Kya Har Ek Friend Zaroori Hota Hai?: On Friendships

“A friend is someone who lets you have the total freedom to be yourelf”  Jim Morrison

Last week I had written about children. This weekend article is dedicated to friendships.

Have you observed the Airtel ad “Har Ek Friend Zaroori Hota Hai?”   and the new Vodafone  Facebook ad ? My Facebook notifications are full of these videos shared by many students and friends. The video has  frequently appeared on my updates. I have been thinking whether friendship is limited to glossy ads and ‘feel good factor’, or romanticizing an emotion, or hyped  movies, or social networking sites, or does it go beyond consumerism?

Who is a friend? Remember Shahrukh’s statement in Kuchh Kuchh Hota Hai: pyar dosti hai… Love is friendship…. ?

In school we were taught in the “colloquial expression” segment of English classes that “A friend in need, is a friend indeed” and “fair weather friends” . When we were asked to write an essay on this subject,  all of us wrote how a friend is one who stands by you in your times of trouble and supports you during all tough situations. However, as we start growing up the significance of a friend starts changing and friendships become  our major experimental steps in the lab of life and experience. It doesn’t remain limited to ‘need’ and give and take, but expands to mean much more.

A few days ago I was discussing with someone regarding friendship and love and whether after falling in love, could you still remain good friends — of course you can remain good friends after being in a relationship. But seriously doubt whether you can remain good friends after a breakup . Breakups are usually taken as ego hurters, and remaining friends ‘inspite’ of everything is a little tough.  They say “friendship often ends in love, but love in friendship never”.

However, times are changing and friendships are governed by professional needs. We tend to stumble across the same set of people again and again. In that case, past is past tense and we  transit from the mode of love to friendships.

As I was watching these ads,  I was thinking about my own set of friends, people from school days, college years, and job years, where we meet as strangers, fight, but leave a place as friends. I have re-met many of my school friends and college friends on social networking sites, and it has been an absolute delight. However, there is a change that I am observing — a change in emotions, a change in response. Some friends who were distant and indifferent become completely warm, while certain friends who were supposed to be the closest become distant and cold.

From whatever I have learnt in life, categorizing friends is one of the toughest things . However, if someone asked me to categorize my friends, here would be a rough division:

1. The constants: These are friends who have been with you for years. They have seen you through the highs and lows of life. They know without your telling them that there is something right or something wrong in your life. They are the ones you don’t talk to everyday, you might have blamed them for things, but they  come to you the moment you give a call.

2. The Surprises: These are friends who come as surprise packages. You never knew they existed so seriously, so deeply for you. They might be just round the corner, they just take charge when they see you in trouble — a little filmy and a little romantic, but they do exist, quitely observing  your moves, but being there for you and with you.

3. The Fun Bunch: You haven’t thought a single weekend without them. They are the ones who watch the most pathetic love stories with you in the theatre, eat grub on the streets with you, enjoy watching you ask for more golgappas and share the money in restaurants to the last penny. They add colour to your life and make surviving a much easier thing. In cosmopolitan lives of severe pressure like Mumbai, where you are migrants and far from home, they are the ones who take away your loneliness and make your  life much easier.

4. The Professional Well-wisher: You met them at workplaces, you met them at conferences, but they slowly moved to be closer to your lives. They advised you when you got lost in professional alleys, they tell you how to survive, and encourage you when you move ahead. They are sometimes your colleagues, sometimes your seniors, sometimes your super-seniors, but they are people whom you can run to in case of emergencies. They are people who share your professional and sometimes even personal woes.

5.The Critiques: The least noted but the most significant category. They come as friends but they back-stab you, they speak against you in front of others  and in front of yourself — they might be people you trusted, but they used your weakness to climb their own ladder. However, they are the ones who ignite the competitor in you. They are the ones whose words make you work harder on yourself and make you tougher in the battle.

Friends and friendships are a gift.  While at IIT  as a student, I had observed that mostly loners who had no friends actually got into the suicidal mode. I had a very animated and vibrant group of friends then, some of whom went ahead and became leaders in their own fields and workplaces. The group mails that I receive are usually meant to speak of their achievements either in personal or professional spheres –  they give a “feel-good factor”.  Am not sure whether these friends read my blogs anymore, but their influence has been profound.

I must narrate regarding a phase of my life in this context. Post-IIT, life had become bleak. I was lost — friends had moved on with their personal lives and professional requirements. Some  friends who were close, became cold and indifferent. Some friendships got affected by placements in IITs, IIMs  and completing PhD .

I was moving from place to place without stability and without a sense of security. One night I left Indore to come to Jaipur for a job presentation.  I had not got the time to buy food for myself, was tired, lonely and broken because of a series of crises. Fell asleep –  must have been asleep for a very long time. Suddenly, someone’s hand touched my forehead — I woke up with a start — angry and irritated.  From half-open lids I saw a young lady in a burkha standing by me. She told me in Hindi that she has observed me for very long and I have slept for almost half the journey without eating a morsel. I woke-up and saw that she had two little kids and was accompanied by an aged lady.  She was coming back from her mother’s place after a child birth to her husband who has a small cloth store in Jaipur. The way she offered me food, a single roti and a little potato was so touching that I would name it as a friendship that has been beyond all my friendships till date.  I never met her after that, but still remember her face and smile.

Over the past years, I have been learning a lot about friendships and relationships. In fact, rediscovering friendships. I keep telling my students in the class that “be grounded, people are your only achievements — if you have people, you will be able to achieve any success of life.  People actually fulfill us, they are indispensable for us to live and survive through phases.”

Whether they are people who sit with you when you are hospitalized, or when you are professionally drowning, or whether they are people who share jokes, or buy you flowers and chocolates, or simply listen to you crib — they make what is called a humane being. The last few decades has seen an increasing alienation and loneliness in human life. We might be exceedingly good professionals, but if you are alone in your achievements — they are futile.

Before I end, another small fragment from memory regarding  friends of Postgrad days. In case any one of us was upset or angry, we took a guitar and sang  these lines:

“Vo jaake canteen mein Table bajaake

Vo gaane gaana Yaaron ke saath.

Bas yaadein Yaadein Yaadein reh jaati hain

Kuchh chhoti Chhoti Baatein reh jaati hain Bas yaadein…” (Purani Jeans)

Happiness is infectious na? Sadness is also contagious. When we are happy, the world seems to reflect our happiness and especially friends celebrate with us, but if we are sad we are mostly alone, and even if there is a single friend with us, we should consider ourselves fortunate. Friends wait for a single call — you just have to reach out with an open heart and they will be there to hold your hands and stand for you. If you ask me, actually yes “har ek friend zaroori hota hai” . But, yes you have to earn your life long friends….

P.N. : This post is dedicated to all my friends over the past many years.  Whether I met you last month or last year, or in childhood, wherever, you all are… I miss you and cherish each  friendship.

Fragments

I sit here unmoving, unthinking, un-thought of

And watch things transforming, moving and melting away into oblivion.

I stare at people watching these transformations all by themselves,

I gaze into their eyes and find nothing but vacuum of an empty existence,

Or fumes of an ever-fading, sometimes ignorant past.

I think of relationships that made me and some that were made by me,

And feel them vanishing away from my clutches as granules of sand.

I dream of deafening silences and indolent nothingness,

Then watch these dreams fading into vapours of reality.

Strange, I see myself…

Watching, dreaming, feeling, fading and melting into that unknown.

What am I? A mere dot on the margin of other lives?

Or a shadow of a reality falling apart with the darkness of each passing second?

I wish I knew…

What am I?

NOTE: While searching for some papers inside the cupboard, found these lines that I had scribbled in an old notebook . A friend had typed this and kept it in the form of my manuscript with a collection called  ‘Silent Echoes’ .

Through the Sepia Tint: Love Stories from the Past

I have not written about love stories since long. Thought of revisiting some unknown love stories of a few common people from the ‘black& white’ era. The love stories I am about to narrate seem important in my understanding and important for a narration on a public platform because of two reasons: (a) we talk of our era as ‘bold’, to-the-point and frank in terms of expressing love and maintaining relationships as compared to say someone from the 50′s-60′s or 80′s. But there is something called commitment and guts which perhaps the generation that we live in lacks may be because of career consciousness or may be because of image consciousness; (b) Love has become in my opinion more conservative than it was before. We move from empty Emotional Quotients (EQs) into emptier life-styles where love is marked by the number of pizzas or pastries or the number of movies seen together in a multiplex or else the amount of gifts purchased from malls and markets. Love is determined by the consumerism of today’s existence where an i-phone or an expensive watch or a flat in Lokhandwala or Bandra becomes the benchmark of a ‘true’ relationship. I am not saying that love doesn’t exist, I am just trying to say that ‘true’ love is a rare phenomenon these days. Finance and career consciousness have taken over in the race for stable relationships. Perhaps, many of us are afraid that commitments can take a toll on our careers or else can lead to an emotional trap. Very true, commitments can lead to an emotional trap and this is a world where expressing emotions are seen to be signs of weakness rather than strength. Of course there is the concept of the ‘metrosexual’ male or female who is not afraid of crying in public — emotions however do not mean only ‘crying’ or ‘cribbing’, they go much beyond….

The love stories that I am about to narrate are that of real people, people like you and me (I have/had their permission to write the story). Let me take you back to 1952, the immediate post-independence India. The locale is Pune and the specifics are Dehu, Army Camp near the Ordinance depot. This was the era of independence and Anand Math; jawans woke to the rhythm of Vande Mataram at early dawn. Monsoons were particularly interesting because of the amount of rains Pune and Mumbai received during those days, also because of the dampness of the make-shift canvas tents, and because of the stickiness of the black cotton soil of that belt.  The nation was fresh with vigour to establish itself as a ‘free’ world.  Freedom was a state of mind for people also — the youth of that era tried to live the newly gained national freedom in their lives. However, freedom comes with its own set of bondage — unemployment, casteism and communalism were rife.

One particular young man had newly joined the Ordnance factory –  tall, very fair, slim, sharp features, grey longing eyes. He had recently enrolled into the Indian army as a Sergeant.  Inspired by Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, grown up reading Tagore and Gandhi, this young man had a romantic disposition added to remarkably good looks. Indian army of those times was still ‘British’ in its ways and the training that this young man had received along with his deep insight into literary texts, made him an instant hit in his regiment, army mess and with the townsfolk. He had an added quality — he was a poet and had already published a series of his poems in magazines like Illustrated Weekly and leading newspapers of the time like The Statesman. Every Saturday morning he traveled with a group of colleagues to Mumbai from Pune station through the Deccan Queen express and stayed at the army base in Mumbai, enjoyed the monsoons in Juhu and Nariman Point and returned back on Sunday evening to Dehu camp. It was on this train that he met Bano the daughter of a Parsi merchant of Pune.  Bano was a dream-come-true for the young officer, she was the most beautiful woman he had come across in his life. She was studying in an undergraduate college in Pune — very pretty, sophisticated, cultured and full of grace. The intimacy started growing and Deccan Queen became their meeting ground week after week. Her charm and her beauty added to her delightful understanding of education made her a prized possession for our hero. Months went by and the young man and Bano fell deeply in love. Things changed when he received a telegram from his village that he is needed urgently at home.

The life that this young officer had lead was all through books and his romantic idealism had made him forget that he belonged to a remote village of Odisha near Dhenkanal, his family and his parents were orthodox Brahmins who would never accept a Parsi girl in their home or even near their village. His dreams got a severe jolt through the telegram that he received — he had to go home urgently. His wedding had already been fixed by parents and those days (as it is even today) you couldn’t say a ‘no’ to your parents wishes. Moreover, he was the eldest in the family and his father was a farmer. His education and job meant a lot to the family and he could never deny their wishes. Our hero got married to an unknown girl, around thirteen years of age when he went home. There was grief, there was heart-break but soon the wife filled the emptiness of our protagonist’s life. She too came to know about Bano from the young man and his description of her always aroused curiosity and sometimes jealousy in the wife’s heart. She longed to meet Bano when they returned to Dehu. They deliberately traveled by Deccan Queen every weekend and sometimes weekdays just to catch a glimpse of Bano. Sometimes, they frequented the old Parsi coffee-house of Pune where he used to meet Bano but no one knew her  whereabouts. The couple never was able to trace her. Two years went past and the ghost of Bano still haunted our officer at times. However, married life had its own demands and with a baby born in the camp, there were more reasons to rejoice than to miss a mysterious lady who had only a few days presence in this man’s life.   Soon a posting order came and the Sergeant was transferred from Pune to Jhansi with a promotion. The couple decided to travel to Mumbai, stay there for a few days and then leave for Jhansi from Mumbai. It was a Friday and they boarded the Deccan Queen for Mumbai as usual. In the same compartment was a little girl, the youngest sister of Bano. The officer was surprised, his happiness knew no bounds and he immediately introduced his wife to Bano’s sister and inquired about her. Strangely, the little girl divulged no details about Bano’s whereabouts. He understood her sentiments — requested a piece of newspaper from a fellow passenger and in a hurry scribbled a few lines in English with his ink pen on the already shoddy newspaper surface that read ‘Dear Bano, leaving for Jhansi on Sunday. Hope you will forgive me. My first book will be dedicated to you’ .  They left for Jhansi that Sunday and he never got to meet Bano again during his lifetime and he never got a chance to visit Pune. A few years later his first book released in Odiya and the book was called Adbhuta Chakra (The Strange Cycle) and on the opening page it was written For, Bano. Three of his subsequent books were all dedicated to this lady….

I am not sure if Bano or someone who knows her is reading this post today. She must be at least seventy-three years now. He is no more…. But even during his last days he talked about her and had once asked me to write a profile of Bano. I never had the courage to do so, but today when I feel the agony of observing our generation love stories, I get the courage to write about Bano. Bano, if you are reading this article (I am sure you’ll not be because blogs are for ‘our times’ but if your grandchildren read this probably they might inform you) it is just meant to let you know that Bijon did talk about you and considered you as his inspiration throughout his life.

We live in a world where perhaps casteism does not exist so vehemently as it did in 1950s. However, we have the problem these days of emotional honesty where to own-up that you are in love is not only a risk but also a big game. Mobile phones, smses and partner-swap have taken our time and energy rather than books, ideals and emotions that can even be remotely called love….

I shall continue this post with another love story situated in 1980s in my next post….

The Art of Secrecy

There is a famous cliched statement across Indian cultures that females are incapable of secrecy. Nothing remains a secret in a female’s closet. I often wonder if it were the males who used these tags to understand the other correlated human species or these statements were given by women who perhaps shared an iota more of ‘power’ and ‘independence’ than their “domesticated”  counterparts.  The very terms used to designate a girl such as ‘women’, ‘female’ and ‘fair sex’ are themselves so relative that ‘women’ (in the lack of an appropriate word to designate this species) have always to be viewed in their identity and their very existence with relation to ‘men’ .  Feminism and gender studies have tried for centuries to ponder into this deeper equation regarding cliches and biases based on gender.

However, secrets are a great source of curiosity for either sexes. Mythologies say that god kept the secret of life from Adam and Eve through the alluring red apple which to eat was supposed to be a sin. If human-beings entered into the very problems and processes of life by eating the ‘forbidden apple’ and thereby infringing upon god’s most well-kept secret, then “secrecy” is something which needs deeper consideration in critical thought. Why am I writing this post about secrets?  That’s a secret ….Well, recently someone advised an old friend to learn to hide a few aspects from even one’s own shadow. That statement made me curious and drove me to write this post. They say every human-being has a ghost in his/her closet — ghost of one’s past. I can not say how true is such a statement. But, strangely secrets are mostly associated with women. Thinking of those Hindi movies of 60s and 70s  where characters played by Sadhana in Woh Kaun Thi, Anita, Mera Saya etc.  and even Waheeda Rehman’s roles in Bees Saal Baad or Kohraa were always shrouded with mystery and secrecy . Some movies like Kati Patang or Ghumnam had Helen or Bindu playing vamp-like roles with secrecy as their major point of reference.

In fact, if you look deeper into the dynamics of the daily soaps that run through all national and international tele-channels, secrecy is a major trope. Secrecy forms the core of the individual characters’ relationships, professional dealings or their commitments. I was watching a few episodes of a series named ‘Emotional Atyachar’ while at home this summer, someone in my family explained me its context and its popularity. Well, personally I did not like the format of the show and the raw-dramatizing of the most sensitive aspect of people’s lives. However, on the flip side the show’s producers and crew would claim that there is nothing illegal about it. This show is about ‘consenting adults’ who would want to test their own kith and kin or their partners on national television. But besides that point, if you observe the series closely it is all about “SECRETS” and raw-revelation of those secrets in a manner that might impair an individual’s life forever. Such shows in the name of “social service” and help gives way to the most negative aspects of human emotions finding their way from closets into living room.  Well! There is also another secret about the show which I am curious to unravel. Is “temptation”  as the crew puts it such a huge factor that people are willing to give-up emotional attachment of several years to succumb to those few moments? Might be true though I can’t vouch for the authenticity, temptation one either side might lead to the greatest break-ups and misunderstandings with friends, partners and spouses. A moment’s temptation can indeed become a source of trauma for a lifetime — for the one who has been tempted and also for those related to her/him. Perhaps psychologists might have an answer to this deeper issue of temptation and secrecy….

Mystery and secrecy go hand in hand and one is connected to the other.  Many of us find secrecy as the key to mystery and one leading to another. If there is an aura of mystery about someone then that person appears to be attractive and worth noticing. Greta Garbo in the West, Rekhaji and Suchitra Sen in India are often cited as the famous celebrities of all times whose very lives have been their best-kept secrets. Greta Garbo’s mysterious black veil, her life and her ways of keeping herself away from the prying eyes of the press have been considered to be master instances  by film critics  throughout film history. I have observed some friends from my closer circle at various hostels and their biggest TRP is their ability to keep their secrets from the world and to keep themselves mysterious deliberately under all-circumstances. Whether it be research or their personal life everything would be a matter of speculation for the general public and lesser mortals.  I sincerely feel a tinge of secrecy does add to one’s appeal and some people who call themselves ‘simple’ by revealing every details of their life are either considered to be ‘bores’ or are ‘stupid’ and ‘immature’.  We do not like an open book lying somewhere on the desk, it is the closed one which has a power to attract through its cover and its title.

Einstein had once remarked that the “secret to success is knowing how to intelligently hide your sources” . Secrecy has been a part of research battles and to be able to keep a research plan or proposal secret is considered to be the a,b,c…of good research. How to keep secrets? Well, this blog is about identifying human traits not about self-help.  Even I am attempting to figure out many ‘how to’… .

Life is a string of events and accidents — some good ones and the others really tough ones. Secrecy on the positive side can be a great help to keep your career and your life away from professional and personal tumult. On a negative note, secrecy can be the very core of every tumult. If there is a secret which is really worth discussing with your family, your partner or friends that deal with your health or is giving arise to any feeling of guilt — better shared than kept as a ghost in the closet that returns to haunt you every time.

Departure Lounge…

A few years ago a Hollywood movie  named ‘Love Actually’ had released. I was not particularly impressed with that movie and its medley of half-baked characters except for one aspect — the beginning of the movie. The movie starts with a touching note on the victims of the 9/11 attacks and on those who were on board the two airplanes that crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Centre. The movie claims that almost all those last frantic messages sent by the passengers on board the two planes were messages of love — of intense love for those who got left behind, their near ones, friends, spouses, beloveds, parents and children. It starts with the note that at death we do not hate, we love…. So let me dedicate today’s post to those who loved and lost, to those who were left behind and to those who are in a hurry to move ahead in life and in time. This is an article about the departure lounges and the people whom I have observed/met, seeing off their near-ones either to meet again or to part forever.

I am apologizing for the somberness of the tone of this post, but sometimes life also means pausing by, observing, sighing and then moving on. I hope I do not get blamed for being sentimental or for making my readers bored with teary gibberish. Actually, on the contrary getting blamed is a privilege of the privileged. So, I am willing to face the consequences of being called a ‘moron’ or a ‘bore’….

The world is so full of the wonders of technology and the brilliance of what I name as a ‘fast-food noodled’ life that we take a sadistic, pervert pleasure in being called ‘rational’ and ‘calculative’  and take a pride in ‘moving-on’ (speaking about technology and science and its wonders, let’s face it — the best part of it was the joy of discovery and invention and not consolidation and gain).The reasons cited for this ‘moving on’ business are innumerable, sometimes wrapped as a determined decision, sometimes called helplessness and sometimes duty. Fine…understood and noted. However, what is the consequence of this ‘final rationality’, what do we gain? If you calculate the number of enemies you made in your lifetime or the number of friends whom you lost on your way, it will certainly outnumber the friends you have at present. Well, there is another side to it too, if someone decides to board his/her life’s airplane through the departure terminal of a close one’s life then you certainly cannot stop him/her from this ‘moving on’ business.

Before getting into the metaphoric aspects and rhetoric of the departure lounge, let me narrate three incidents where either I was a participant or was an observer of the events at departure lounges. You must have seen the departure lounges and the departure terminals of airports. While the arrival terminal has something cheerful and some anticipation about it, departure terminals have pathos and sentiments for their part.  Let me begin by turning a few leaves of my personal experience. A few months ago I had to leave Mumbai after perhaps the most important four and half years of my life.  It usually is toughest at the finishing point for most people, so was it for me.  I dragged my luggage downstairs at 11 o clock that night and before entering the cab decided to take a last look at all that I am leaving behind. I have been used to departures, being always on a move, but this was the toughest of them all. Met a few friends who used to always see me off at the airport whenever I left Mumbai, they came, shook hands but did not accompany me to the airport. It was time that I start my journey alone without those friends accompanying me any further. While in the cab, many thoughts and multiple memories kept crossing my mind and I was intensely realizing that the life and people which I called my own are not going to remain the same now. They will change, for good or for bad….When I reached Mumbai airport the departure terminal was bustling with people. Since it was the international airport and most international flights are scheduled for late night departures, the place was crowded with travelers. I too had a late night flight for Chennai and had to undergo the security checks meant for international flights. Quietly went around with my ‘business’ but all the while observing my own self and my thoughts. After the security check, went to the farthest corner of the lounge and sat there musing about the life that I was leaving behind and the life that was welcoming me. Not everything would be fine for me, I knew that long ago but had not realized that it would be so difficult to traverse the boundaries. The departure lounge made me intensely sensitive to that part of my journey. Finally, when I boarded the plane it was more a sense of exhaustion and weariness than any sort of pain which took over. There was a slow, rhythmic music being played inside the aircraft and the last thing that I remember was when the plane took off and the mellifluous voice of Lata Mangeshkar wafted through the cabin singing: “Yeh Raatein, Nayi Purani…”

Coming to the second incident, this was at Moscow airport. There was an eight hours gap between my flights and I sat on one of the steps of the lounge chewing a gum and listening to music.  I saw an old Russian couple (must be in their late eighties) come into the lounge area. They were accompanied by a gentleman and an elite-looking lady both in their mid-thirties.  There was anxiety in their voice and the way the younger couple was explaining the older lady in Russian, it appeared as if they were extremely concerned regarding something.  There were tears in the eyes of the older lady and they appeared to be scared of traveling.  The family looked jittery and disturbed. As it happened that apart from me , a boy, perhaps in his late teens was observing this entire conversation going on between those people. He could not resist, got up and went up to them to inquire the matter. He spoke to the family and explained them something in Russian. Finally, the matter appeared resolved and the family looked much more relaxed. I asked the boy what the matter was. He told me that the old gentleman and his wife were traveling to California as they are settled in California, the old man was ill with asthma and a heart problem. The other lady was their daughter and she had come with her companion to see them off. The concern on the younger lady’s face was also out of fear and sadness perhaps because of the fact that whether she would see her parents again. They were worried about the security check and the exhaustion that would be there for the father at US airports. Moreover, they are traveling by economy class so they may not be comfortable through the journey. There was extreme concern for the parents. The boy had consoled them that he will be traveling to California as well and he would take care of the couple on the trip until he sees them off safely. The tensed family was relieved. I was thinking of the lounge where we meet people, fellow humanbeings for a few hours and their help remains as gratitude in our heart for a long time….

The third incident happened at JFK departure lounge on a Valentine’s Day. I was waiting for a flight to Atlanta that evening. I stood at the coffee counter trying to buy myself a mug of coffee but was purely confused in attempting to give the exact change to that person. A very gorgeously dressed young girl and her partner came to the coffee shop and stood there arguing aloud. The girl’s eyes were smudged and her mascara blotched her face making her look rather unattractive. I could make out that she had been crying for a long time now and that her state was rather bad. The man appeared composed but he was equally troubled. He bought a coffee for her and they sat on two of the chairs at the farthest corner  of the lounge. I also went there and committed the ‘sin’ of eavesdropping, curious that I am about human emotions. The argument between the two was heated and as evident the boy was walking out on her because of another female. He tried to explain her as much as he could but she was inconsolable. I felt sorry…tcch tchh Valentine’s Day for a breakup? How painful….But there was another Valentine waiting for him at some other corner of the world…poor chap he too had to ‘move on’. Not that easy, not that difficult as well.  After another fifteen or twenty minutes the man got up and walked away, perhaps he had a flight. The lady sat there with her face buried in her palms, not even looking up once to take a last glimpse of the man that she once might have loved and kept crying for a long time after he had left. Suddenly as if from a dream she jolted herself up, took out a few tissue papers from her purse, wiped her face clean, applied some lipstick, gave a rather rude exterior appearance and then adroitly walked away from the lounge, not even looking back once. It’s perhaps easier for the person who is able to deny rather than the denied one to accept changes in life. Our ego, our self-esteem is so high that many of us take a lifetime to forgive or to understand the fact that this has actually happened and rather keep thinking “why me?” “God why me?”

All said and done, departures are as necessary as arrivals. A death might also lead to a birth…There can be no arrival without departures. However, my contention has been regarding human emotions concealed in departures. Yes, it is painful…yes some departures bring despair, addiction and even death….But, in such extreme cases arrivals and departures are marked by many other  human attitudes and multiple layers of human existence. Somewhere because of struggle, somewhere because of starvation and somewhere because of despair departures are sudden and uncalled for.

There is a famous quote that “life is a tragedy for those who feel and a comedy for those who think”. Too much of feeling is suffocating and foolish, I agree but too much of the “comic” is also buffoonery and unpalatable. I do not know where I exist as human being, as a clown or as a fool? Wish had the answer….

Kora Kagaz: a Reflection on Relationships

Rishte badi mushkilon se bante dekhe, tootne keliye bus ek hi lamha…

(my transl. relationships are built with difficulty over time but can also snap within a moment)

(Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and AR Rahman from “Gurus of Peace”)

Thanks to Moserbaer CDs at least we get to watch original movies in good print at low cost. These CDs have actually contributed substantially to the cinema world and for viewers as well because: (a) They are cheap and easily available; (b) They are not pirated and (c) Some very old black&white and Eastman color movies are available now in the market. I got to watch Kora Kagaz (1974) from one of these CDs yesterday. I had always loved the songs of Kora Kagaz, but did not get the opportunity to watch this movie before. I liked the movie very much and thought of writing an article related to that. However, the theme of this article is not completely cinema and cinematic techniques of Kora Kagaz; the theme is — relationships.

I am slightly nervous while writing this post — relationships are difficult to be written about and feel worried that my own prejudices and emotions should not come in the path of the narration. Anyway…. I begin with the movie.

Kora Kagaz is the story of a young girl (Jaya Bhaduri) from a well-to-do upper middle class family and a college literature professor (Vijay Anand) who comes from a “poor” family. By choosing to remain in the teaching profession in a city college, the professor chooses to maintain a humble lifestyle. He gets married to the girl with a reluctant acceptance of the girl’s mother (Achala Sachdev), who had dreamt of getting her daughter married to an engineer/doctor or a businessman. The actual drama begins after the wedding, when there is a constant interference from the side of the bride’s mother, unacceptable to the “honest” and “prestige-conscious” son-in-law.

Every new day there is a new problem in the couple’s life. One day there is a fridge sent by the mother, the second there is a telephone, third the mother goes and tells some relatives that her son-in-law will go to London and submit his PhD thesis, and so on. The man in turn feels that each of these tokens of “love” are nothing but “nails” hammered on the coffin of his honesty and principles. He believes that these ideas are especially contrived by the mother-in-law to show him down. The newly-wed girl is sandwiched between her mother’s love/influence and husband’s principles. Finally, they separate on a very bitter note to be reunited years later.

Like most Bollywood movies, this movie ends with an optimistic note when the protagonists meet in the railway station years later and decide to live happily ever after. Well, that is the movie but life is not a movie. The protagonists are reunited by destiny and are given a second chance by life. But, that may not happen in “real” life. Actual story may not end/start with a reunion. Reflecting on the movie, many things came into mind. Yet, what appealed to me in the movie was the way the complex threads of relationships have been handled. The Director (Anil Ganguly) has to be credited for understanding and presenting these complex problems related to marriage. Parental interference (both bride and groom’s side), societal demands and finances and importantly communication gap all these form the crux of not only this story but many other real-life stories. I shall discuss each of these four aspects with examples in this article. Personally speaking, frustrations and failures of married/love lives of my friends and relatives based on these aspects came haunting after watching the movie.

Coming to parental interference, most of the times parental interference creates a havoc in the life of a newly married couple. As per most Indian customs, after the wedding the bride is supposed to live with the groom and his family. She changes her maiden title and has to relinquish many of her bonds with the maternal home. Expectations are high on both sides and a new addition to the family creates some amount of anxiety. Often interference at this stage affects long term relationships. Especially, if there is an interference from the bride’s side, things get blown out of proportion. The girl is ‘expected’ to adjust and she might find it difficult because of a very different kind of upbringing. Sometimes the expectations might be just very high. In such situations if there is parental interference, things become very difficult. Sometimes the parents/relatives/siblings of the groom and their constant interference lead to friction in a new relationships. Expectations that the bride “has” to be “meek”, “humble”, “respectful” and “dutiful” are always there, but sometimes these reach the limit of atrocity. Meekness, humility and dutifulness does not mean that one forgets that the person is new into your family, needs time to adjust and deserves to be understood as a “human being”. Sometimes the desire for seeing the bahu as an embodiment of perfection is so high that people become unforgiving.

For an example, a friend of mine kept to sick-bed for months immediately after marriage because she was expected to assist her elder sister-in-law in the kitchen to cook for their joint family. She was finding hard to cope up and there was constant tension with her husband which got severely aggravated when the bride’s sister called up and spoke to the groom regarding the issue. The boy didn’t take it lightly and matters could not be settled until both side’s parents met and had to solve with mutual discussions. But sometimes such simple issues become a huge problem ending in breakups.

One cannot always blame the groom or his family. Sometimes the fathers, mothers, aunties, siblings of brides play no less spoil-sport. In their over-zealous protection for the daughter and in their possessiveness, they land up creating problems for the new couple who need some space to understand each other. One of my acquaintances took her sister on her honeymoon! You can guess the response she might have got from her spouse…. In another instance, the mother of the girl kept calling her frequently, telling her she should pester her husband to switch over from his current employment and should choose a job which is closer to the girl’s home. Result: there were constant bickering on both sides until they separated.

As far as societal expectations and finances are concerned, these are problematic both in marriage and love affairs and are deeply interconnected. These days one can see a trend in which if you are in love/marriage the first thing people tend to ask you is the “CTC” of your husband/boyfriend. I am not sure if males face the same questions for their spouses/girlfriends from their circle and friends. The success or failure of an affair depends on the amount/lifestyle your spouse can “buy” for you from malls and shopping complexes. In Odisha, I have seen a major trend — if the groom is a “software engineer” then only the bride’s family accept it with pride. If not hmmm…hard-luck . One of these days we sat joking in the mess regarding “computer engineers” taking away all the “nice” girls and all the “nice” money . Some of us conceded in tongue-in-cheek fashion that we do not want a “literature” researcher as our spouse for he can feed us only with “love” and not with “pizza” . Well, the scenario doesn’t seem to be new. In Kora Kagaz too there is a firm dig at this trend when the girl’s mother broods over her daughter being married only to a “literature master” who earns 600 rupees per month. While, another newly married girl’s parents boast of their son-in-law as an NRI engineer who earns huge amount in US dollars nearly 10-12000 rupees (in 1970s).

Not just finances, in the University, I remember many of my friends (males) were rejected by the girl’s family on the grounds of their not being a student of engineering/medical. A particular choice of subject is considered to be the hallmark of lasting friendships and relationships…strange! Also, vice versa many of my female friends (doing a “simple” MA/M.Sc/ M.Phil) were taken for a “joy-ride” by engineers/doctors only to be dumped by them for a choice of girls either of the same profession or from professions like MBA, CA, etc., whom they could call their “equals”. Many think that literature, economics, sociology, psychology, culture studies are meant for “freaks” and “time-pass” who have nothing to do but to perenially waste time. However, society forgets that some of these “freaks” like Tagore, Sarojini Naidu or Amartya Sen contributed to the making of the “modern” India, and some other “freaks” like Kant, Hegel, Foucault, Derrida, Spivak and Levi-Strauss have made the “world” that we see at present. In fact, an entire lecture can be given on how Foucault’s theories brought jail reform in the long run or how Derrida contributed to what today can be called the “margin-center”. But, let us keep that discussion for another post.

We have burnt many a midnight oil in the hostel trying to soothe broken hearts where one person was preferred over another either due to his/her social status or education. Especially, some of my close friends fell prey to the so-called glitz and glamor of the world and returned brokenhearted for they were “shown” that they are dunce, good-for-nothing types who have no position in the “soft world”. One of my acquaintances who was a topper in her career suffered huge pain when she was told by the family who had come to “see” her that “will she be able to adjust with their son who earns huge amount after his BCA? Can she show her ‘feet’ to the groom’s family so that they can judge whether she is “lakshmi”?” Irony! Congreve says “way of the world”. For example, once when we were in college I had come across this story of a girl committing suicide for not being accepted by the boy’s family even while the person impregnated her on the grounds that she did not match the status of the boy who was a senior “ranger” in the forest department. Phew!

While I was in Post Graduation one of my relatives asked what were my subjects and I replied that I was doing a PG in literature, and he replied “hmm! there are millions of PGs in literature what difference does it make to the world! If you were a scientist or engineer you could have managed…hmm” . He was right in a sense! Apart from education and finances, societal pressures manifest in other dimensions too. Pressure for “male child”, pressure to buy a house/car like peers or colleagues, pressure to maintain beauty/charm and also pressure to be more intelligent than colleagues/friends’ spouses. These are true for either gender. Societal pressures are huge and excruciating. I observe sometimes people uploading snaps of their intimate moments on social networking sites for the sake of “showing” the world that how amazing and warm their relationship is. How much that is in “good” or “bad” faith can be a subject of research for psychologists dealing with inter-personal relationships….

Communication gaps in relationships are also strongly responsible for the complexities. Everything in this world revolves around the necessity to communicate. Gestures, non-verbal communication and face-to-face discussions play a huge role in determining the “health” and “longevity” of any relationship. In real life, sometimes communication is the only thing lacking in otherwise perfect relationships. Especially, in elderly couples after their children have grown up and left them for their own destination lack of communication creates health hazards.

Finally, one can say that each relationship is unique and has its own beauty and complexity. Starting from friendship to love to marriages relationships are complex, because human beings are highly complex. Freedom to choose and not to choose can be left as a mutual issue between the people sharing a certain bond, unless the concerned parties “seek” advice. If you observe the animal world and especially monkey parents, they too leave the little-one to play, rise and fall as per its pleasure, so that it learns the rules of the game. But when it topples and hurts itself then the parents jump and give support. So also, human relationships are an intricate “game” and one should get the chance and the opportunity to learn the rules of the game and play it effectively in their own style.

Thoda hai thode ki zaroorat hai…zindagi phir bhi yahan khoobsoorat hai

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to hurt any gender/professional sentiments. The author merely records experiences of people.