Psychobabble

Have you seen Kaho Na Pyaar Hai? The scene where the heroine has a conversation with the dead hero's lookalike which reminds her of him. Or the scene where the duplicate interacts with the dead hero's kid brother and the kid is reminded of the real deal. Well, freakishly, these things are happening to me. OK, maybe not exactly. I don't "see dead people". It's just that some strangers inadverdently remind me of certain other people I know.

The most unnerving experience of them all had to be the one during my bus journey home. The bus is about to leave the depot and is at the gate when the moderator(?) asks the driver to stop and a girl gets in. No, violins don't play in the background, she isn't wearing a chiffon saree, the pallu of which blows in the wind and there is most definitely no perfect breeze blowing her hair. She's probably a regular looking girl. I say probably because that was the last thing on my mind, to check out a girl. As my luck would have it, she lands up in the seat next to me, much to my chagrin(I like to occupy a two seater by myself. Who doesn't?).

The bus starts moving again and she takes out her phone. The next few words of hers makes me freeze in my seat. Not only does she sound exactly like a friend but she uses the exact same words of greeting on the phone. Before you jump the gun, it isn't a plain "Hi" or "Hello". I have a mental argument with myself, contemplating if it's possible that it is indeed my friend sitting next to me. I steal glances of her face and of course, it is not her. Unaware of the battle that my logic is waging with my mind, she continues to speak on the phone. I swear I would have been so relieved had it been a prank played by a common friend or even by some lame television channel. But it wasn't to be.

This wasn't a one off case. There have been others. My team mate in my new team reminds me of a friend - but his isn't a case of exact replication. Just the mannerisms, maybe the way of talking. Just the overall vibes. Needless to say, I am most comfortable around him and started acting and talking freely to him when I was barely introduced to him!

Then there's the duplicate mom in aerobics class. This lady just warms my heart. Everytime I see her, I remember my mother. For the record, they don't resemble each other at all. And this isn't an old woman I am talking about. She may be 4 years older than me, at max. Yet, everytime I see her, I end up smiling out of a sense of familiarity. Maybe it's something in her eyes. She smiles back too, by the way, and seems to be a really nice woman.

Now for some self psychoanalysis: I think I have started to generalize and categorize people. I judge them, that is a fact which is known to all. But now, my brain has started putting all the people I know in separate little mind containers, with each having its set of characteristics and mannerisms, broadly. So the first time I meet someone, to put me at ease, I sub consciously put that person in one of the existing containers. It saves me the trouble of creating new ones, saves me the anxiety of reacting to "new" people and most definitely saves me the time to familiarise with them. In the process though, it is messing with my mind. I don't like it.