THE BIG CLIMB

THE BIG CLIMB
I Climbed it

Monday, December 1, 2008

It's love's illusions I recall

I've looked at love from both sides now
From give and take, and still somehow
It's love's illusions I recall
I really don't know love
Really don't know love at all

Have you been mesmerised with love's illusions? Have you ever decided that giving oneself away completely can be dangerous? Bellowed to yourself 'STAY CENTERED'?? Sought balance between SELF-LOVE and love for your BELOVED??

Has Romantic love hurt you, disillusioned you?? Have you ever complicated or sublimated love with Aurobindo's theories?? or theories of Marx? or some Yogic theory??

Many of my boyfriends were smarter than me in either Maths or Marx or meditation. I have dated the entire political spectrum. Well if you are in your thirtees, have been divorced once and never ever want to go near marriage what do u do??

Anyways about my political tolerance pl see it as just that... A lot of tolerance. Plead you don't see it as lack of political position. Anyways whatever they were they definitely made me introspect a lot. So bless those souls Goddy!! And i have been such a sucker for balance ... on deciding on holding hands, but then fretting over how much is too much... Gosh I am bored with myself now. This is a great stage of realisation/evolution i would want to beleive. I can actually tell myself to STOP just when I get all excited about the 'only this much love is ok' gymnastics. I can't. I have overdone it. ANd I am bored with that side of me.

So not my love story. But another story of love...and compassion. I was producing a health show some years back. And it was a story on glaucoma that took me to a Hospital that day. I was supposed to interview three patients. Two of them were upper middle class and SORRY just about that. But the third lady was the wife of the hospital 'SWEEPER'. Thats a designation so I can't be blamed fo political incorrectness. Now this lady was extremely well dressed with loads of SINDOOR in her head. And she looked beautifully SETTLED.
I asked her about her eyes. She had almost no vision since she was a kid and it wasn't glaucoma that had ruined her vision then. So I asked her the obvious. It must be tough to do house hold chores knowing well that domestic help would be expensive for her. She said she did all the work except cooking. Now that sure got me more interested.


'My husband. He had promised my mother that he would do all the cooking.'
'Oh! So yours was a love marriage?'
'Kahan Didiji! I couldn't see anybody then!! I wouldn't be able to tell a guy from a girl'
'Then...'
'My sister was married to my husband's brother. When they started talking about my husband's wedding my mother-in-law suggested that he should settle down with me. It didn't look good that they go looking for a girl when their daughter in law's sister was unmarried! She loves my sister. So she spoke to my mother. My husband used to like me but that wasn't mentioned to my mother or me.'
'Oh! thats how...'
'But Didiji my mother refused. She told my mother in law that I was almost blind. Its better I stay with her and my brother takes my responsibilty. She presumed that my disability would be looked down upon and I would be treated like an inferior'.
Now I have to accept that my reaction was classist to say the least. In a country where girl child of big businessmen get burnt and killed because parents don't stand by their daughters a small time peasant family was so aware and conscious and sensitive.
'So ...'
'My mother in law told my mother that people can go blind anytime in life. And daughter in laws were not sheeps. She said if my mother didn't agree she would get her son married to the first girl she'll meet. She didn't like the idea of going to many houses and then choosing the preetiest girl for her son. Girls are not sheeps she reiterated to my mother. When my husband got to know about my eye problem he told his mother that as he was working in a hospital so he would get discount in getting my eyes treated.'
'Wow..'
'But my mother wasn't convinced...she asked what if my eyes get worse?and what would happen if I hurt myself in the kitchen. Thats when my husband promised her that I'll never have to enter the kitchen. Now he does all the kitchen work. My eyes are much better after the two operations.'

'Now that sure is some family...and some society...and a nice husband...nice!!!'
'Well I am nice too'

So while we'll continue to argue whether polygamy is more natural than monogamy...whether love of God is superior to love of Man...whether family is better than commune... I shall conclude... with the song you might have heard umpteen number of times if you have been around:)

Tears and fears and feeling proud
To say "I love you" right out loud
Dreams and schemes and circus crowds
I've looked at life that way
Oh but now old friends they're acting strange
And they shake their heads
And they tell me that I've changed
Well something's lost but something's gained
In living every day


5 comments:

  1. To love is to suffer.

    To avoid suffering one must not love.

    But then one suffers from not loving.

    Therefore to love is to suffer, not to love is to suffer.

    To suffer is to suffer.

    To be happy is to love.

    To be happy then is to suffer.

    But suffering makes one unhappy.

    Therefore, to be unhappy one must love, or love to suffer, or suffer from too much happiness.

    I hope you're getting this down.

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  2. Love me like you couldn't love me anymore. Leave me with only that much love!

    Let me love you, like I couldn't love myself, let me take away a part of you.

    I liked it, the poesy and the thought.

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  3. arrey gaana hai...the poetry bit is not mine:)

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  4. I am left a little confused after reading this. Don't know how to explain.... I feel you were a bit confused too as a writer.... talking about true love, then a lover with some philosophy... then politics...! Couldn't find the connections. But that's me and my view.... I myself am not a writer you see.

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  5. :)guess when personal is politics...love can't happen in vaccuum...for that matter love often needs a context.

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