So what happens when you break away from
everything you held dear, everything you took for granted all your life and
choose to fly off on your own to a land far, far away? Sometimes in my lone vain
moments, I fancy my life being pictured as an adventure saga; it always stars
someone innocent, someone unaware of the greater realities of his/her Age; the
story always starts with a peaceful beginning with just a skimping hint of the
troubles to come; and then soon enough the hero/heroine is thrust headfirst
into the dangerous escapades. I will tell you what; my hometown is a small,
small place. I never even officially studied sex in my biology classes. And if
it weren’t for the 5 or so pages in my history textbooks in my very last year
at high school, I would have never even have heard of the world wars (I think the
first time I realized that there were two of them was when I was 16)! Add to
that the fact that I grew up in an extremely sheltered and pampered manner, and
you can probably guess how good I fare in non-academic skills. I never liked
any sports, was never required to be too neat and managed to get straight Ds in
everything from sports to art classes.
The only good thing I did to secure my
continual existence was to love math and books. Mathematics got me into IIT and
books put a more balanced view of the world in my head (and also led to my sex
education, but that’s a different story). Naturally I have grown into an
introvert. I think it is also why I particularly enjoy writing my blog for it
serves as a channel to vent out my feelings to a wider audience. I love my
little monologues, Mr. Reader; it is so liberating to write to you, to speak freely
of my mind, uninterrupted. Do you know, I often fear I am going to make a
terrible wife, for I would want my man to patiently hear out every little thing
in my head every single day, and there is always so much on my mind! He also
has to be emotionally available at all times and engage in an intellectual SWOT
analysis of every smallest thing that bothers me. He also has to pull off a
hundred other herculean feats for that matter; well Mr. Reader let us steer
away from this rather tempting topic.
I think love is a big conspiracy anyway, conjured
probably by some aliens who also built our beloved pyramids (for it is such an unearthly
concept). You just cannot win against it. Is human brain capable of constant co
habitation with one single person for more than half of a lifetime? Is it
natural to fall in love or is it something that young individuals mistake to be
natural due to the social conditioning? I for one have concluded that the Middle
Ages must take the blame. I guess life was tougher back then and it might have
helped to segregate gender roles which further boiled down to reducing women as
mere beauty trophies. I think the logic was rather simple, men do the worldly
hardships and women get to be their prize. Women were almost effectively bartering
their beauty for their economic prosperity. And because women were denied any
other means of survival than to depend on the men, the act of marriage had to
be divinified. A cult had to grow around marriage, to ensure that men continued
to shelter the wife. For if not for a moral doctrine of love, why would a wise man
continue to accommodate the same woman all his life? Women evolved to nag, to
flirt and learnt ever new clever means to keep a man in the palm of their
hands. Also a flourishing marriage must have developed as a status symbol for
the men to mark their continued worldly conquests. Only the best of the men
could decorate their wives with the best of the diamonds. In turn developed the
women’s diamond fetishes! Little girls were brought up to love beautiful
dresses and expensive jewelry for if those things were not to interest them how
else could they live through a long, dull life of little intellectual quirks?
I think for this matter all human emotions may have been our specie’s response to the evolutionary battle against existential survival. Why must a grown adult woman who just delivered a child continue to nourish the babe? Well for love ofcourse. But then because human love is much more mature than that of other species, it ensures that the child cares for the mother when she grows to be more fragile in turn. What about the father? A male cat does not care for the baby kittens, I suppose? But neither is the female cat constrained against pursuing her own independent survival and hence no concept of a marriage in the cats! Also why the greater part of the animal kingdom has so many of these ‘animal spirits’. The fitter creature survives the day. Ofcourse maternal love is so essential that it has been ingrained in even non-human genes. And hence why, mothers have so often found themselves being more glorified than their male counterparts. I think parental love comes so much more naturally to women.
I recently finished reading the novel 'The Memory Keeper's Daughter'. It is such a tragic story- a girl is born to a couple with Down Syndrome and the father decides to give away the newborn. He does get affected by the guilt ofcourse and that's what the rest of the story is about but well could I ever imagine a mother doing the same in the first place?
Now that’s for the love. What about other countless human feelings- mirth, despair etc? When I get rejected in the interviews it so naturally makes me feel sad, I think it’s the worst feeling ever. I think I hate interviews. I think I hate placements. I think I hate anything remotely to do with the placements. But well, if a strong reaction were not to be triggered in my brain, why in the world would I continue my job search? I must feel pain when all those things that can negatively affect my chances of survival occur. May be that also explains the intense emotional upheaval felt during break ups (for prospect of good marriage and life extension program are linked too after all).
Well, so where did I start? Ah yes what happens
when you pack off to a kingdom far, far way? May be a fairy tale does not follow. May be you struggle a bit,
may be you also fail a lot but most importantly it can make you think a lot;
kind of cool, like some soul searching experience, but mostly it can make you
think of elaborate explanations of how you feel going through what feels to me
like an extended 2 year placement semester!
