The other day I was traveling in metro and a man sitting next to me was furtively looking in my phone screen for past few minutes. Well it was a PDF of forensic medicine and toxicology and it was quite normal that it was getting attention because you can't look away after watching some horrendous images, vague and embarrassing headings. Now if you are making a studious impression of me; don't cause I was reading because of approaching exams and if you ask me if my peripheral vision is always that good then ; yes , especially when I know guys are around.
So that man or boy ( I hadn't seen him yet so you know) whoever he was turned to me and said , " Excuse me but do you mind if I read this along with you , Molly Hooper" .The next few seconds I kept staring at him, jawdropped with a vacant look. It was not because the question was too odd, or he addressed me as Molly ( in fact I fell for that), or he was too smart( but yes he was a boy) but because I had heard that question before, lived that moment before. The cry of the child in the background refusing to feed was suddenly familiar, the grimaced face of the aunty standing in front looking at me if I would offer her my seat was not new and the question asked to me was no longer strange to me.
I sensed the situation had turned little awkward so I smiled and shrugged and said a meek yes. It was not as if I hadn't experienced déjà vu before but the fact that it was never that specific. What if I hadn't taken this metro, or entered a different coach, or offered my seat to the aunty or not asked my friend to give me the PDF that very week, or simply had listened music and overhear other's conversation which I usually do.
I don't know but suddenly I was so engrossed in this concept of déjà vu. How can someone confine such a complex phenomenon into 6 letters, it should have been something like Floccinaucinihilipilification I suggest. I recalled several previous incidents like when my brother came out of washroom singing the same song I thought he would or when the professor changed to a familiar slide during the lecture, when during a conversation someone said something which drove my mind to think if I had heard it before.
It's amazing how the following moments titillate every shred and piece of you and leave your mind thrilled yet complacent at the same time. That we live among million parallel universe containing million version of over selves and living our lives with diversity of different possibilities. And I thought that maybe it's not just an unsettling feeling of having lived this before but nature's way of letting you know that you are at right place at the right time.
So that man or boy ( I hadn't seen him yet so you know) whoever he was turned to me and said , " Excuse me but do you mind if I read this along with you , Molly Hooper" .The next few seconds I kept staring at him, jawdropped with a vacant look. It was not because the question was too odd, or he addressed me as Molly ( in fact I fell for that), or he was too smart( but yes he was a boy) but because I had heard that question before, lived that moment before. The cry of the child in the background refusing to feed was suddenly familiar, the grimaced face of the aunty standing in front looking at me if I would offer her my seat was not new and the question asked to me was no longer strange to me.
I sensed the situation had turned little awkward so I smiled and shrugged and said a meek yes. It was not as if I hadn't experienced déjà vu before but the fact that it was never that specific. What if I hadn't taken this metro, or entered a different coach, or offered my seat to the aunty or not asked my friend to give me the PDF that very week, or simply had listened music and overhear other's conversation which I usually do.
I don't know but suddenly I was so engrossed in this concept of déjà vu. How can someone confine such a complex phenomenon into 6 letters, it should have been something like Floccinaucinihilipilification I suggest. I recalled several previous incidents like when my brother came out of washroom singing the same song I thought he would or when the professor changed to a familiar slide during the lecture, when during a conversation someone said something which drove my mind to think if I had heard it before.
It's amazing how the following moments titillate every shred and piece of you and leave your mind thrilled yet complacent at the same time. That we live among million parallel universe containing million version of over selves and living our lives with diversity of different possibilities. And I thought that maybe it's not just an unsettling feeling of having lived this before but nature's way of letting you know that you are at right place at the right time.
