Nerve Endings Firing Away

Everyday I reveal a little more about my existence in the real world and some of you are smart enough to make some accurate guesses. I never thought I would be blogging about this aspect of my life, heck to think of it, I never discuss it with my close friends. For your own good and if you like to be forewarned, exit from this blog now if you do not like unabashed pessimism, a dose of negativity and a long diatribe.

The more I try to hide the fact that I stutter, the more obvious I make it to people around me. Stuttering or stammering is a fluency disorder that afflicts 1% of the world population and is more likely to affect males. I have been stuttering as far as I remember and I won’t say that it has not affected my life at all. It does affect my life each passing moment, emotionally, mentally and physically. If you have the sudden urge to say “So what? Look at all the people who cannot speak”, I would say I feel terribly sorry for them but frankly to each his own.

Call it the effect of bad genes, a childhood mental trauma that I can’t remember, a long-forgotten illness or just “sour grapes and gripes”; I frankly do not recall the primary causal factor of my habit. I call it habit because that is what I have been told by many speech therapists that I have seen over the years. It is become so integral to my life that it will not leave me even if it is the last thing I want and attempts to get rid of it has fallen flat so far. Hours of speech therapy, doses of sweet homeopathic and bitter ayurvedic medicines, bizarre alternative medicines practices like self-hypnosis, Reiki, Acupuncture have borne no result and the condition remains unchanged; maybe getting worse with each passing day until I almost wish for the genie to grant me one lousy selfish wish.

I could never be the high-achieving charismatic son that my high-profile parents hoped for. I have cursed myself whenever I see my father’s cringing face when asked to introduce myself to his clientele. It is frustrating to keep myself quiet when I know that I can easily out-speak the other person’s baseless arguments. It is downright depressing not to be able to express your true emotions, feelings and ideas in the verbal form. I sometimes marvel at my ability to wriggle out of talking situations. It takes lot of self-toleration and wallowing in self-pity to avoid any kind of verbalizing with strangers especially of the opposite sex.

I had come to terms that arranged marriage for me is totally ruled out unless an unsuspecting soul, totally lost in pity love would agree to spend her life with me. Dating? You kidding me? Do you ever think I would ever muster enough guts to ask anyone out? Guys tend to naturally shy away for the fear of rejection, plus even if you have rehearsed the right things to say, it is going to be a veritable struggle to put those things in words.

But asking a girl out is the least of my worries. If you are to excel professionally, you have to speak; well. Interviews, presentations, seminars, conferences, cross-questioning at the corporate prison forms your image and opinions. You earn your respect based on what you say at the right time. But things are not always that smooth when you are worried about how you speak rather than what you speak.

I may appear to be well-versed in the nuances of English language when I write but the story is entirely different when I speak; fumbling, searching for words, short terse sometimes incomprehensible sentences, incoherent mumblings that end abruptly, also makes you doubt if I really am the person you read about. First impressions never worked for me and not everyone is patient enough to hang around to know the real me. I have seen that you may know zilch but can easily get away if you can talk glibly and work your verbal charm.

This is, however no reflection of my life in reality. I have never (or at least tried not to) let my impairment affect my choices in life. I have come a long way, mostly excelling in whatever I have done (at least so far). I have given umpteen presentations; presented my undergraduate dissertation; heck even presented it at the NCPA, Mumbai in front of 400 people although sometimes people have mistaken me for being retarded and given me looks of sympathy (my pet peeve).

I like to think that people do value my opinion and often look beyond my impairment (or least they appear to do so) but I like to remain a man of few words and definitely am not the guy who loves to hog the telephone. My parents suspected an affair when one of my phone conversations lasted more than 30 minutes, although most of the talking was on the other end and the only thing I legibly was “hmmmm”. I stopped chatting on the Internet as soon as I realized that I was substituting it for my conversations on the phone and inadvertently had made the biggest blunder of my life. My parents freely admit that my speech impairment is still the biggest hurdle that stands in my way of achieving greater heights and for a change, I tend to agree.

Now, after reading this, if you suddenly feel a strong urge to sympathize with me and assuage my feelings by saying that “Don’t worry, everything will be OK and work itself out”, then please feel free to fuck off. I am not fishing for sympathies or pity here nor am I giving excuses for the missed opportunities in life. I am merely venting out what I is an integral albeit an unwanted part of my life. I am just making use of the cathartic abilities of my blog. I do not purport to be the perfect hunk or the stud on the block because I am not. But at the same time, I do not let myself be debased or thought less of by anyone. And no! I wasn’t the first choice for Shah Rukh’s role in Darr, although the similarities are uncanny. So there, I said it.