Thought

Can a woman’s lingerie give the same warmth as what it envelops does?  

The Plight of Mrs. Bennet

Parents, rather mothers are a kind that few really understand. The worse kinds are the Mrs. Bennets’ of the world. In the Indian scenario, to have your daughter married to the most right person within the parameters of your value system is their numero uno crises.

For someone who has been ‘put up on the marriage market’ and has a trillion reasons to either be turned down or to turn down; the deal is quite simple, walking away. Can Mrs. Bennet do that? Unfortunately, she can not. I have mocked at her just like everyone else. Called her a drama queen, a gold digger, a castist and more. It was in a brief moment today, when my phone sang that I realized how wrong I have been. No denying she is all of that but there is more to the obnoxious nonsense. It is sadness, paternal love, and insecurity. She lived through times and juggled between families, siblings, in-laws. She knew that love had little to do with life post marriage. However, she’d never been in love. 55 years. No love. There is care, of course, and there is need – and it is her only argument against love, when it comes to the ‘stickability’ of marriage. 

There was a resume, she liked for the status of a potential son-in-law. The horoscope matched to the T, the boy was from the supremely pious Brahmin family, tall, fair, handsome, lived in Uptown Bombay, and had a flourishing career as a doctor. The pluses were multiplied once she learned that he could sing; that he called at odd hours to sing to her daughter, and that he was seemingly in love with her. K being herself, restrained. She found the singing a bit annoying (one song is fine; six at a go, are not.) It was pestering to tell a man in his early thirties to hang up at 3am because she was in no mood to listen to a gazal or a Sufi story. His megalomania of his talents and credentials was driving her overboard. Initially it was funny that he addressed himself as a Dr. Soandso is calling you or Dr. Soandso will now sing a song for you. My dismissal was dismissed quite briskly, calling his irate behavior ‘romantic’. Likewise was my luncheon experience was dismissed too – “you are so sarcastic, so what he chose the restaurant you do not like? So what if he wanted to share your soup or coffee into ‘one-by-two’? So what if he does not use a perfume? So what if he ordered all by himself, maybe he is not used to a woman’s company? Burping is a natural phenomenon and so is farting. Maybe, he is unwell! So what if he made you walk till his patient’s house. Maybe he wanted more time with you! So what if he uses fowl language and has a perpetual cringe? Don’t knit pick. Men change after marriage, he will too. You could teach him all the table manners and personal etiquette! 

Once the parents met, the cardboard mantle collapsed. The Uptown house was a shanty. The garb was cheap smelly polyester. His parents, house and him sitting there (with a pot full of attitude) were below average and stank of miserliness. Mrs. Bennet dressed in her Kanjiveram, K in raw silk, and Loud mouth who decided to accompany us in order to provide a neutral unbiased judgment was dressed in linen.

Post the fiasco, btw my cackles and Loud mouth’s remarks, Mrs. Bennet’s silence turned to tears. She could not contain her desperation and her ‘shoving off’ of her beloved child into the arms of a crude, sloppy ape with manboobs. As we tried to cajole her, she uttered something that broke us evenly: 

“Mrs. Bennet: Why is it supposed to be so? Why could he have no manners? Why did his family need to be so crass? Why was his mother not dressed for the occasion? Is it imperative for a mother to be blind in order to find happiness for her child? How many things do I have to let go, to know that the potential son-in-law will take care of my baby daughter? How much do I need to feed into the families’ treasury and how much do I have to educate you and make you beautiful, in order for them to treat you like a princess and not a golden hen? K, as a mother, I am falling every minute; I’m failing to give you a husband who would be everything your father is and more. I’m failing to digest and let off of all petty things that I know will hurt you in future. When I see you, I see myself, at 28, I was running behind you, helping you strengthen your legs. How can I today send you off with a wobbly crutch? I’m failing, and I want you to forgive me for putting us through this.”

Conversation

Kal Kid: Are you from the community?
K: Why?
Kal Kid: You don't look like one.
K: (Chuckle) Is it so?
Kal Kid: Could i ask you something?
K: For sure.
Kal Kid: How can I distinguish a lesbian from a woman?
K: Look for the Horns.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Red Eye: So how long have you been associated with Lesbian rights?
K: More than a decade now.
Red Eye: So you have a girl friend?
K: No. I have a boyfriend.
Red Eye's jaw drops. Silence fills the air and K holds her laughter with all her might.

Man, Woman and The Other

Well. (‘Well’ is the safest way to start a piece of writing. It gives one an impression of the writer being in a perennial thinking process on the topic.)

This is an open forum and in praise of Ricky Martin being Gay. Whatever. The whole LGBTI (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex) bandwagon is going gagagaga about it with large bronze trumpets with pink ribbons!

Why the celebration of the other? Who is the other? What makes them so special? Why are Hetrosexuals curious about them, to the extent of being offensive? Why make jokes about the Other? Is the other responsible for its treatment as the 'other'?

Why do some people end up as their sexuality? Is it that we have failed to educate ourselves? That we no more realize that branding people and even us for an inch of our identity is a humongous synecdochical mistake.  A golden haired woman becomes ‘blonde’ by the definition of what a blonde is theatrically characterized, Sardars become ‘stupid’, Maharastrians become ‘Ghatis’, and so it becomes of the sexual side, Gays become ‘gays’ (a small slice from the ‘other’ category)!

The worse part of sexual choice is that you cease to become anything other than your sexual identity; you cease to be human, forget being a man.

Today I am writing from the Other side. (As writers, it is a bit easier to walk in many shoes, to dissolve into another emotion, mingle in a territory, as if it was your habitat, little amphibious, we writers are. The truth is, in our twisted mind, we vicariously live many lives, walk in many skins, become many people.)

 “We are not perfect. At the most, we are intriguing. And the fun part ends there. Like you, we made our choices and are living them out. Then, what is it to not be a heterosexual? It is to be not common, to be not a million people. It is to be free, free to choose, choose to be me, or a thousand other things, even free to choose to be a heterosexual. Sexuality, you see, is fluid and individualistic. So who are we? Gays, Bi, trans…? We are more, more than our chosen sexualities, more than your clichés of them, more than our professions, more than our projected quirks, more than our casts, more than our religion, more than our colors; just as you are more than everything you portray.”

This post is dedicated to you, as much as it attempts to celebrate queerness. It is for you, to look, smile and carry on with life after you’ve witnessed a rainbow. We are the colors of the rainbow, you and I – the pink and the purple.    

Ornate Love

Love is always adorned, complicated and ostentatious. It can not be otherwise.

And it is wonderful when people are in love. it is often the only time when they are most accepting, generous, forgiving, brave and utterly selfless. Mind you, it lasts briefly, but it shows us what we are capable of.

Oyster Seeker, I shall be punctual.

Blogger Buzz: Blogger integrates with Amazon Associates

Blogger Buzz: Blogger integrates with Amazon Associates

Black Pearl

We became strangers so familiar,
We'd politely nod at each other.

Converastions

People are indeed very different. Here's how I found it.

If i were mistakenly stuck in a freezer. what would I do to keep myself alive?

K: Find a way out, call for help, break into the hinges, etc...

Capricorn Rook: Run to keep his body from freezing.

Oyster Seeker: Masturbate

Rand and Polarization

Amongst other things, man invented Religion, Time and War. Over time, to not have a clutter of Religions (and their subsequent gods) - man invented Cult Ideologies. 

Ideology - is usually a line of thought that a person or a group arrives at for themselves and the rest to admire or even apply.  In my opinion all ideas are born pure, they are birthed to fill a void, to improve hope and to spread knowledge. 

However, man is a being who uses only a sliver of his brain. Over Analysis has led to muted instincts. The result, as we view it, is excessivism and polarized thinking.   
Before I digress into oblivion, what triggered this post was a link:

http://www.partiallyexaminedlife.com/2010/03/17/randinetics-the-modern-science-of-permanent-adolescence

Reading this post was a déjà vu. [ Cut to final year college lit class. (I was silently listening to the scathing words of my HOD who felt my criticism of T.S.Eliot's essay 'tradition and individual talent', made me unfit as a student of literature.)] My contest then and now has remained unchanged. Rand needs rescue now, or maybe people who read Rand need to be rescued form its addiction.

In my opinion, every writer should be looked at from a certain mandatory stand point. The author's life, personal (family, ideology), medical, socio-political scene at the time of his life, the economic state of the country and the author, influences of other nations and literature on the author - all need to be taken into account. 
{For example, Eliot was deeply affected by his incapacities and was ridiculed in social circles for being an oddball that stressed on him to create a dreamy image of who he wanted to be.
Rand came from a very wealthy Russian household, with everything at her beck and call, she saw it being snatched away and the people for whom her mansion was made home for. Not in the least did she feel that either they or she had deserved any of this. She had then concluded that for each man to get what he desired, he had to device his own merit - every one else was unworthy of it.}

Irrespective of what we want to believe, everything around us affects us, impressions our minds - and it reflects in our behavior, our humor, our tastes and our expression. Writing is an expression. You could take a book as a stand alone testament of work/ art. But the author behind it will never be dead as long as the book survives, as long as its pages are turned, as long as it has found a space in the shelves, or is made into a PDF  or is plugged into someone's ears as an audio book. Negating the writer is foolhardiness. It may seem I advocate Autobiographical criticism, but then - when your vision broadens, you shall know the right thing to do.

The second and more grave a folly is being a disciple or boarding a hate brigade. Rand was a self-centered, to an extent self-deceptive too, she was a fierce protector of her ideology. Agreed - she saw the world was black and white. It was filled with creators and parasites. There was no other way out for her and she represented her ideas as her charcters in her novels. For Eddie Willers did not find a place in Atlantis. She has completely forgotten about his survival ... when he was neither a moocher nor a creator. He was the shade of gray that she could not comprehend. She has flaws, but at no point, she advocated inhuman, corporate cold capitalism - it is always Laissez faire. This is her book, she wrote it, becase she wanted to. She in no words forces you to read it.

It is a cardinal rule taught by none - never forget what you think when you read a book, or assess an author. Making gods out of people has only disillusioned the people and belittled the innovator. Read Rand as a person in a time with an innovative line of thought and end it there. If you feel that her 'knowledge and attitude' work for you - great, if they don't, still better.

We are all 'human', with human failings and human successes.... and all of that is worthless when we are not there.

Conversation

Wise Capitalist: You are jealous of me and my good life.
K: I don't want your life.
Wise Capitalist:  Then what do you want?
K: I just want everything that you have, just better, just more.