Adventures with acrophobia – The Hindu

Recently I declined an invitation to get to the designated 148th floor of the iconic 828-metre Burj Khalifa for a pricey panoramic view of Dubai from the 555-metre perch.

I happen to be a chronic case of acrophobia, which translates to a morbid fear of dizzying heights. It is accompanied by a sinking-churning feeling, with epicentre in the pit of the stomach. This phobia has touched such disconcerting heights that when people invite me to their 10th or higher floor homes, I convey my regret with whatever excuse I can latch on to.

Ascension to those levels, entailing a precipitous looking down, is an intensely unsettling experience while being, essentially, outside my physiological and psychological comfort zones. I first confronted the phobia as a teenager when I accompanied a visiting relative and his family to the permitted first level of Qutb Minar. From the 100-foot high balcony projection, I saw human dots moving around below, some even waving at us. Instantly my head reeled and the stomach churned as the phobia unceremoniously staged its maiden entry into my life and stay on indefinitely. I must, however, gratefully acknowledge that a past-life regression therapist did make a sincere attempt at evicting the “unwanted guest”.

Going by the success rate of PLRT in the hands of experienced therapists, the therapy should have dispelled the irrational fear permanently. Regrettably, it did not.

Days later, during a visit to a house-warming do at a friend’s 20th floor flat in a New Town neighbourhood of Kolkata, I sauntered across to the expansive balcony where a barbecue was organised. With a plateful of savouries, I gravitated to the railing edge to quietly test the efficacy of the therapy. What I saw 200 feet below was a line of what appeared as dinky vehicles in office-time crawl even as dotted masses of humanity moved randomly on the pavement strip. The familiar dreadful feeling was back. I felt like my head had entered a washing machine in high-spin mode.

In retrospect and on a lighter note, I reasoned that in an era of specialisation, I had erred in consulting a junior therapist, competent, perhaps, to treat only lesser height phobias. Had I gone to a senior therapist, with proven “hi-rise” capabilities, the outcome may have been different. And I might have been relishing both the kababs and the Kolkata skyline from the balcony below the clouds.

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