Snippets of conversation…
Me: (With a sigh) All good-looking men are either married, taken, gay or not interested in me!
Q: (Equally pensive) True…what to do? (Suddenly waking up to the fact that I mentioned a good-looking guy) But wait! Who are you talking about?
Me: (Eyes twinkling) Why? Are you interested?
Q: (Nose turned up) Uh? Me? No way! Just asking who you are thinking about while saying this.
Me: Nobody in particular. And mind you, there aren’t many good-looking men in my office.
Q: (Not willing to let go) Not many? Aha! That means there are a few… (Sitting up on the bed and folding her legs below her…indications that she is getting too comfortable) So, tell me! Who is it?
Me: (By now exasperated) Arrey! I am telling you na? Koi nahin hai! This is just a general observation of certain facts of life!
Q: (Still not taking no for an answer) No. I don’t believe that! Abhi bolo…is it A? or B? or C at least?
Me: (Tired of this conversation) Kya ABCD laga rakha hai? Main bol rahi hoon na? Nobody in particular. This is a general observation! How difficult is it to get that point?
Q: (Still looking rather skeptical) Oh. Ok. If you insist!
Two weeks later, she still sneaks in a question about the good-looking man in question, hoping I’ll be caught off-guard and mention someone by name. Unfortunately for her, (or must I say, fortunately for me?) this really was only a general observation inspired by nobody in particular.
Beauty is skin deep…
…they say. But, sometimes I wonder what beauty really means? Tall? Slim? Fair? Big eyes? What exactly? Everywhere, I am treated to the same bullshit. Fair is beautiful. Slim is beautiful. But, how do we know what someone else would consider beautiful?
As a teen, I was never confident about my physical appearance. I was always too tall and too fat to be considered beautiful, in the conventional sense. Privately, I wished I could become 2 inches shorter, lose a few inches around my waist and acquire that perfect, toned and clear skin. It was only much later that I realized that perfection was not always desirable. In college, I realized that I was better off than at least 90% of Indian women. I realized that people did not always judge others by their looks, unlike what I had experienced in school. I realized I could still make friends, no matter how I looked and that what was inside was more important than external beauty.
That said, even today, I sometimes feel insecure. Insecure about my physical appearance. This insecurity goes away very soon. Sometimes in 10 minutes, but never lasts more than a day. But then, it sets me thinking. Thinking about why we, as human beings have such rigid and inflexible notions of beauty. In India, fair is beautiful. In Europe, tanned is beautiful. Everywhere in the world, being reed thin is beautiful, never mind if you are anorexic or bulimic. Why are we, as human beings, willing to go to such extreme lengths to acquire that elusive beauty? Cosmetic surgery, skin treatments, botox…name it and we have tried it. Why? Why can’t we accept that we are imperfect and that is why we are human? Why can’t we accept the other’s imperfections as endearing? I wonder if I will ever get an answer to that!
I learnt from…?
IHM’s latest post makes me wonder what made me what I am today. Where did I learn my ethics and values from? Who taught me my traditions and practices? Where do my beliefs and preferences come from? Let me think…
From school, I learnt to pray. I learnt to pray when things go wrong. I learnt to believe that tomorrow will be better because God is always there for you.
From dad, I learnt that God is in your conscience. That he is not a person sitting somewhere up there observing everything. I learnt that God is most probably a creature of the nth dimension that we three-dimensional creatures cannot comprehend.
From mom, I learnt to believe in that omnipresent force that we choose to call God. I learnt to repose unquestioning faith in that force, whether I understand it or not.
From my experiences, I learnt not to try to understand. I learnt that some things cannot be understood because we, as humans, are just not capable of understanding.
I also learnt that this world is full of injustices and inequality. I learnt that if we needed to survive, we needed to either fight, or ignore what is obviously wrong with the world. I chose to fight, rather than ignore.
From Nandini, I learnt to believe that tomorrow will be a better day, because this too will pass. I learnt to live life to the fullest because you never know what will happen next. I learnt to seize the day because tomorrow, you might be in hospital, with broken ribs…or worse, dead. I learnt that lost time will never come back. I learnt to say sorry because tomorrow might be too late. I learnt never to wait to tell a person how much you care for them because otherwise you may never get a chance to do it.
From friendships, I learnt that ultimately, very few people deserve the loyalty and love you are willing to offer. I learnt never to let go of those who are worth it.
From life, I learnt to live it to the hilt.
Ram – the perfect man?
Mahabharata from a woman’s perspective…the conversation with S yesterday set me thinking. I am not familiar enough with the Mahabharata to comment, but the Ramayana? When I first read the Ramayana at the age of 8, I was quite impressed. A dutiful son, a benevolent king, a handsome prince. A perfect man. I was probably way too young to wonder what kind of a man he really was. But, even at that age, I found myself wondering why a prince should give up creature comfort and go to the forest just because his senile and invertebrate old father wanted him to. Obedience is not a virtue for me. It has never been. Discretion however, is a different matter altogether.
When I re-read the epic ten years later, I was less impressed. But unsullied as I was with feminist ideals and ideas of equality, I still did not question the logic behind the epic. But, at 27, it is a different question altogether. Ram, to me, is no longer the dutiful son. He just obeyed his father without bothering to question the logic behind the order. A lack of discretion on his part. How will a man, incapable of analyzing the whys and wherefores of a decision, prove himself capable of ruling a country?
Later in the epic, Ram chases a mirage, the deceptively beautiful deer. He comes back to find his wife missing. She is abducted. Like any other husband, he sets out to get her back. He hunts Ravan down, kills him and liberates his wife. But wait! Something is wrong. Hasn’t the woman spent a good 12 years (Edit: 12 months, not years…) away from him? How does he know she is still chaste and untouched? Sita, like Caesar’s wife, must be above suspicion, mustn’t she? Ram makes her undergo a trial by fire. If she is consumed by the flames, she is impure. If she gets out unscathed, she is chaste and virginal. Like most Indian women, Sita does it. For her chauvinist of a husband! But, let me ask you something. Did Ram not spend 12 years away from his wife too? (Edit: Dad says it’s 12 months…) Does chastity and purity mean nothing for a man? Or is promiscuity and infidelity excused because Ram is a man. What is sauce for the goose is most definitely not sauce for the gander.
To add insult to the injury, Ram is portrayed as asking for a trial by fire for the people of his country. Just who are the people of the country to ask a queen to prove her chastity? A husband is supposed to protect and cherish. A king is supposed to listen, explain and convince. Ram fails as both. He brings Sita back to Ayodhya, after the trial by fire. Again, questions are raised about her chastity. Is she pure? Is she chaste? Untouched? By now, she is pregnant. Ram, being the perfect king, exiles his wife, pregnant with twins, to the forest. After all, what is more important for a king that the wish of his people? Here, Ram fails again. As a husband.
It really gets my goat when people call Ram the perfect man. He is an average man. An average Indian male, who neither respects nor particularly cares for the woman in his life. An average Indian male who has been pampered all his life by grandmothers, aunts, his mother, his wife and other assorted female relatives. An average Indian man who will never understand, or even try to understand what a woman goes through at the various stages of her life. To me, Ram is not perfect.
Deceptively innocent?
D, going through my photos of Onam, shrugs nonchalantly and says, “You are not as innocent as you look.”
I look up, confused. Me? Innocent? Did I actually hear someone saying I look innocent? Exasperated, I turn around to face him and say, “D, how dare you even think of calling me innocent?”
In case you are wondering why I took so much offense, it’s because innocent is the worst possible way to describe me. I am not innocent and will never be! D looks at me, and starts laughing. “You are only person I know who actually hates being called innocent,” he says, still laughing uncontrollably. “Most people would kill to get that compliment.”
Raising one eyebrow, I look at him, “Well…I am not most people…”
D decides he has had enough. “You most definitely are not!”
I love having the last word in conversations. But this is one conversation in which I’ll give that a pass.