Ranzish hi sahi ....

I know he'll go. I know it for a fact since he came. In fact that's what delayed his entry into my life this time: I couldn't make up my mind if I would be able to take it again.

In time, I agreed, we all agreed - for it had to be a collective decision. We were all signing up for the anguish which can only be delayed or its intensity controlled but never avoided.

My mother was the last one to give in. She had other concerns as well but this has been the major concern - what happens when he goes ??? It has happened earlier , quite a few times, and it has to happen again. Then why ?

As I understand now, my relationship with him is as a poet (Ahmad Faraz ?) has described :

Ranzish hi sahi, Dil hi dukhane ke liye aa
Aa phir se mujhey chhodh ke jaane ke liye aa.

(Animosity if it is, do come to break my heart
Come, if only, so that once again we may part)

Except that, there isn't any animosity or hard feelings amongst us. As far as I can tell, he likes me as much as I do, maybe more. But there is only so much that I can tell , by my own standards i.e.

I think we are his family. We have been around him for as long as time goes back for him. He's suffered, succeeded, moved out and moved back in with us.
In his own ways, he has expressed this many more times than we could - almost every time that my eyes have met his.

He has not just accepted everyone that we have introduced but even ensured that they accept and like him, adore him and change their perspective of him and the likes.

Again, this is what I can tell by my standards. His standards ought to be completely different but I am sure he likes us all by his standards as well. But then, it doesn't matter. Because I love him and his being here is all that matters to me.

I have grown up loving him. More than that - I have evolved loving him.

He was with me when I started making sense of this world.
But then he left. Came again and left again.
Every time he left, I cried and longed for him. I just had to think about him, his eyes, and feel how empty life was without him.

And then he would come back and it would all be the same : our mutual love was everywhere to be seen, as if there wasn't any interlude.

I kept growing older and he kept coming back to me.

As I matured, I learned to assure myself that probably its better for him the way he was when he went. I understood that I cry for myself and my loss, not for him.
I am sad because I have had the pleasure of being with him and that's how its supposed to be - the sea-saw of pain and gain.

Jeenay ke liye, socha hi nahin, Dard sambhaalne hongey
Muskurayein to, muskurane ke karz utarney hongey.
Muskuraun kabhi to lagta hai jaise honthon pe karz rakha hai.

(Never thought life would mean juggling my share of sorrow
....every smile has its own price that you borrow
Now when I smile I know I have a new debt to settle)

So I am trying to be mature, brave.
As I realise its almost time now for him to go on, again, I try to pre-empt the cost of anguish and settle it with the profit of my moments with him.

He can come back again, for sure, but this time there's a catch : Will I be there to receive him ?

My love will always be the same as he is despite different appearances, genders and differently sparkling eyes.

The question is : have I grown too old, too mature for him and his love to return ?







P.S. : This is how I feel about my relationship with my pets. Its my way of accommodating pain of separation in my life. Hope you find helpful hints of doing the same with yours.

Point of View - 2

 

(Further to Point of View - 1)

These windows could very well be the mental state of two 13-14 year old boys or girls sitting in the same class.

One could have seen a hot movie on the 52" television in his personal bedroom (apparently hailing from a well to do family). To his credit though, he could be quite ingenious and innovative in imagining himself in the adjoining room with the girl of his dreams (or in the movie)

The other chap, was studying the whole of last evening, didn't sleep till 2am , unnecessarily received two slaps from his drunkard father and is thus driven to study and build a better life for his mother. Not from a very "cultured" family, you see.

Being in the same room does not get them the same lives and backgrounds, least of all same thoughts. But then this is no news for anyone.

However, the benefit of being able to see two different activities for two similarly placed people does suggest that we can try and implement the same when we are communicating with anyone besides ourselves.

In other words, there can never be a single point of view to take for granted. Every view with a different brain behind it has precisely that : A different brain working out of a different lifetime of experiences.

To me that poses a whole lot of questions and combinations :

• Should I be worried about other's point of view at all , since there is no single "other" (Please all attitude) ?
• Can I master my point of view to encompass everyone's point of view ( advanced version of above - know all to please all )
• What do I get by knowing everyone's point of view ?

..................etc.

 

Obviously, I do not have answers to all of these, but I do have a theory developing itself to answer the above and likes.

To be put in details later but the basis of this theory lies in the fact that the world is what I know (belief being different from knowledge) it is.

Thus, if I do not have any one else's point of view in consideration, then mine is the one that matters and is correct.

Conversely, if what matters to me is anyone else's outlook, then my actions and life will be driven not by me but by others, and I spend my life walking as many tightrope's as people who matter.

 

If you've read this far, why not write back and let me know your thoughts ?

Point of View - 1

"Udhar dekh" (Look there) Vishnu said.
I looked at the window that he was pointing to in the building across the parking. There was a young couple, in a semi-embrace, making out.

It was more than a smile that came to my lips as I looked at the couple for a few minutes, weaving through other similar memories in my mind.
I generally glanced at the other window besides the first one and looking at the classroom there realised that the floor was being used as some kind of a school or college.

My smile was replaced with a grin as I realised that the unique view that we were enjoying.
From where we stood, we could see a room full of intellectual knowledge exchange and no baser instincts visible. (Although I bet the Indian guy sitting there was totally checking out the blonde diagonally ahead of him)

For all we knew, people in this room might as well be having some biology lessons, oblivious to the fact that there was a biology practical of a kind being executed in the room besides them.

In the other room, all that was visible was love and passion.
Again, for all we knew, the couple making out was least bothered about the people in the adjoining room and the nuances of hormones.
They would be more mindful of the romance in the air, the fun and adventure in the moment. They might be conscious of any footsteps out of the door and the steps they had taken towards some kind of an emotional (long or short) future.

The irony which made me smile, this was all contained and separated by thin walls, segregating their two small worlds but allowing us to see them as cross sections, owing to the angle we had ! A different viewpoint that is.

How does that relate to the point of view that we maintain with us and the mental block that we have?
Does it say something about people who advise us claiming they have an "expert opinion”?


I intend to express my thoughts on it. Do write if you feel likewise.

Flat Mindsets and Bloated Egos

Many people have a closed mindset on a few topics, but its the few who have closed mindsets on many topics that irritate. Everyone has an ego and an opinion and hitting on one, often affects the other. That's nobody's case.
But if you hold your ego forth and challenge everyone to dare touch your opinions, you are simply testing their patience for you. At the end of this patience, is the emotional bank balance that you have in the other person's soft corner, for you to erode. The obvious choice would be to use this balance wisely. The less obvious choice, especially for such touchy, egoist people, happens to be the cost of this relationship.


As an example, I could take my cultural and ethnic background way too seriously. This in itself, pretty much makes me believe that only those with a similar background are worth my view and others are simply too ordinary to rise. Arrogant as an adjective, doesn’t quite do justice with them. On top of that, I could be too stubborn to stop and consider that I could be wrong at the first place. Now you could argue with me but I wouldn't budge because an honest argument is at least a logical attempt to appeal the rational faculties of an intelligent being. And I am simply not open enough and thus not logical enough to entertain your arguments. Instead of a sporting debater (I checked it up, it's a word) , what you get to see is my face, swollen and misshaped with my dented irritated ego. For you didn’t realize but that's what you were punching with your logic! My Big Fat E-G-O !!!

Either you relent and start massaging my ego, because you like me too much to deform my face (a little emotional balance in your big heart) or you continue till you reach the end of your patience and then check the emotional balance to decide what to do. So how do you deliver an open idea inside such a closed mind ... ?

One of the options that could work is to approach through the person/subject that the egoist is passionate about and willing to hear out. This could be people like parents, spouse or subjects like sports. For eg: you could talk about different players having different styles and yet similar capabilities (Sachin Tendulkar and Don Bradman - another argument for another day but acceptable for now).
Then they have definitely dissimilar backgrounds and history but similar stature for their time in reckoning. Finally, there could be a subtle hint to drive home the point that similar could be the case with normal people with different backgrounds yet similarly good or bad traits to their personalities. But the catch is, if the other person realizes your intentions before you could enter the goal post, you have a harder ego shield coming to block you and maybe a bigger face to deal with and even bigger bloated ego to defuse !

Will add more later..... Meanwhile, if you do get to this post and get a drift of what I am talking about, do write back.