk :)  But my boring brother chose to close the door and call the local "friends of snakes" organization who then released the snake to safety outside my house...

To pile on the misery, my parents were also told that there are many open snake holes  in and around their garage.

Moral of the story 1: Dreams do come true.
Moral of the story 2: I am never going back to that house again.

Epilogue:
The whole post was written with my toes curled in and momentary jolts of electricity passing through my body. This is probably what people who visit shrinks go through :)