Yes, I am a Chicken

There are phobias and there are some more phobias.

Common or uncommon these primal fears disturb us at a psychological level and very rare do we have enough guts to overcome the source of such frights.

I have one too which Bill Watterson captures very well –

Oh, blood-red eyes and tentacles!

Throbbing, pulsing, ventricles!

Mucus-oozing pores and frightful claws!

Worse in terms of outright scariness,

Are the suckers multifarious

That grab and force you in its mighty jaws!

No it’s not the fear of ghosts or darkness or animals or monsters or the unknown but funny as it may seem I am afraid rather petrified rather scared stiff rather terrified of chicken/hens/or whatever else these beastly creatures are known as.

It might sound irrational, stupid even ridiculous as many of my friends put it except the truth is – the phobia exists and I am suffer from it! 

Not sure whether I was born with it however it became extremely clear one Sunday morning when I followed my Grandpa to the local market to buy chicken. The excitement promptly vanished in thin air as soon as I saw the butcher catch the chicken by its neck, slit the throat, slaughter it and throw the headless chicken in a tub where it fluttered its wings before giving up the final fight. I was HORRIFIED. In fact, I can’t even recollect my return journey home carrying the same pieces of chicken in a black polythene bag.

Needless to say, it was my first and last visit to a butcher’s shop. Till date, I haven’t stepped foot in any.

The fear grew incessantly over the years to the extent that if a spot a chicken anywhere...just about anywhere, I start suffering from breathlessness, dizziness, dry mouth, nausea,  heart palpitations, inability to speak or think clearly, a fear of dying, losing control or even a full blown anxiety attack.

As a kid when I visited our ancestral village, I’ve made dad carry me around throughout our stay because I was scared of the awful, fearsome, foul chickens roaming around...looking at me with blood shot eyes, telling me in their own sinister way that I was an intruder in their territory.

All these years, I have made people change tracks if I see a chicken anywhere. I shut my eyes tight if I happen to cross a chicken van, if I am travelling by a cab/auto I have shouted at the driver asking them to stay as far as possible if there is a chicken van nearby, I have made them miss signals, I have made them stop & wait till the chicken van passes by while they wonder what kind of psycho passenger am I.  

What do I do? They are SCARY and I strongly believe that the chickens are out there to get me, attack me, kill me and take some kind of revenge. (I have seriously considered past life regression to figure if I had something to do with chickens in my previous life)

The terror is to so enormous that if someone wants me dead, all they have to do is get a chicken close to me. That’s it, it’ll do it. That too, in less than 1 minute.

(See how easy it is for someone to kill me and this is NOT a joke)

THE KILLER CHICKEN

For the longest time I thought and others made me believe that such a fear doesn’t exist and maybe I am the ONLY one who’s making it up in my psychosomatic mind. But with a little bit of digging on Google, I figured that a phobia of chicken DOES exist and I am NOT the only one has it (Thank God)

It’s known as Alektorophobia and yes, I am an Alektorophobe.

Is there a way to overcome it? Yes but it’s quite an irony actually.

Although I am a chicken when it comes to chicken, I am a hardcore non vegetarian and I happily devour chicken. Guess over time I’ve realised that I am helpless in making them disappear from the face of the earth so might as well eat them up!

What do you think? For me, it’s easier than participating in Khatron Ke Khiladi!