The Transformative Journey – Part 1

Disclaimer: The character of the main protagonist in this story is based on the main protagonist of a movie that I recently saw. Some of the other characters and incidents mentioned in the story are also based on other movies that I have seen over the years. The only intention behind doing so is that I found the character extremely interesting and wanted to explore what he would do in the situations that he finds himself in as part of the narrative.

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Arjun heard the alarm of his table clock beeping at 4 AM. He waited till the fifth beep and sat up on his bed by the time it had beeped seven times. He turned around to the right side of his bed, put both his feet down such that they exactly landed into his bedroom slippers. He then turned to the bedside table where the clock was kept and switched off the alarm.

Taking seven carefully measured steps, he went into the bathroom and washed his face, brushed his teeth, relieved himself, all in the space of almost exactly twenty minutes, just like he did every day. He then changed into his exercise clothes, a tee shirt, shorts and cross-trainers with ankle length socks. He then made his way out of the house, briefly acknowledging the barely awake guard at the gate, and started jogging. After running for exactly 3 kms one way, he turned around, retraced his path and came back home to complete an exact 6 km run, just like every day.

Back home between 5 AM and 5.15 AM, he then went into the kitchen, picked up one papaya, two apples and 7 green grapes. Carefully peeling the papaya and the apples, he cut them up into inch sized cubes, put them in a bowl with the grapes, added a couple of dollops of honey and put the bowl in the refrigerator.

He then took a shower, dressed up in a light blue formal shirt, beige trousers, picked up his white cotton socks, his laptop bag and came downstairs. Keeping the socks and the bag near the shoe rack near the door, he sat down for breakfast. His father who was already at the table smiled and wished him – Good morning Arjun, how are things today?

Good morning, things are good, as always he replied, and glanced at his mother who was coming out of the kitchen with today’s breakfast, idlis. He ate two idlis in silence and then proceeded to eat the fruits that he had cut earlier, once again in complete silence. This was his daily breakfast.

And then between 6.45 AM and 7 AM, after having cursorily read the newspaper for the day, Arjun proceeded to walk to his office which was around 2 kms away. While there were at least two cars at home with chauffeurs, he wanted to avoid as much physical contact with anybody and if possible, also avoid talking to anybody at all and therefore walked to office every day.

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Arjun’s parents had noticed these peculiarities in his behavior when he was around 4 yrs old. While everything else about him was normal and in fact his learning abilities were prodigious, the fact that he liked to keep himself really clean and spot-less, and his insistence of having things done in particular ways disturbed them a little. After consulting with various neurosurgeons and psychiatrists, their son was diagnosed with an extremely mild form of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

While OCD patients were extremely irritable and generally went into clinical depression due to their inability control their obsessiveness, the fact that Arjun was able to adjust to a very large extent to people around him, his immediate surroundings meant that his condition was not serious and did not need any medication. The only thing Arjun really disliked due to his condition was actual physical contact with other people or things that other people used, and he therefore was very particular about who and what he touched in his daily life. Apart from this weird personality quirk and the fact that he was not too communicative with others, everything else was normal about him.

However, as a precautionary measure, he visited his psychiatrist once a week for half an hour, just for the doctor to be sure that his condition was under control.

<< Part 2 >>