performance anxiety

Men normally are preys to performance anxiety!

Some things in life have no meaning, like this particular anxiety... it makes you so anxious that you just cannot perform at even the normal standard that you were supposed to perform. Some say the resultant adrenaline helps in rescuing us from the situation, but the only way I can see that happening is running away from the situation at speeds unimaginable normally.

Now before you guys get wrong impression about the performance anxieties I have to get to the topic.

I was invited recently to a bhoomi puja (ground breaking)of one of the projects wherein I was a vendor. Now that the custom goes after the pundits (not the english pun for knowledgable people, but hindu uppercaste brahmin community, who are in knowledge of the veda's (hindu religious scriptures)), were chanting the mantras (again not the english meaning, but scriptures)! Oh the perils of borrowing from sanskrit by englishmen!

Anyways when they started their offerings to god, one of the main ritual is every stake holder is supposed to break a coconut as an offering to the gods! The idea here about the ritual is that everyone's coconut is an omen to the way their responsibility towards the project is going to be shaping up.

The coconut has to be broken on a large granite stone laid for the purpose by simply hammering the coconut on to it with your bare hands! Not a big task though, any small kid can do it! There is a catch though! The coconut has to break in perfect middle or in two equal or near to equal pieces when you break! It should not shatter, nor it should be unequal, that is bad omen! Also one more issue... Your coconut should be fresh and good, should not have gone bad!

One by one everyone are going coconuts, rather doing their coconuts. And I am really sweating. There is a horde of people including my client, the managing director and other directors of that company etc anxiously watching!I am not at all superstitious, but I can't vouch that for them, so I am getting all hyper-ventilated.

Now is my turn... I feel like an athlete in olympics down to do his final performance... All turns silent! I take the coconut in my hand, shake it near my ear to judge whether it has water (rendering it as a quality one as in fresh), to be very frank, I have no idea of judging if a coconut goes bad whether it will make no sound or not, but I had seen many athletes in their performances ensuring that it was a standard practice (something similar to rubbing a stitch ball on your crotch when you play cricket, frankly till I was too old to have stopped playing cricket as a looser, I never knew why they rubbed it! Seen in TV so had to imitate the big players).

So there I was hearing to the jingling sound of water from the coconut... looking at the stone... wondering whether it will break into perfect halves, whether the good old coconut would still be good, or gone rotten inside! I was at the peak of performance anxiety! Wondering if only I could run away from there!

And then I took the bold step... like the long jumpers.. I didn't have three attempts.. I was bestowed with only this one coconut! And I had to break it now come whatever may. The adrenaline was making me faint... people silent, I felt like in the middle of a world cup football stadium where people were silent for the final penalty shootout... so I gain all my courage and shoot!

Wonderful... all clapping hands, all elated cheers... My coconut was perfect two halves... and it was perfectly fresh! No rotting for miles! I felt like I was in the podium of olympics recieving my gold medal!

No wonder men are averse to performance anxieties... If only there was no athelete in everyone of us! The human race would have been extinct by now! I think in this case the testosterone helps! Never for a coconut it helps! I am not that weird!