On getting the heebie-jeebies

Harvinder Khetal

Though we all know that we all are not immortal, there is something about death that pulls you. It forces you to think and contemplate. It shakes you from inside. Not that you just cannot escape its inevitability, but also while alive, you are inexorably drawn to matters of termination and finality, of mortality. More so if it’s a matter of murder. The more macabre the massacre, the more it moves you. The mere mention of many a morbid story is sure to give you the heebie-jeebies. 

Heebie-jeebies is a state of nervous fear or anxiety. This rhyming pair was coined in the 1920s in the USA. There has been rather a surfeit of such stuff this last week, serving one the screaming abdabs (the UK’s counterpart of the heebie-jeebies). 

The jitters seem to acquire an added dread if the death happens in your backyard. The murder most foul takes on a ghoulish mask. Yes, I am referring to that gruesome crushing of a well-heeled young man under the BMW wheels allegedly by his equally well-to-do friends in Sector 9, Chandigarh, following an angry argument. That anger can blind one to reasoning and distort one’s mindset so much gave me the heebie-jeebies.

And further away, was playing the story of the grisly end of the North Korean tyrannical ruler’s playboy half-brother. It is reported that the dying words of Kim Jong-Nam, half-brother of Kim Jong-Un, were: “very painful, very painful, I was sprayed liquid!” Poisoned with a toxic chemical spray and left to die, Kim Jong-Nam staggered through the fourth floor of a Malaysian airport, looking for anyone to help him. His brother is said to be behind this assassination. He had earlier too made attempts to finish him. It is said that five years ago, Kim Jong-Nam had pleaded with his younger sibling to spare his life. Doesn’t it give you the collywobbles (an uncomfortable feeling in the stomach caused by nervousness or fear)?

The gory details of the two tales led one to read the dreadful crime stories. Murder mysteries are indeed magnetic. They have been so since childhood. After the comic series, it was the mystery series dished out by Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie that was my favourite genre of books. I would get the butterflies in my stomach (to feel very nervous).  If I fell asleep reading a book at night, I would start reading the unputdownable tome the first thing the next morning, so engrossing was the suspense. And then, even when I graduated to reading other genres, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s whodunits, featuring the diligent detective Sherlock Holmes and his endearing assistant Watson, continued to hold a special attraction. 

I can almost hear Holmes say: “It’s elementary, my dear Watson!” By the way, did you know that this phrase famously attributed in the films to Holmes when explaining to Watson the deductions he had made in solving a crime never appears in the Doyle books? But, these terms are mentioned separately in the stories.

Now, back to the latest. Other than man murdering man, there was this spine-chilling case of a pack of stray dogs mauling a four-year-old boy in Punjab. How many more such blood-curdling cases before we deal with danger lurking on our roads?

Interestingly, it is not only the cases of killings of humans that attract humans. Even those of creepy-crawlies (a spider, worm, or other small flightless creature, especially when considered unpleasant or frightening) can be huge draws, as this eerie video that is going viral currently shows. The video of a duel between two poisonous predators -- a redback spider and a snake -- is trending on YouTube and Facebook. In the past three days, the engaging fight has collected millions of views. It is hard to ignore the face-off between the snake entangled in the spider’s web in an Australian warehouse. Yes, do log in to know who won.

By the way, the World Press Photo Award for 2016, a prestigious photojournalism award, announced on February 13, has gone to the image depicting a ghastly murder of December 19, 2016. The shocking photo is of the Turkish policeman, his face contorted with rage, wielding the gun with which he pumped nine bullets into the Russian ambassador to Turkey, who lies still next to him at an art gallery in Ankara. Praising the courage of Burhan Ozbilici, a photographer for AP, who stood his ground, jury member Mary Calvert said: “It was a very, very difficult decision, but in the end we felt that the picture of the year was an explosive image that really spoke to the hatred of our times.”

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