Ruins...Ruminations...

With a new innings in life comes new friends, new pressures, new expectations, new rules to help negotiate those expectations with least harm to oneself.....and old insecurities. The insecurity that you might be turning into someone you despised, that you might be inflicting the same wound on others that was once inflicted upon yourself, etc. You feel you're on the other side of the fence for once, being part of the 'inside' crowd instead of that-girl-who-sits-by-the-window, yet simultaneously fearing that your new friends will discover your inner monster (the one that alienated you from others once close to you) soon, very soon, and things will go back to the way they have been for you all these years. That the newness will be but a replica of the old sense of pain, rejection, loneliness, of putting up a brave face while writhing in confusion and self doubt, and the fear that what you are causing to happen for someone else (though for completely justified reasons) will come back soon to bite you in the ass, hard.

Does your sense of self-realization (and the confidence that arises out of it in that particular phase of your life) help you sail through this new chapter of your life, changing your recurrent destiny through your change in attitude, or do your insecurities come into play and upset the balance?

Is it these insecurities that colour your reactions and responses, giving them nuances that you never intended to convey to the people you want to build bridges with? Or leaving innocuous yet precarious cracks in your well-constructed exterior of the Strong, Indestructible Self you constantly try to project? Or is it just part of your basic nature to keep committing the same mistake over and over again, despite all your promises to yourselves to the contrary, despite all your cautiousness, your attempts to do things differently? Or is it that

these aren't mistakes at all, but a way to keep us true to your closest selves, so we don't turn into cold, asocial creatures desperate to feel no pain, and in the process lose out on the chance to feel warmth, affection and friendship too? Is it the universe's way to make up for all that it's taken from you? Or the preparation for a bigger lesson, a bigger gift? 

One will never know, I guess, even after it does happen. For, paraphrasing Dumbledore, the consequences of our actions are so varied and far-reaching that one can never trace it back to their real cause, which makes the karma theory rather a tough one to grapple with. For, how does one figure out if what one goes through is a punishment or a boon, a blessing in disguise, for a past action of kindness or rudeness or just one another thing to happen in your life, like many others, devoid of the simplistic dichotomy of good or bad and their associated connotations and consequences?

People

The sexy girl who struts down the street before you,
The harried receptionist who snaps at you in the office,
The quiet girl who sits at the back of the class trying
not to get offended when you tease her,
The maid who screeches at you for no apparent reason,
The glamorous actor whose latest relationship
is the snack you choose to have with your evening tea,
The housewives who meet to gossip every evening,
The girl in a short skirt entering a pub with her friends,
The lady grocer haggling with you for 50 paise,
The little girl who cries when you snatch away her chocolate,
The old bed-ridden lady who awaits with empty eyes
the attention of her loving but busy family,
The society lady who indulges herself in mindless parties all year,
The teenage girl who angrily demands her mother
not interfere in her personal affairs any more,
The wife who seems to submit herself to all her husband's
irrational demands, never defending herself in the process,
The mother who misses her child's function to attend a meeting,
The woman who laughs and jokes openly with her male friends,
The lover who jealously refuses to let her guy talk to any other girl,
The prostitute down the 'shady road' you shudder to lock eyes with,

Before you judge them,
Criticize them,
Ogle at them,
Sneer at their lifestyle,
choices,
attire, and
behaviour,
Please remember

We are not talking about Women here.
We are talking about People, people with their own stories,
Stories of pain, struggles, compromise and a desire
To enjoy their lives as they try to meet expectations, to succeed.

Accept them. Understand them. Respect them. Love them.
Do not try to glorify or demonize them.
After all, they are Humans, just like you and me.
And if we deserve all of the above, so do they.

Anal-ysis

It's funny how every person is anal in their own quirky way, and yet is convinced of their complete normalcy with respect to others. This, as expected, leads to us being judgemental of others (in various degrees, of course; anybody who tells you they are not judgemental at all is lying through their teeth)- their actions, words, attire, culture, habits and nature- often being ridiculously oblivious to the fact that they are being subjected to the same by the same- or different- people. It's funnier how people with similar cultural backgrounds tend to be more abrasive of each other, especially if they come from different geographical locations, as though they fail to note where their similarity begins and where it ends, thus creating a series of misplaced expectations upon each other that- even in the case of a very minor slip-up- tends to create occasion for undeserved snide remarks and harsh, spiteful scrutiny on the part of the one(s) seemingly wronged towards the other.
In this context, I think of a person who prided herself on her sarcastic (witty in her words) tongue, symptomatic of the disease in the liberal, intellectual climate of a cosmopolitan university where one feels the need to distinguish themselves from others to such an extent that they choose friends from a very narrow social spectrum that they aspire towards, so as to distance themselves from the other kind- the uncool types (rather a large and diverse category in itself for each individual)- that they shudder to identify themselves with. The freedom to choose friends and bond with them strongly in a competitive environment gives rise to insecurities (often very well-camouflaged) that one then tries to mitigate through words- abrasive, cutting, spiteful, damaging and sometimes downright cruel- targetted on those deemed weaker than oneself by one of many standards, hence basing those new bonds on the carcasses of others- the less important ones. The 'wit' I talk about becomes a tool for elimination, sometimes with methods that can be considered brutal and random, so as to project and protect an image of the self that one tries to build, distancing oneself from the one they were born and grew up with, that which connects them closest to their roots. To prop oneself up, one needs to balance oneself on somebody else, possibly crushing them in the process, and some people thrive in using this method repeatedly to build their lives, irrespective of how competitive the atmosphere gets; sometimes it is just a habit one enjoys too much to get rid of it.
The idea behind this piece was not to judge this breed, of whom I am undoubtedly a part too, at some level (though, as we both agree, that purpose did not quite get served in this piece). The point is to suggest that "what goes around comes around", ie, there's a very good chance how you treat someone today- inadvertently or not- will come back to bite you in the ass quite soon. So before we decide to snap at the next person, presumably to their faces, let us sit back and ponder about how we'd feel if targetted the same way by someone else, attacked by our worst fears thrown unceremoniously at our faces through someone's 'subtle' actions and gestures. Because if we won't like it, they won't in all likeliness either, and if we don't seriously need to hurt somebody, why waste your energy spreading grudge, hatred and resentment against you in somebody's heart, huh? Is it honestly worth it for ourselves?
PS: A million apologies for the moralistic tone in the last para. I promise something lighter in the next post. Thank you for reading my blog. Cheers :)

In a multicultural, multilingual diaspora like India, the fetish for parochialism, though highly ironic at one level, is disturbingly relate-able at a deeper, more subconscious level. Much like the iconic iceberg from the movie Titanic, the parochial attitude shows but its tip on the surface of daily social interaction; covered under the veneer of cosmopolitan civility lies a strong, deep-rooted and almost insurmountable sense of regional identity in most Indians, that informs both the sense of belonging and of insecurity that characterize these people, and influence the way they attempt to position themselves with regard to their respective regional communities, while maneuvering life in the cosmopolitan, globalized world.

The question of defining one's personal identity along regional lines- by identifying certain key aspects of life as a member of a particular socioeconomic and geopolitical community, and trying to model one's behaviour and beliefs according to those perceived standards- in an attempt to 'belong' more completely to that group comes, most ironically, as a response to the Constitutional call to construct a 'national', secular identity for oneself in the public space. In a country like India, which boasts of innumerable ethnic groups, linguistic groups, tribes and religious minorities, not to mention the various caste-based classifications, all of which constitute the social fabric of the country- much like the patchwork quilt where some patterns overlap, yet remain stubbornly distinct from the other- the category of  'the Indian', and the 'Indianness' of the qualities that need necessarily characterize such a group of people remains forever elusive, and notorious for the exclusion of some group or the other by its mere definition. This confusion over a national identity gets further complicated for a person when confronted with the globalizing world and its attendant ethos, liberal in tone yet bringing home to us the fundamentalist undertones of discourses from various corners of the world, including the deceptively inclusive-sounding rhetoric of some 'liberal' countries. Confronted by a combination of such distorted, fragmented worlds competing to find precedence in one's life and consciousness, one set of beliefs seemingly threatening the validity of another, one tends to seek ideological refuge in that which has remained, for that individual, static, stable, immutable and unchallengeable since their childhood. What is subjective and open to doubt, discussion and a possible change in one's opinion or mindset (while intellectually and spiritually desirable), is often then overridden for the reassurance of solid and unchangeable facts, the learnt rejected for the imbibed, and acquired cosmopolitan tastes gently nudged out, in the subconscious, by the inherent affinity towards the local, the homely, the parochial. This in turn results in the 'othering' of any socio-cultural group that differs even slightly from one's own, alienating and demonising these 'others' to the advantage of one's own customs and beliefs, so as to validate the superiority of one's community in one's own as well as collective psyche, thus reinforcing the sense of security and belonging that emotionally binds one to their region/community of birth, leaving no room for confusion or conflict in this one, basic identity that they create for themselves.

It is this sense of allegiance to the regional in Indians that, at times, shows itself subconsciously in daily parlance, reflecting the irrationality of herd mentality (voting in reality shows, for instance), and at others, appears in the most deplorably obvious political propagandas (the demand for statehood for Telangana and Gorkhaland, for instance). In either form, it always remains successful in undermining the narrative of the nation as a unity, and brings forth questions not just about whether every aspect in India is to be legitimately judged through the lens of parochialism at all times, irrespective of its relevance, but also about whether regional biases, achievements and grievances have not in fact become an acceptable line of argument in India, legitimizing and, in fact, even creating grounds for otherwise unfounded causes of disagreement.

While the complexity of the parochial question in India has barely been touched upon in this piece, I have attempted to understand the politics of locating one's identity along regional lines in this nation, and through this, to ask one question to my readers: In the absence of a unified national identity and presence of increasing political manipulation of public sentiments for the cause of the vernacular/region, will the nation of India lose its political identity itself?