unchained melody

There is something about Don Mclean songs that makes me nostalgic about an imaginary romance in a Tuscany countryside where I might have been desperately in love and had my heart broken in a very old fashioned way. And let’s even dress myself in a frilly plaid tunic frock with the hemmed petticoat lining peeking out, wearing a matching bonnet and bright red palm shoes. I guess this imagery directly plants me in an impressionistic painting from the nineteenth century, transporting me to “back in the days when romance was in fashion, before the days of whips and rollerblades…back in the days when we were idealistic and younger than our years…”¹

 

I have been thinking about love. 

Among the many disagreeable things that Freud has taken the liberty of making famous and manipulating future psychology students with for the rest of their lives, inciting dissentious outbreaks in classrooms, university offices or coffee houses, one particular analysis that “we are never so helplessly unhappy as when we have lost our love” rings true with a million resonance. And even though for the most part we don’t exactly have a ready conception of love, yet most of us would agree with a marginal degree of skepticism, applying Mendel’s law, Murphy’s Law, allowing anomalies, that love is in fact a noble thing. And yet, it inadvertently becomes perverse if one should love a third emotionally or romantically (which does not necessarily mean sexually) if one is already committed in that capacity to someone exclusively. The fear of losing one or the guilt for loving another seems imminent. But what should one do in times like these? One could lie or deny both to the existing lover/partner and to this other object of attraction/love, (a person no doubt). But is there a purpose? Yes, perhaps much argument is averted, but what more? Can you honestly evacuate or terminate the stirrings you inexorably are sinking into for this other person? For some I guess the excitement or the very attraction stems from the fact that the other person is untenable, unattainable. Some takes pleasure in the palpable, adrenalin pumping, hormones flying, blood boiling sexual undercurrent, and the challenge to overcome the moment of intense willingness or seduction… when two riving, writhing bodies comes close… very close. It is perhaps only in the overcoming and not in the succumbing of the temptation that the attraction between the forbidden two will remain… 

And for few others who keep their feelings a secret, sipping fondly but clandestinely from the resplendent font of love in all its splendor… those who spend their days in quiet commitment and soft pining for a lingering wishful desire, must seek inspiration in the words of Shakespeare again, 

She never told her love,
But let concealment, like a worm in the bud,
Feed on her damask cheek: she pined in thought,
And, with a green and yellow melancholy,
She sat like Patience on a monument,
Smiling at grief.

.

all the world's a stage

I wonder sometimes how it would be if I was ten years old today and still quite engaged with “growing up.” Well yes, technically I am still growing up or to be precise, growing old. That is VERY different now, isn’t it? Your legs don’t grow any leggier, your breasts don’t get any breastier (unless you are sculpting with copious amounts of silicon), your penis has had its 'ohhhkay that's it. you happy now?' moment, your nose don’t chisel itself out, your teeth don’t reach new levels of geometric perfection or concaveness… nothing good really occurs in this stage of growth, namely the period between your late teens or early twenties to the end of your life, anymore. Any “growth” now, after 25 at most (I would think), is an aberration, a trespassing fleshy appendage, which quite possibly will need a surgical intervention in the non-silicon, non-enhancement kind of way. If anything at all, the only slab of our body STILL growing would be our belligerent, teasing old gut, perpetually snickering at our incapacity to check the eternal threat of portliness. Anyway, let me come back to my original tedious curiosity of how it would be to grow up in these times.

Undoubtedly, in many singular ways the act of living your life has been made easy and efficient. I am not questioning the ramifications of technological advancement at all. It is most certainly, and absolutely a winning argument. And indeed, I am not engaging myself in an altercation that life cannot be lived without technological efficacy. Of course it can be. The denial of that, I imagine, would finally enrage the peaceful Amish people enough to shoot me with bows and arrows! (Um, pardon me for my lack of knowledge about Amish armaments). My argument stems from the run-of-the-mill concern of the evermore growing lack of innocence enshrouding us all. Yes, this realization at this point in history will not make me famous… I am behind the mark by at least three centuries. Even William Blake wasn’t really the pioneer of that aphorism, and HE worked pretty fast I tell’ya! Day 1, born. Day 2, write. Day 3, create the Tyger and the Lamb. Hence, this concern is not new. But nevertheless I am rather sad, and a peculiar sense of loneliness haunts me, at the general lack of innocence in the world that I inhabit. It is inevitable that I insert a disclaimer here: I am not a saint, not a prude, not a puritan, and have participated in many cardinal sins with volition, I am sure. Had I any camelesque bodily functions to store liquids, gallons of alcohol might be pumped out worth a whole capacity of an artesian well in one of our own Amish lands! Indeed, cocktails have been drunk, sex with its many imaginings has been practiced, and meat has been ravaged without the slightest reprehension… basically, the works. Hence, I am not a saint. But even then I have not been able to evacuate myself of this brooding, breeding, and intransigent feeling that the world has reached and penetrates into new realms and levels of inebriation, vulgarity, and unscrupulousness. And in me I have been able to locate for some time now, a smooth transitioning with retrograde motions of awe, absorption, participation, disapproval, detest, fear, more fear, detachment, or aloofness as possible reactions to the world around me. I imagine in my head that a randomly selected 25 year old of today is outrageously more profligate than a 25 year old of my parents’ time. And that if I was a 10 year old today, I might be acutely aware of many of the beginners lessons on sex, which in my lifetime I had stumbled upon a biology class in eighth grade. And I remember I could not comprehend for the life of me, how and through what the spermatic visitors reach the ovarian hosts. The teacher did not quite explain that in class either, at least not during my attention span. My friends from school can vouch for my inconsolable naivety back then. In fact R was the one who enlightened me after the class, in a fit of amusement, about the mechanics of sex. So anyhow, my point is I was, I am sure, not the only 14 year old who had absolutely no clue about certain things in life. And it had seemed fine. But I am afraid that a 14 year old of today might have had field experiences already. My concern is that the average girl/boy of today of any age is far more tainted, and lost a little more innocence, and acquired a little more experience, and had a little more “fun” than that of the average girl or boy of the same age of even half a generation ago. There seems to be an anachronistic compression today, and people just know and do a lot more in every aspect especially of the bad and the ugly; I am not so sure about the good. Am I entirely concocting this or is there a figment of truth embedded somewhere? Browsing through pictures in social networking sites has prodigiously rounded my belief that indeed we are all looming in a world of amorality, at best. I don’t know what I am looking for; I don’t know what I am hoping. I am not seeking a world where everybody is a buck toothed farmer, looking like the kid from Jerry Maguire, leading a Forrest Gumpian life, or holding hands and singing nursery rhymes, and drinking milk as the only other substitute for a liquid refreshment; no that is not what I expect, and that is not my definition of innocence. But I guess I am just looking for some elegant quality of the heart, which does not tarnish with time, and retains some sense of purity, and faith. I don’t know what I am looking for in these snapshots of peoples’ lives exhibited in the electronic world…I don’t even know if a single hour of my life entailed the very innocence that I am searching for. I probably don’t make a rational argument here. I am probably looking for something entirely unreasonable, which makes no sense… which never existed, which does not need to exist…

And yet it’s just that… I need to believe that you effortlessly understand what I am trying to say… and offer me a reassuring nod that all is not lost…

heh

A woman complains about giving back her wedding ring to her ex-husband. To be fair the ring is a family heirloom, and if anyone should have it it rather be his soon-to-be fiance. However, this ex-wife claims that the ring is her "only priced possession." I suppose, something to remember her first marriage by. The divorce papers alone don't ring a bell, ya'know! Hence she does not want to return the ring to the ex-husband. That she has potentially lost the ring, her "only priced possession" is of course another matter.  Turning her house upside down to find the ring her defense is:

There is a lot of things I love that I can't find.
Also, there is love that I can't find :P

The therapist

here's why we need therapists: for example when i listen to someone's problems, i TRY to just listen. without offering any solution to them. which can be both good and bad. the most I do is try to make one feel better, perhaps by reminding them of better days when it was not that bad, or reminding them something positive about the person they might be having trouble with. however, if i talk about my problems, I am mostly greeted with similar counter examples of problems in their lives. and then it seems like a comparison of who has the bigger problem! i do! no, i do! and i HATE comparisons and competitions of any kind. also, i'd hate being accused of such a thing. you couldn't do me more wrong. so the minute there is such a danger of that, i back out. now you see a therapist wouldn't do that! also there'd be a soft comfortable couch! just listen can't you? i think one needs a dog or a therapist sometime or other in their lives :D

Nothing funny. At all. So move on.

This is my friend's story: a story of torture and abuse perpetrated in the guise of immaturity. The years of abuse lasted over a prolonged period of time, from the victim's earliest memories to the abuser's final departure. And abuse was unreported for two decades. For some uncanny reason of her own, the victim could never expose the abuser, instead defended the abuser from those who would offend him for some reason of their own. (Perhaps, the reason for this was the subconscious loyalty to the familiar or the familial.) The victim rationalized her cowardice as "taking the high road" or "forgiveness." What she really did was tolerate violence.

This story brought me to contemplate about the effects of torture and abuse, and what Time does to each. For the abuser, Time plays the alibi; the alibi that endorses the abuser's "lost memory" and hence the eradication or worse, the denial of his guilt. Even so, such a day comes when finally at long last she musters the courage and the bitterness to expel out her unrepressed rage at the abuser by confronting him. In unabashed denial the abuser flippantly yells at the victim, "You like to dig up dirt and tell stories about people."

Incidentally, she is a writer. Her skill as the sorceress of imagination has paved out many short fictions and earned her applause. Thereby, it becomes all too easy for the abuser to make his remark plausible. The abuser uses the victim's profession as exhibit A to strengthen his defense. And this has finally unleashed the serpent within the victim, to fight for justice with all her might. The victim never realized before then that she was capable of such magnitude of hatred.

Over the years the abuser has strategically accomplished something, which the victim now likes to believe was part of his elaborate plan of attempting to remain unsullied. He has protracted an unofficial disease, "bad memory." He has convinced himself, and others, that he suffers from it; that no memory of yore remains with him. Everyone who knows him knows that indeed that is the case. The victim too was willing to believe this. In fact she had. She wanted to hide in the penumbra of this justification, thinking why revoke a lost memory, until one day she realized to her dismay that his alibi can't be true because the abuser has inadvertently sometimes demonstrated astute recollection of singular incidents from the past. When needed to furnish some argument, the abuser has readily been able to resuscitate events rummaging through long lost memory.

However, over the years the abuser has mended his ways. Or at least that's what the victim liked to believe and let him off the hook. The victim now thinks of the abuser as quite a gentleman. And if the abuser has redeemed then why open a can of worms, she argues with the voice in her head. She is doubtful though if this is not cowardice from confrontation, again. But alas! There comes a day when she is so nakedly provoked that she can't restrain. Not this time. One must penetrate this charade the abuser calls "lost memory" and how dare HE accuses the victim instead! How dare he accuse her as a story teller and a liar! O but of course the abuser is overwhelmed by the accusation against him. And had there been witnesses there, they would be too. ‘O but we have always known him as such a gentle boy, of good breeding, of untainted reputation. It cannot be. The victim, she must have had a fit of imagination, a strong figment no doubt. She must have needed to amuse herself, she must have needed a story to tell, she must have needed a self-orchestrated audition for a play! Plenty of reasons there must be, but not this. Not the one where this nice gentleman of unblemished character could have defiled this mistaken victim.’

Pleas for justice, she's afraid, will increasingly mar her as the liar because truths such as these are difficult to conceive. Worse, the abuser rampantly told tales about the victim to friends and companions, encouraging others to believe she is unstable, garish, and a panderer. So guilt stricken he is. Funnily, still, the victim sings praises for the abuser to her friends, laboring love for him, defending him against those who merrily laugh about him, and calls him a daft prig. The victim is determined to remain on the high road until morality I hope will make her bleed through her nose! 

The victim knows that over the years, to refrain from hating the abuser because she shouldn't, she has instead loved the abuser and defended him quite boisterously. The victim tried to overcompensate for her latent malice for the abuser. People have watched her love him, always. So what is all this now! Quite nonsense! Quite nonsense! Shame on her for pulling such a stance!

Alas now, the truth becomes all the more implausible.

No amount of therapy has healed her. And though lack of justice is the general order of the day and she must accept this as a grown up, she still searches for retribution. Be mindful though, the victim isn't an angel by any stretch of the imagination. She is angry when provoked. She is incapable of artifice, so needed in a civilized society. She shouts in intolerance of lies, hence cannot accept the most reasonable of human follies. It's her fault, really. She will not lie even when it’s needed, hence indifferent to other people's needs. She reproduces the exact words and actions when marshaled, so much so that she tape records most conversations, thus so cynical and untrusting. And worse, she is too idealistic for her own detriment. Dishonesty cripples her, and makes her want to hurt the one who practices so. But what is honesty in the end but a few well chosen facial expressions, and words of apparent reasonableness: A credible performance at best!

But in all this, one good thing yielded. She has learned to laugh a lot with her belly juddering, uncontrollably. Our victim takes refuge in humor. Humor protects her. Humor conceals the deafening pain. Alas. All she needed perhaps was a quiet apology, the denial of which is bringing out the syndrome of Dorian Gray; as the portrait slowly turns vicious. My once sweet friend.

valentine's day

"Because I have not given you anything for a long time and because you never ask for anything...Happy Valentine's day" and he produces two black Macys box, which hosts two exquisite pieces of jewelery. I was astounded, bewildered, flabbergasted, and all other synonyms that would surmise my unadulterated, catapulting surprise at this utterly unexpected indulgence. Part of me wanted to cry because it felt like I should. But how would that look! 'Is it that ugly?' Indeed not. But it definitely felt like a "Will you marry me moment?" And you know folks I have always felt a little cheated on the proposal front. (My parents proposed his parents for our marriage when we were youngsters. thassit. End of story.) Hence, our marriage was desperately lacking a bend on your knees anecdote. We owed it to ourselves. Well, yesterday night's moment filled in for that missing pair of shoe.

Now to churn out a few pearls of wisdom on Valentine's day, and I shall do this without drawing attention to the fact that I know nothing about love but since I am now formally anointed to the elite group of castaways, The Married People, and perhaps before long it would be 2042 when I will be a soccer mom driving a Volvo full of caterwauling genetic offshoots, let me say that Love--

• isn't what you think.

• it's not ancient Greek drama, hence has no beginning, middle, and end.

• and no, Hugh Hefner and Crystal Harris don't share love; not even Love's impostor. 

Foot Note:
Hugh Hefner is the 84 year old owner of the billion dollar industry, PlayBoy. and Crystal Harris is a 24 year old super model who is marrying him for "love." of course.

Bored. All I need is a 9-5 engagement.

Nobody reads my blog. And this fact is finally gratifying. Because I have decided that like most bloggers with a general theme, I too will make my blog a springboard for purging, whining, and self-pity. (Hence I want no audience when I cant entertain). There is no point in keeping the charade of humor and fleeting smiles, when my life is hanging by the pink, hirsute tail of a dead, rotting rat. But I wouldn't want anybody to read posts like this. The vestige of my pride warrants that.
I have mastered the art of doing nothing. I have no school, no commuting to Stony Brook for 5 hours in a day, taking the 5/7 am trains, returning at 11 pm, no homework, or the in between pressure of being a superwoman and doing all the household cooking, cleaning, groceries, trying to please the husband and the in-laws, and marvelously failing to achieve the feat. Secretly I wanted to do it all by myself. And I still quite hate taking help simply because I can't make my face glow with twopenny facial of insurmountable humility when somebody makes a big deal about providing a helping hand. I am all for acknowledgment and gratitude, but not when you will shamelessly procure such validity through inflated reporting yourself! You won't see me needing you, any more, ever again. Anyway, so now I have no school, and nobody in the potential job market thinks that I am sufficiently skilled for anything, hence I have no job. So yes I have mastered the art of doing nothing, and of sitting very, very still at one place, and staring at one thing timelessly. I am, inadvertently, training myself to become a yogi living in a secret dungeon of silence located in the foothills of some imaginary, heated Himalaya, barricaded by such a thing as a wooden door and latch, and the only thing remotely intrusive in this perfectly tranquil world of motionlessness is the shuffling feet of the mailman outside the door at around 1:30 p.m. stuffing mails in the jaws of the letter box.
Sometimes I feel very, very creative like killing myself in a very Vitruvian man like detail. But then again, where is the motivation to be so artistic. Had it been so then half way through, I would have picked up a paintbrush or a pen. Also, I literally have no money. (and this is the first time I am missing the myriad possibilities attained by the means of currency. I cleared out my bank balance in my last visit to India, making random and might I say quasi-robust donations for my means to places like Mother Teresa's home, my dad's NGO, my father-in-law's-friend's hospital et al. I do not regret it ever. However, as I had expected, it did leave me unequipped for some luxuries). Hence, any socializing is on hiatus. And thus movies such as Black Swan, and King's Speech must play out in my head by the action-direction-production of yours truly.

Sometimes I feel the need to shout really loudly till the nerves in my throat levitate, and produce a meandering, agile crevice on the ceiling, or hatch open a bulb. But then again, I restrain. Who knows if bathroom singing becomes a career opportunity someday.