The Great Indian Double Standards

                                            

"Double Standard". What kind of emotions do these words evoke? Are they positive or negative ones? Am sure everyone will have a common answer to this question - negative, of course! Why do I even need to ask that.....pretty obvious isn't it? We often use these words in varied circumstances that we are faced in life, but mostly to point out the "double standards" in others. Well today's rant is not going to go down well with those who only use these terms in the event where the subject is someone else. Reason being that, today I sit down to point out the great Indian Double Standards, something that each one of us, in ways big or small, exhibit. So, if you are one who likes looking at the mirror to only see the great Godly image of yourself, I would suggest you to stop reading this piece right here. Because what follows is the ugly reflection of the inner self of each one of us.

So here goes the list of Indian Double Standards –

·         The boy's family insults, humiliates and disrespects the girl because she isn't their choice. Boy justifies it, saying, they are not bad people, they just love me a lot and so they want to stop me from getting hurt. They still don't know you, so they react in this manner but that is only because they care. Ok, accepted.
The boy and girl have a heated argument and a friend of the girl gives the boy some harsh words. The girl says that her friend cares for her and whatever he said was because he was worried about her. He still doesn't know you well, hence his reaction, but he is not a bad person. The boy's argument, how dare someone disrespects me and you take his side. Double Standards, yes or no?

·         Girl gets married at 25 and is now 8 years into the marriage, aged - 33. Yet another girl, completes her engineering, works for a few years, then does a post-graduation, works and goes around the world living a grand life till 33. Society refers to the two women in any discussion -
First woman - That old woman, she's been married for eight years, already in her mid-thirties, still doesn't have a kid, must be some problem with her.
Second woman - That gorgeous young lady, she is such a successful professional, has gone all around the world, very impressive.

·         Girl/Boy (X) married off early in life (around 25 - 26), now 5 years into the marriage. Yet another boy/girl (Y) of the same age, single and leading a carefree life. Neighbourhood acquaintance introducing her 3 year old kid to X - Baby, say hello to X Uncle / Aunty. The same lady introducing the kid to Y - Baby, say hello to Y Bhaiya / Didi. Years of marriage defines your level of seniority in the social circle, not your actual age.

·          XY (chromosome) at 26, XX (chromosome) at 25, get married. The marriage does not work as expected and inspite of efforts from both the sides, 6 years after the marriage they call it quits, thankfully without the complication of a kid being involved. Now the question of getting married again. Society's, including the family's view on it -
For the Boy - Its fine, koyi baat nahi. Abhi iski umar hi kya hai, achhi kunwari ladkiyo ki to line lag jayegi iske liye.
For the Girl - Oh God, pata nahi kya karke ayi hai. Family wonders, how are we going to face the society! People advise the family, find a divorcee or a widower and get her married quickly, the only way to save your face.

·         A divorced man looking for a second chance at marriage. First preference to single girls if possible, if none are found, then go to the category of divorced women but preferably without children.
A divorced woman looking for an alliance. How can she even think of getting hitched to a single man? Come on, she is used, a second hand item, God knows what she has done that led to the end of her first marriage! Divorced men or widowers are the best shot for her. She doesn't deserve more.

·         A married woman who has been working ever since her graduation decides to take a break in her career after 6-7 years. Public notion about it - she's taking a break, enjoying her family life, that's fine.
A married man is severely suffocated with the daily commotion, of life at work and managing family, and is desperate to take a break to rejuvenate himself. He takes it while his wife continues to work. Public notion - Look at that shameless man sitting at home doing nothing. The poor wife is carrying the responsibility of the family on her shoulder. 

·         Neighbour's daughter had to get an abortion because she was duped by a cheat and an unmarried pregnant girl would have destroyed the family's reputation. The ladies in the society discuss the girl - She was always a little unruly. Staying out late, partying, lot of friends including boys, this was bound to happen. Someone quips in about the daughter of one of the ladies at the gossip table - Adi (her son) was telling me he saw your daughter the other day at a pub with a bunch of her friends. The lady retorts back harshly - Impossible, my children are not like this. They are very well disciplined and are not involved in any such activities which could bring the family's name to shame unlike this girl.       

      Little did she know that the same daughter she has been boasting about, has had two abortions during her days at the hostel with financial help from friends, and a distant relative who she thought she could confide in.

·         Girl married to boy. A few years down the line differences crop up between the two, some due to their own incompatibilities and some due to over indulgence of the boy's family in every matter. When it gets worse, the families step in. Unpleasant exchange of dialogues and several rounds of arguments later, they call it quits. Mother-in-law is quick to pass a judgment on the girl; she didn’t have the patience to nurture a family. She destroyed my son's life.
A year later, the boy's sister gets married. Two years into the marriage, the sister walks back to her parent’s house with bag and baggage claiming she can't live there any longer. Mother is quick to console the daughter - Now what did that mumma's boy do? This boy has made my daughter's life hell; he ruined this marriage by allowing his family to control their relationship.

·         Young happy couple married for a year. The XY (chromosome) gets a long term opportunity abroad which requires them to shift base. Wouldn't have been a problem, if not for the only condition that the XX (chromosome) had laid down before marriage, that she won't ever quit her job. XY asks XX the question that is the benchmark for all emotional coercion - Doesn't your happiness lie in my happiness? Result - XX leaves her lifeline, her job and trots alongside XY in his quest for happiness.  A few years down the line, they are back home and both doing well in their own jobs. One fine day, XX gets an opportunity to join her dream company but that requires operating out of a different city. XX asks XY - Can you take a transfer to that city or if not, can you leave this job and find another one there? XY's reply - Have you gone nuts? I have worked so hard to get here and the prospects for me here are brilliant. You want me to throw away all of that? You must be crazy!!!
XX with tears welling up in her eyes, thinks to herself.......my happiness lay in yours, but doesn't your happiness lie in mine?

I could go on and on as there are a number of such scenarios that are running through my mind. We are quick to judge, quick to assume, quick to accuse, quick to take someone or something for granted and quick to defame and disrespect. But we rarely ask a simple question to ourselves before we do so. The question being - Can I claim with absolute surety that I am never going to be on the other side, the side that I so confidently choose to judge, accuse or disrespect today? And if I see myself there, would I have thought the same way as I think today?

                                                     

Priceless OR Worthless?

They say, "Do good and good will come to you". 

When I was young, I remember being a very stingy kid.....not the kind who would like to share her toys, her chocolates or anything else with others. I remember bundling up all my toys and other prized possessions into an old blue saree of my mother's and carrying that bundle around the whole house to make sure no one would lay a hand on any of my treasures 😊. My uncle often added to the fun by sneaking in one of those heavy irons that existed in those days into the bundle and then everyone would watch and enjoy how I struggled with all my might to carry my wealth around 😄😄. 

Leaving aside the fun, my mother did her due of the parental duties by teaching me the importance of the virtues of sharing and benevolence, the importance of giving and sacrificing. And I guess I took to those teachings quite well. As I grew up, giving and sacrificing became something that came very naturally to me, and may I add that it was many a times, at the expense of hurt, and deep loss to myself. But I never stepped back, because I sincerely believed in the value of the virtue.

 As an animal lover, charity in the field of animal welfare by supporting NGOs financially was a natural progression. So was my tendency to be generous to humans who in my view were in any way less fortunate than I was by way of alms, donations and the like. I remember a journey by train all the way from Guwahati to the then, Bombay when I was in the sixth standard. A journey which took about three days. It was a trip during which we also survived a train accident 😏. But let me keep that story in store for some other day. So moving on, as was the ritual, my father would frequently pick up various kinds of food items from the vendors who boarded the train as well as from the stations at which the train halted. Amongst the pack of eatables was an always available bunch of bananas, something I loved eating. I sat at one of the window seats with the bunch and kept handing over one or more of the bananas to every person who raised a needy hand towards my window. If you have ever been on a train journey in this country, I am sure you know, that there is no dearth of people living in want of the basics and a railway station is a site familiar to a large number of such people. A while later, a co - passenger, who had sort of become an acquaintance to the family owing to the duration of the journey, pointed out to my father in a very amused tone - "Your daughter hasn't eaten a single banana out of the entire stock that you had bought, and there hasn't been one hand that has left the window empty as long as she had any bananas to spare". My father smiled, and the person asked me, "Weren't you hungry? Your father had bought those for you. Why didn't you spare some for yourself before helping the others?".....and I just responded by saying "I don't know, I just felt like it". Come to think of it, it probably wasn't a case that I would be left cringing with hunger because I didn't spare any for myself, but the point is, I failed to even think that what if, this was my only source of food. Should I then have considered sparing some for myself before switching on my "be kind and generous" button? But the thought never even occurred to me. 

It is this trait that sometimes led to me being reprimanded for going overboard with my generosity, because in the course of being an empath, I, at times, possibly ended up encouraging fake people feigning need. A habit which I have now tried to control based on the judgement of whether it is a genuine situation.

But the basic trait remained ingrained. However, as I walked further through the journey of life,  my belief of good finding its way back to those who did good, slowly faltered, till the time that it has now reached a point where I feel that sacrifice often goes disrespected in today's world. You give up for love, you give up to be kind, you give up to make others happy, but you are rewarded with loss and hurt in return. And if that is not enough, if acknowledgement and respect is the least you could hope for in response, those who you sacrifice for, turn out to be disgracious enough to turn the tables on you and claim that you are being demanding. Of course, a sacrifice is made with no expectation in return, but the least one can do is to value and uphold the sacrifice. But the world of today runs on different values. Something that I fail to comprehend and therefore end up being hurt, deeply! 

And if I may add here, such blasphemy comes more often than not from people who you would consider your own. A speechless animal, or a completely unknown beneficiary will express their gratitude or gratefulness in their own unique way, even if with a simple sign of a blessing. But when it comes to people who hold important positions in your life, do not be surprised if you end up receiving a response which indicates that your efforts have been completely ignored by them or if situations have been coloured to instead make it look like you have wronged people. 

Does this mean that the value of an act of virtue is diminished by the "favour" of being bound by a relationship? Or else how does one explain why, a sacrifice deemed priceless by a complete stranger, becomes something that can be ignored or even considered a mistake on your part when it comes to your loved ones? 

In the world of today, is the honor and worth of a virtue being weighed down by the implicit mandatory expectations imposed in the name of relations?

Midnight Musings - Is there a remedy for human apathy?

So much for a star running over a life in his drunken slumber of power and position. A lot of hue and cry over the loss of human life and the very obvious neglect in considering the gravity of the act. Yes, it was a heinous offense considering life is precious and invaluable. But is there a difference in the value attached to life based on whether it resides in the physical form of a human or that in the form of the four legged creatures precisely termed as animals? Is the apathy involved any less in this case? Or is it the fact that taking away human life in your senses amounts to murder translating into a punishable offence while taking away the life of an animal is of no considerable consequence? Does that make life in the form of an animal any less valuable? I can't help but raise these questions and would preferably scream out the same if permitted if it helps put some sense into creatures who like to call themselves humans, but apparently have no sense that I would consider remotely human. 

I walked in home to the utterly heartbreaking news of this apparent human apathy today. A stray dog, who lived in and around the entry gate of our apartment, whom we lovingly named "Fan", was run over by the car of one of the residents of the apartment in an appalling display of complete lack of regard for non - human life. 

Fan owed his name to the unusual way in which he wagged his tail to welcome and appreciate the presence of all humans in the vicinity of our apartment. Instead of the typical horizontal motion of the tail which is generally referred to as wagging, Fan had his unique style of a circular motion to denote the same J. He was a favourite,  not just of the few animal loving people of our apartment, but of all the shopkeepers in and around the area, the watchmen of our building and all the kids. He was one who was always happy to be with his human friends. One could never find him barking at people unnecessarily, growling, fighting or showing any other signs of aggression. He was happiness and love in his entirety. When I offered him biscuits during my evening ritual of feeding the strays around my building, he would first demand a couple of minutes of petting before taking the first bite. On my return from office, as the cab neared my apartment gate, Fan would somehow figure out that it was me in the car even before I stepped out. He would keep running about near the door and around the car delightfully, much to the surprise of the driver at times J. Sometimes he would follow us upto the elevator if his request for some petting was ignored. Fan was one of the only dogs I have seen, who enjoyed the lights and sound during Diwali. Not even a tad bit scared, he would accompany the residents and the watchmen in the celebration while all the other dogs would be hiding somewhere safe till the festivities ended. Never did the residents have to worry about their kids pulling the ears or the tail of a pooch and get bitten in retaliation if Fan was the dog in question. The kids adored him as much as all the others did. He was loved by all.

But the life of this bundle of love on four legs was brutally crushed under the wheels of the car of a callous and inhuman resident. The incident as narrated by the watchmen showed how cruel and insensitive some people can be. Fan was resting on the side of the pavement like he and the other dogs in the vicinity usually did during the day. He wasn't lying in the middle of the road and the colour of his fur clearly made him visible so there isn't a possibility that one could just miss seeing him in broad daylight. Apparently, the resident drove out of the apartment gates at a high speed which wasn't required and advisable in the first place. Next, instead of taking the center of the road he chose to drive his car through the edge, that being the spot where Fan was resting. The front wheels of the car went over Fan who was caught unaware but he wasn't hurt until then. He just went under the car and could have made it out safely from underneath the middle of the car, if the driver had applied the brakes at that instant. However, this insensitive bloke, inspite of realizing that he was over the dog, chose to drive through and in the process he ran over Fan, crushing him under the rear wheels of his luxury carriage. He didn't even care to look back and drove away without a care. The watchmen rushed to Fan's aid but he was fatally injured and there was nothing they could do to save him. Fan died in about ten minutes. The shopkeepers and the watchmen arranged for his body to be taken away L.......

I do not drive, but I am forced to wonder and question - is it really that difficult to keep your eyes open, watch out for these innocent creatures and avoid causing them harm or injury while you use your mode of transport? There are countless such incidents of animals being hit, run over and left to die on the city streets that we come across everyday. Are all of them mere accidents that were unavoidable or are they the result of evident indifference and insensitivity towards life in the form of an animal? Would this person have behaved the same way if it was a human life in question? Quite obviously, the answer is no (unless he is Salman Khan). Who gives human beings the right to place a price tag on life as one being priceless and invaluable and the other not even worth looking back at? 

A humble request to all those who drive - Please do exercise a bit of caution in considering the importance and value of life while you drive, irrespective of the form in which it exists....

A life full of love and warmth lost to the insouciance of human beings......RIP darling FAN....run free and happy on the other side of the rainbow!!!

A Paradoxical Enigma....the Elixir of Love!!!

Emotions are dangerous to the point of being deadly.....you never know when these stupendously powerful feelings can lead you to hysteria.....there is nothing more commanding, compelling or controlling than genuine emotion.....they can in fact lead you to places and situations you can never imagine.

Such is their power that they can make or break a personality.....they can reduce the best of the lot to ashes....reduce the mighty to dust....and of course in the goodness of their strength they can also make phoenix rise from the ashes.

All emotions....love, fear, jealousy to name a few, are equally potent in their own right....however, of late, I have been driven to evaluate the emotion of LOVE very meticulously, primarily because I have encountered this emotion in varied situations producing drastic results. 

Where the love of a deceased spouse has led one to lose herself in an imaginary world where he never left her, the love of a mother - in - law for her daughter - in - law who took care of her and held her close till her last breath, made a mother wish that her daughter accompany her in her last journey as well....

Where love reformed a boy who was deemed to have been destroyed for life, into a successful professional leading a happy, accomplished and content life with the one who transformed him, there was also one who plunged into the pitch dark world of drugs and dipsomania as a result of his unrequited love....

Where love pulled an utterly dejected, demoralized and resigned soul from the hell hole of an ill - fated survival to a promise and a hope for a new lease on life.....the same love when marred by betrayal, and stifled by blind societal norms and pressures....threw her into the clutches of a never ending battle with herself to free herself of the same emotion that liberated her.....it turned her into a feeble, faltering and shadowy version of the once confident, stable and hearty soul that she was.....transformed her from the responsible, mature, sensible individual to a delirious, unbalanced sufferer for life....it muffled her most cherished dream of a good life forever.....destroying her very faith in the values of loyalty, trust, commitment and above all humanity......transforming her into a living dead.

Such are the hues of love.....the progressive and the adverse eventualities of possibly the most potent emotions of all "LOVE"......captivating yet poisonous!!!

When I cry, it rains words....

A few days back I chanced upon a random quote which kind of stuck on to me…..a part of it went as follows “When I cry, it rains words”….and oh is that true or not…..the past couple of months have been a rather tormenting whirlwind of emotions and alongwith the steady outpouring of tears, this has also resulted in an upheaval of words inside me and it has become a little difficult to let them be holed up within any longer and so  here I am, using my favourite mode of expression, writing…..writing my heart out.

To put the recent past in a nutshell I could say that, one, I learnt some lessons about trusting people, having faith, giving it your all, the really hard way and it has quite literally left a lifelong scar on me…and two, I lost three very dear and near ones and all in a matter of two weeks. Quite simply put if you look at it, but in reality, it has a lot more to it……loads of memories, hurt, pain, loss, grief…the list could probably just go on.

Talking about the first, well I have learnt a lot through the better part of the years that I have survived so far, but I never quite lost faith in the concept of humanity or trust. But this experience kind of shoved the fact down my throat that what you see is not always the truth. There are masks people hide behind all the time, they can fake a lot of things, lie while you keep thinking that all of what you see is genuine because honestly you can’t even fake a greeting to somebody if you don’t honestly feel like it. But turns out, the world is not quite like that. If anything, I have learnt that you can hardly trust anyone apart from the very close circle of people who are truly your own, who stand by you through thick or thin, who keep the promises they make, and who walk with you unconditionally, without using situations as excuses to run away no matter how difficult times may seem to be. The ones who are truly your own fight for you like you are worth all of it. They don’t treat you like dispensable objects that you can do away with the moment your need for that object is over. I learnt that people are constantly looking for opportunities to win, to have fun, to enjoy and for a multitude of other reasons and it doesn’t bother them at all if they had to play with emotions to get what they want. I learnt that you don’t let people get close enough to hurt you and hurt you bad. No one apart from what you call your family deserves to get that close to you, to make a mark that could hurt for life. I am thankful for having a family that I can count on….specially my parents and a life partner, who have always been more than what they are and for being the friend that I have needed during all those rough times.

Well if that wasn’t enough, a few more huge emotional blows were just getting ready to hit hard, harder than I would have ever imagined them to hit. The loss of dear ones can never be easy on anyone for sure, but what probably made it harder this time was the very short time frame during which it all happened as well as the very close seat they held in my life in their own measure.

The first to go was Chotokaku….that’s what he was to me, to the world he was my father’s younger brother. It’s difficult to sum up all that I can say about him, I owe a lot of things I learned, a lot of my first times, a lot of things I developed an interest in and an ocean of memories to him and as a matter of fact I even owe what people know me as, to him, my name – Jasmita. This was probably the first gift he gave me apart from all the others throughout the years, material or abstract. Chotokaku, as I and all in our family who have known him closely, remember him as a person who can be termed as an enthusiast. While in his hey days and also till the dreaded disease hadn’t confined him to bed he was the one who brought in the fun element, be it to family gatherings, a simple lunch or the pandal hopping during the Durga Puja. His was always the best gift I received on all my birthdays. He, without fail, even during his ill health remembered by parent’s wedding anniversary and the customary gift, even if they themselves forgot the day at times. Atleast a yearly day off for the ladies (which included my mum and my aunt) from the daily chore of cooking was Chotokaku’s rule which called for that lunch to the best hotel in Shillong during the Durga Puja. More than my father, it was Chotokaku who made sure we were taken to every trade fair, book fair or any other odd form of entertainment that occasionally visited the small town of Shillong that it was way back then. I owe all the hundreds I scored for handwriting in school to him for it was he who taught me the art of cursive writing. I owe my interest in the ghazals of Ghulam Ali, Jagjit Singh….the first English songs from Lobo, Abba, UB40 that I had heard in my life to him. I owe a lot of my hold on the English language to him, to the interest in solving those weekly crosswords and jumbled up words in the Sunday Telegraph, to all those elocutions, debates and recitals that I participated in at school that were polished and corrected by him. I owe my interest and whatever little I learned of the Guitar and the Keyboard to him. Chotokaku was skilled in playing not only these two instruments but also the Saxophone and the Harmonium.  All of this to even the way I dress the salad I put on the dinner table today, I owe it to him.

A state level chess champion who had won numerous titles at his organization and the state level, Chotokaku had also participated in multiple national level chess championships. Probably this was the only quality I couldn’t imbibe from him and I regret it, always. Today, I carry one of his books on chess and his personal magnetic chessboard that I remember him sitting with for hours together playing games as both himself and the opponent, in the hope that may be one day in this lifetime, although in his absence, I will be able to play a game of chess with myself.

Chotokaku was always the fun – loving person and he brought that into the very mundane things of day to day life. I remember the pictures and my mother telling me stories about how Chotokaku would dress up in her saree just to cheer up my mother and my aunts. Being the only child I was quite the selfish little kid when I was my tiny self. I remember tying up all my toys in one of my mum’s sarees and carrying it around the house lest someone should get their hands on any of them. To teach me a lesson, when I wasn’t around, Chotokaku would tuck in the heavy iron that was used in those days to iron clothes into that bundle. Once I got back, I would try with all my might to pick it up and fail miserably and Chotokaku would be sitting there smiling mischievously J. He had this unique way of petting me and my cousins and even the pets….it was by poking our nose with his thumb, just like pressing a button, while he uttered some impromptu gibberish which was supposed to indicate cute. When bottles in the kitchen needed cleaning, he would put up notes on them when my aunt wasn’t around which said “Amader ke snan korano dorkaar” which means “we need a bath” , or when fruits or vegetables in the basket were left for long he would put up a note saying “Amra poche jachhi, amader kheyaal rakhun” meaning “we are rotting, please take care of us”J.

This was Chotokaku…..he left us with these and an ocean of memories that I could go on writing about and never stop. He left us too soon…..and with him he left a gaping hole that no one can ever fill.

The next to go was Didibhai……Didibhai for me and Grandma for the world. Didibhai was someone I still remember as the frail - looking but strong lady who tirelessly worked throughout the day. She did not have a single grey strand of hair until the day she died. I have to admit, I was pretty scared of her when I was young, she was a tough task master and although I met her only during my winter holidays on alternate years while I was growing up, she made sure I got my dose of her lessons. That I can read and write in Bengali today, is due to her. She taught me and made me promise that I would send her letters in Bengali. Initially, I remember writing to her by spelling the Bengali words in English and she would save those letters and when I visited her next she would tell me, I want the next one written in Bengali, and I did, of course with a little help from mom.

While one half of the world knows me as Jasmita, the other half (which includes primarily my family, my neighbourhood and people who know me since I was a kid) know me by my nickname, Rupshi which is the Bengali word for beautiful – “Rupashi” as it would be pronounced…..this name, I owe it to Didibhai. The strong lady that she was, married off at an early age, which was more or less the norm in those times…I guess she was 14 then, she went on to raise six kids, one of them, being my mother. So, in a way, not only do I owe her my name but also my existence through my mother.

The death of my grandfather hadn’t broken down Didibhai as much as seeing two of her three sons pass away before her did. It was heart breaking to see the tough lady that she had been all her life turn into the weak and frail frame of bones in her final years. Whenever she met me, she would say, I have lived my life, seen more than I was supposed to, now it’s time to go……and she left…..once again leaving us with a swarm of memories.

The last to go was my dear old Tuna…..my boy…the fighter who fought till the end. I understand that many people will not be able to relate to this as an emotional trauma of considerable measure. He was after all an animal, to be specific, a cat….just a pet. But to us, Tuna was family, who was with us for more than a decade. He was never meant to live, he wouldn’t have if my aunt hadn’t picked him up from our neighbour’s house. When he first came, he was a kitten, but way smaller in size than an average kitten of his age. He continued to be of a size smaller than the average for a couple of years to begin with and then suddenly he grew up to be the handsome boy that he was. An adamant, angry young boy who didn’t fancy being carried around or being stroked at the wish of his humans…..he allowed such acts only when he pleased J. Tuna was one cat that could be termed sassy in the true sense of the word, always spick and span and with his own unique attitude. Even a dreaded infection which led to his ears being clipped at an early age couldn’t dampen his fighting spirit and he lived and ruled our hearts till his last breath….till he crossed the rainbow bridge.

The past couple of months have been difficult and it still isn’t an easy sail through the storm……it took away a lot from me and taught me a few lessons as well, the hard way of course.

Three lives gone in a matter of weeks…..leaving behind trails of endless memories and irreplaceable gaps in my life as an individual and our lives as a family.

                                                                 

        

                 RIP Didibhai, Chotokaku and Tuna……sorely and forever missed.

Complete in the company of solitude.....

Off and on I have realized that I am quite the feminist, even if not to a point of extremity, but definitely not to the liking of many. I possibly wasn't so right from the beginning, but time and tide have brought about quite a few changes in me. Probably its nothing unusual.....that's the basic nature of time....to bring about change, for the better or for worse. People who have known me since those early days, might agree to my personal observation that I have changed drastically in many aspects.....from being the soft, docile, reserved and shy person to one who now voices out her opinion loud and clear, sometimes to the displeasure of many around J, one who is very vocal about her standpoint irrespective of what others would feel or think about her based on that.....I guess I have become sort of unapologetic about being ME....now if this is seriously a complete turn over, or just a facade to handle the rough tides in the ocean of life, while deep down I am still the coy one I visibly was at some point of time.....I still don't know!

Coming back to the point of being 'quite the feminist'....given this, I would any day choose to tread a singular path rather than fall back in line with others to simply have the comfort of company. Of course easier said than done....there are still numerous roadblocks every time I decide or wish to take the road less taken....sometimes I make it, while sometimes I am still forced down by pressures of societal norms and emotional harnesses.

For the few (or many) times that I have actually been able to take the off beat course, I have realized a very subtle but extremely basic truth that goes with human existence.....I will not term it as a need, because it is possible to survive sans it, but it still is a very elementary instinct, that being the longing for companionship. 

I realized this through a lot of encounters amongst which, is a small incident that I would like to bring up in this context. Having been known as an animal lover, I had a birthday gift of a lone fish as a pet from one of my friends early this year. Although happy, I was also extremely apprehensive about taking care of this fragile creature as my complete past pet experience lay with pooches and felines. Nevertheless, I tried my best to give him the best of whatever I could gather about his needs. Things went well for quite a few months with occasional bouts of disturbance, but eventually falling back to normal. In all these days that this lone tiny living being was with me, every time I was alone in the house due to professional commitments of my better half, although confined to his area of a few gallons of water....he gave me a sense which said "someone is there"....an unexplained sense of company. However, a few days back when inspite of all the efforts to keep him going, I lost him, the same house and the same situation of staying alone in the house gave me an unpleasant sensation of being totally on my own....ALONE!!

Given a set of circumstances and situations in life, isolation or existence in solitude might appear to be an inevitable and also a nonpareil solution. It takes a mighty and free spirited heart to embrace the decision of solitary existence leaving behind all the shackles that are meant to bind you up with your surroundings of live and inanimate objects. At this juncture of life, being on the wrong side of the thirty mark, and also having become the sort of person who is unapologetic about being herself, I admit that I prefer to be on my own and live life on my own terms and given the choice and the chance I would choose to do so any day. But at the same time, there is this unseen and unknown apprehension,sitting pretty somewhere on my mind, of living a completely solitary life.

Solitude has always been a very captivating idea to me right from my early years. As a teenager, one of my favourite poems had always been 'The Solitary Reaper' by William Wordsworth. I am sure most people would have read this poem at some point in life. The idea of a young woman reaping and singing a sad song to herself alone in a field somehow just caught my attention, never to leave J. I also have a couple of favourite quotes on solitude that go as below -

"Solitude is painful when one is young, but delightful when one is more mature", this one by Albert Einstein and another one by Henry David Thoreau that goes like "I never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude"......coming of age in life has enabled me to strongly relate to the idea churned out by these quotes.....somehow making me feel liberated, complete and at peace in the company of SOLITUDE.....a feeling that is so endearing yet unnerving!!!

The Final Destination....

A few days back, as I was going through my daily dose of internet skimming, I chanced upon a very interesting one - liner - "Never take life too seriously, nobody gets out alive anyway".....hell yeah, the ultimate truth of life...DEATH, there's no escaping the clangs of it. But this brings up quite a few thoughts in this peculiarly curious catty mind of mine. 

First, isn't this just the opposite of what we have been told right from our childhood. Study hard, take life seriously, else you will end up having a messed up career and future!!! And hence, we, burdened and alarmed by the very thought of ruining our future, in all honesty, start taking each and every item in the menu of life seriously....may be a competition, an exam to begin with.....a few years later, securing a seat in a renowned educational institution, a job interview, an assignment at work which gets linked up to the obvious prospect of an increment or a promotion.....further on, the choice of a life partner - oh dear, will he/she live upto the standards, will the society and family approve of my choice, what if they don't, safer option - leave it to the others to decide.......then, savings - to ensure a comfortable life for the family, loans, EMIs, kids, their future and the list just goes on......and before we realize we are standing at the gates to bid adieu to this world with death staring us in the face. So, when did we stick to the "don't take life seriously" instruction? Did we actually live or did we just scramble away through life in an attempt to stick to the rulebook, meet other's expectations, putting off what the inner self truly pined for thinking..."Ahh, there's a lot of time for that".

Too late now, its time to step into the other world......say your goodbyes and tag along with "Yamdev - the God of Death". For a lucky few who are whisked away while in the cradle of dreams and for a few others for whom it all gets over in a matter of seconds before they can even comprehend that it just happened, at the cost of sounding cruel, I would still say, its a blessing in disguise....but for the rest, from what I have seen and experienced, its an immensely traumatic affair. The knowledge that its time to leave, that all you lived for and lived with, has to be left behind, can be extremely painful. Letting go can be a difficult task at hand, especially for the acutely emotional ones. I, for e.g., am one who gets emotionally attached to anything or anyone that I decide to give that space in life.....it could range from entities as important as the family, that special someone, to just a person I have met, a friend to even something as simple as a workplace that I am used to. Walking away from these due to circumstances in life, say a change of job, is in itself a hideous task for me. This, even when there is a slim chance that life might turn a full circle and bring me back to what I leave behind now. Given that, I can't help but imagine what an intense wave of sentiments a finality like death could bring in on me. If I were to be aware of the fact that I will be leaving behind all that I ever held dear, I would die a death every single moment till my wait for the end is over.

Who says then, that suicide is an act of cowardice. In my opinion it takes a hell lot of courage to decide and let go off life and all that is associated with it. Having said that, let me add, I am not here to say that giving up on life is a wonderful thing to do. Living and facing the challenge that life brings with it is an act of greater intrepidity. But I have often heard people comment in such cases that, if only the person had thought about all he/she was leaving behind.....if only the person had been a tad bit stronger. It is in that context that I say, no one should assume that an extreme step is always a result or sign of weakness. It might as well have been the tipping point after having stayed strong for too long. And no one can fathom what it could have taken that person to consciously let go off....everything. 

Now that I have said all the above, although it might appear to be so, the fact is I am not scared of death. I have been handed over my share ( and possibly a little more than what I had expected J ) of the tough tasks that life ( being the tough task master ) hands over to each one that lands up on the face of this earth. I have had my moments of "weakness" or "strength".....but so far I have sailed through them and I hope I can do so with grace every time in whatever period of my life remains, until its time for me to walk over to the other side of the rainbow.

And just as I come to a close, in the benefit of those who have been kind enough to reach upto this point of my monograph, inspite of the extremely dark and heavy mood that it carries, let me just end this on a positive and hopeful note - "Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we are here lets dance it away". J J J