FEAR
THE UNPREDICTABILITY OF LIFE:
Life’s unpredictability is often the source of fear. Often, events themselves are not frightening, but the uncertainty of what may happen next—sudden accidents, the loss of loved ones, radical changes in people and situations around me… — these keep my mind constantly on red alert. I anticipate potential difficulties that seem beyond my control.
My friend knows this better than anyone, especially after hearing my stories. She listens to them – half in shock, half in disbelief. Finally, she throws up her hands and declares, “Honestly, the most exciting thing that happens to me is when my maid doesn’t turn up. But you? Your life needs its own season on TV!
So, let’s see… You start with a fractured foot. Then your better-half slips, knocks himself unconscious, gets stitches, develops a subdural haematoma, goes through skull surgery, and even needs another intervention… and just when we think the credits will roll, you add a car accident?”
She stares at me admiringly…the heroine who creates plot twists with the universe.
“But wait,” she continues dramatically, “the serial continues …In the hospital, he gets a plate screwed onto his fractured neck, catches pneumonia, and his poor multiple hairline rib fractures don’t even get treated because the doctors were too busy fixing the rest of him.
“And you?” She looks at me with amazement. “You quietly collect hairline rib fractures, vertigo, BP that behaves like a yo-yo, and PTSD—bonus prizes no one applied for.
And just to keep life interesting, he has a hernia operation, and you get cataract surgery in both eyes. ALL of this… in one and a half years?”
She shakes her head, sighs deeply, and concludes, “After hearing all this, my maid not showing up suddenly feels like my life is too humdrum.”
And in that moment, I realise: yes, life is unpredictable, frightening, and wildly unscripted—
but it is also what shapes my courage, sharpens my humour, and teaches me that we can survive much more than we ever imagined.
Here are five clear, meaningful dimensions that I understand about fear:
1. Physical Fear
The body’s instinctive reaction to danger—racing heart, tense muscles, frozen breath—is the survival-driven “fight, flight, or freeze” response.
2. Emotional Fear
The inner turbulence we feel when facing loss, uncertainty, rejection, or change. These fears often shape our self-worth and relationships.
3. Psychological Fear
The mind’s stories and assumptions about what might go wrong—imagined scenarios, overthinking, and patterns rooted in past experiences or trauma.
4. Social Fear
Fear connected to people and society: judgment, criticism, failure, disappointing others, or not fitting in. It influences how we show up in the world.
5. Existential Fear
The deepest layer—fear of meaninglessness, mortality, impermanence, and the unknown. This dimension often pushes us to question who we are and why we are here.
How My Personal Fears Shaped the Five Stories on Fear
My own life, with its sudden accidents, medical emergencies, losses, and long periods of uncertainty, became the raw material from which my stories were born.
I allowed my characters to experience them in their own ways. My fears became their fears, and the turning points in each story.
By weaving my real fear into fiction, I discovered something important:
Stories not only entertain—they heal.
They help us make sense of what overwhelms us.
They give shape to emotions that felt formless.
And they remind us that fear, when not understood, becomes a doorway to mental distress, myths and even death.
ANXIETY -THE SILENT VILLAIN
Anxiety starts when the brain’s alarm system activates. The amygdala, which functions as a small danger detector, becomes alert even if nothing harmful is occurring. It misinterprets a situation and signals: ‘Be careful. Something might go wrong’
Once this alarm is triggered, the body quickly prepares to protect me. Stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol start to flow. My heart beats faster, my breathing becomes shallower, and my muscles tense up. The body believes it is helping, but it is simply responding to a false alarm.
Then the mind takes over. Thoughts begin spinning – ‘What if something bad happens?’ This leads to a cycle where the alarm grows louder, even when I want it to stop.
Past experiences also play a role. Old fears, unresolved memories, or difficult moments make the alarm system more sensitive. It reacts faster and stronger, even to small things.
And when life feels heavy—when I am overwhelmed, tired, or emotionally drained—small triggers can seem enormous. A tiny worry turns into a storm.
In simple words, anxiety happens when the body tries to protect me, but misunderstands the situation. It is not weakness; it is a system that needs calming, not fighting.
In my life, anxiety sits like layers of prickly blankets. Unresolved childhood issues, imagined adolescent failures, struggles of being a young adult and trials and tribulations of middle age. All meshed into my senior citizen travails is a great recipe for A+ anxiety syndrome, as I call it.
It tells quiet lies—what if, what next, what now—until the mind becomes its captive audience.
Yet, this silent villain is also a messenger. It reminds me to pause, to listen to my body’s whispers, to honour what feels unsettled. When I breathe deeper, return to the present, and trust my inner steadiness, the villain loses its power.
And what remains is clarity, resilience, and a renewed sense of self.
THE INEVITABILITY OF DEATH
Death is the one truth we try not to look at,
– Sheila K Srinivas
Yet it walks beside us quietly…
like a shadow that never argues,
never rushes, never forgets its path.
It is the final chapter every life must turn,
the moment when breath returns to silence
and the body surrenders to the rhythm of nature.
We fear it because it cannot be bargained with.
We avoid thinking about it because it reminds us
how fragile our days truly are.
Yet, there is a strange softness in this inevitability.
Knowing that life is finite,
nudges us to live with more depth—
to speak kindly, to forgive sooner,
to hold our loved ones a little tighter.
Death teaches us to value presence, not possessions.
experiences, not appearances.
It is not the enemy we imagine,
but a reminder to wake up fully to the life we have.
In accepting its certainty, we stop fighting the unknown
and start honouring each moment with awareness.
The inevitability of death is what makes every sunrise
meaningful, every relationship precious, and every breath – a quiet miracle.
Death has always puzzled me. Philosophers often say that the opposite of death is birth, not life, and perhaps they are right. Life in its many forms continues endlessly, even if we humans cannot always perceive it. Yet, the deaths of my mother and father were something my mind could not grasp. How could two people so vital to my survival vanish completely from my world?
But as glimpsed in my story ‘The Spirit of Amma,’ a loved one never really leaves. Their soul lingers, watching, guiding in ways we may not fully understand. How, you may ask? How can a soul remain with its family and also reincarnate into another being? We are told this is God’s plan—and over time, I formed my own understanding.
- Inside me, quite literally, lies a part of them. I carry their cells, their genetic memory, and the essence of all my ancestors. This same thread will continue into my descendants. Perhaps this is what eternity truly means.
- During a hypnosis session for past-life regression, my parents appeared—not as defined faces, but as soft, glowing forms. My mother embraced me, and my father, who was always a little ‘hug-shy,’ stood watching with a gentle smile. It felt as if they existed as invisible spirits, hovering near, wondering lovingly why we complicate our lives so much.
- There was a time when the fear of my own death overwhelmed me. But two incidents reshaped that fear.
a) On the morning of the car crash, my husband and I survived, I had dozed off. Half an hour before the accident, I felt a golden light wrap around me—warm, radiant, filling me with such profound safety and joy that tears streamed down my face. I truly believe the Supreme Consciousness was preparing me for what was to come.
When the crash occurred, the car crumpled inward like paper. Yet I emerged relatively unhurt. And so I began to understand: death may be inevitable, but we are not abandoned. Something greater—call it spirit, love, or consciousness—holds us gently, even in the darkest moments.
b) Staring into space one night, I woke from a disturbing dream about the death of a loved one. Shaken, I sat up to meditate—the one practice that has carried me through many dark nights. As I focused on my breath, I found myself wondering, what is death, really?
Slowly, a vision emerged in my mind’s eye: a soft, radiant golden net, delicate yet strong, opening itself to me. I felt myself falling into it—not with fear, but with an overwhelming sense of safety, as though I were being held by something infinitely loving.
When I opened my eyes, a deep, unexplainable calm filled the room. The image was so soothing, so reassuring, that in that moment I understood something profound: death, like birth, is a transition held by the same divine tenderness. It is not a fall into darkness but a return to a sacred embrace.
And with that understanding came a quiet realization—why worry about something that is, at its core, just another moment of grace?
