Gracefully bye 2019

I am ready to say gracefully bye to 2019. The year was like the hot coffee which came and sipped in me with all its warmth and caffeine energizing and harming me somewhere. I am waiting eagerly for 2020 - a brand new year. I hope that the coming new year will have everything 20-20. All short and sweet like 20-20 cricket. I hope it will be young, vibrant, electrifying and experiencing. This new year will be challenging too with all right-wing ideas coming out of the closet. Let's see what is stored in 2020. But this is sure that I am ready to leave behind 2019.

A lace of fragrance from 2019 that I will definitely take with me is the pursuit of knowledge through my Ph.D. studies. Registering myself for Ph.D. was something excellent that happened with me out of nowhere in 2019. It was never a thought decision when the year began. But it happened for good. After a long time, I got to make new diverse group of scholarly friends and guides. I visited Arunachal Pradesh this year and learned the tribal dynamics of the state. The tribe that really attracted me at least by name is the Idu Mishmi tribes. I came to know of Nidhi tribes and their culture a bit. 2019 also made me exposed to the nutritional landscape of India and through my professional front, I could be part of the Nutrition program of my organization. I will start the 2020 journey by visiting an aspirational district (as per NITI Ayog) of India in South Gujarat named Dang (maybe most of you have not heard about it). Dang is a tribal-dominated district of Gujarat with a fair number of malnourished children. It will give me an opportunity to learn about another Bhil tribe of India. The five Kings of Dangs are the only hereditary royals in India whose titles are currently recognized by the government owing to an agreement made during the British Raj in 1842 (as per Wikipedia). 

2020 will be a scholarly year for me as I resolute to publish at least one scholarly article on poverty and rural governance. A lot to read and understand before writing the article. Don't know how it will shape. Bit nervous!! I will have to review a lot of scholarly articles. I have to also manage lot of official work and projects. I need to practice diligently the organized way of managing my work. 

2019 was the year when my mother was in ICU for the first time. Her health will a major area of concern for me in 2020. Looking for love and manage my loneliness will be another major opportunity (not saying as a challenge) for me in the coming year. 

One of the major knowledge that I learned this year is about Appreciative Inquiry. It really changed my outlook on life. It's taught me to see life as a mystery to be solved rather than a problem to be solved. Wow, what great learning. Happy for myself. The two books that I read among five really touched me are Siddhartha (written by Hermann Hesse) and book by Yuval Noah Harari, 21 Lessons for 21st Century. Both the books enlightened me and gave me the energy to reflect life more deeply. The training that changed my life was the Emerging leadership program by Quest Alliance. I am continuing the same this year too. I hope I emerge as a good leader. I have a dream to become President of India one day. Unbelievable!!!

Let 2020 be the year known to me as the year which made me more human, more sincere, more sensitive and more a person who sees life as an opportunity to explore. 

Wish you all a very happy new year... Welcome 2020... I m ready to embrace you...

Negative Thoughts are also thoughts... why to shy about it

It was in my class VIII physics class that I learned Newton's third law, which tells, "Every action has the equal and opposite reaction." So it means that whatever we do or think have equal and opposite reactions. My positive thoughts also have negative thoughts and my negative thoughts also have positive thoughts. Hence it is normal to have negative thoughts with positive thoughts. Why does the world always praise positivity when there is bound to have negativity also? Why is negativity untouchable when it is very much there within us. All our positive thoughts are supported by our negative thoughts. It is through our negativity that positivity evolves. It is through all frustrations new innovations and inventions happened. It is through the struggle that we have achieved success. Then why the emotions that are related to frustrations, struggle, negativity, loneliness, sadness, etc are said to be bad and our friends ask us to abstain from it.

So emotions are the truth. It will come. Always all the emotions cannot be positive. They will definitely be negative. Why people reject emotions? Why can't we think of supporting a person to deal with those emotions? Its the handling of emotions that make people hurt themselves or others. Hence listening to people's emotions and accepting it is something that we should learn. When we are affected by emotions that make us feel not so good then we should share openly without any shy or shame. The people who listen to others such emotions should listen to it rather than superimpose or suppress it with other emotions.

We as a friend should support others by just listening to their emotions. Listening is one of the biggest support that we can do to others who just want to share their emotions. Actually many a time people take a huge amount of courage to share their emotions with others (whom they think can provide them a patient hearing). Hence a human being we need to give patients hearing and go beyond by feeling empathetic. Many a time when people share their emotions we start judging them and supporting them with counter emotions thinking that they are negative and they need to be injected positive thoughts. In the process, we make those people more frustrated and live them more lonely.

In our universities and colleges, we are never taught how to listen. We are never exposed to the experience whereby listening things were resolved to a large extent. Our exposures are always such that strengthens our belief that it's only through lecturing or talking we can exhibit our talents and our expertise. Our socialization process should teach us to listen. 

What we Learn and What World Expects...

Life was always difficult for me. All the difficulties of life were very normal for me. These difficulties were common in everyone's life. But the most difficult part of my life that I really cannot cope up with, is the lack of love in my life. I always felt that I will easily get love, maybe I was overconfident about my personality, which I thought to be loving and pleasing. But actually, as I grew up I found that with all my socialization process I have grown up to be a very boring person. A person who could be liked easily but not loved. All my myth about me shattered by the time I reached my 40s. I understood that my religion, my family, my society, my education even the film that I saw taught me to be a person who is just the opposite of what the world wants. Another revelation that I got is that what the world wants may not be what it expects. Our socialization process wants us to make a perfect person which actually the world at large doesn't want.

Now I understand that people who smoke and drink alcohol hiding the so-called society (who actually wants that we all smoke and drink and enjoy life) are actually the fittest of all. As they become big, as I see, people love their company. They meet to enjoy and make merry.  They have actually learned to enjoy life. Our parents and school taught us not to lie but actually by telling lie we manage so many things in our lives so easily and smoothly. Most of the system in our present (adult) world doesn't like honesty, doesn't like truthfulness. They like some corruption, a lot of lies and a lot of slangs and a lot of many things which actually from childhood we are taught that they are bad and we should abstain from it. If you see our religion, though it teaches us to be sinless the people who manage our religion do all those things which are sinful and they live so happily (most of them are richest people on earth). I hope you can all make a sense of what I am trying to convey. In one word the world really functions at different levels than what we are really taught of how the world may function.

I learned that love is divine. It is something that is very common. Every human being has someone selected for life long partner and relationship. No one will live alone. Love happens at first sight. Electric current will flow through your vein if you touch that chosen one for you. Love and lust are very different. "I love you" and "I like you" are synonymous. Blah, blah blah and blah...

But actually, in the actual world, the love between two people starts with "Suhag Raat". This is basically a ceremony to start love with sex. It is the sexual satisfaction that keeps the relationship intact. So if sexual satisfaction is fewer people started with extra-marital affairs hidingly. But actually, those extramarital affairs helped them to continue living happily. But our socialization process shared that adultery is sin and bad (though supreme court now allows it in our country). If your sexual orientation is different than getting love is more difficult or totally impossible. Our education taught us that there can be only one kind of love - heterosexual love. All other types of love are sinful. But actually, there is love beyond man and woman. Why are we not taught that love is love and love doesn't see gender. So even homosexuality is very much prevalent in this world, but our socialization process never tells us its existence. People who could manage two relationships (one mandated by society and one that actually the person wants as per nature) are managing it flawlessly without any concern of how they might be telling lie and destroying other's life. They just need enjoyment. May be lust for them is more important than so-called love.

In all the above processes we lie and we hurt but it doesn't matter to us. The world runs successfully with lies and hurt. Because it gives people success and deep satisfaction. Then why do our socialization process teaches so differently than what the world wants us? In all these, people who want to live as per set norms of society (which the person learned from his socialization process) suffers loneliness and depression at larger. I feel this generally comes from our strive to be "good" and not 'bad".  We need to ask what is "good" and what is "bad"? Does it really exist? Or is it just the myth? We do everything that the world wants us to do but when they are exposed then we deny, we punish ourselves or others, we feel ashamed and above all we defend. But this is the world and we have to navigate through it.

Review of Siddhartha...my perception

Review of 'Siddhartha' - my own reflection, my own wisdom...

"Siddhartha" written by Hermeann Hesse, is a story of discovering oneself - a spiritual quest. The main protagonist of the story, Siddhartha, actually resembles all of us who at some point of time will definitely have a series of questions that Siddhartha had, in order to know oneself. Many a time we ignore it by saying, "Don't think too much." or we really ponder on those questions and try to find the answer. Many a time we get those answers many a time we get engrossed in our life so much that we keep those questions open for long to naturally evaporate from our conscious. In the story, Siddhartha had 'discontent in himself'. He started to feel that people and materials around him 'would not bring him joy forever and ever, would not nurse him, feed him, satisfy him.' In our lifetime, we are exposed to the most and best of the wisdom that is documented by wise people. But like Siddhartha, many a time we don't find meaning in them. We just listen and keep these pearls of wisdom in a high platform with a clear understanding that they cannot be practiced in this world. We get into our life and gain our own knowledge but many a time we fail to reflect on them. These knowledge need to be hard pressed like we do to a mustard seed in order to to take out the oil from it. These 'hard pressed' is the process of getting wisdom out of our knowledge. The mustard seeds are our knowledge. Ultimately the seeds are gone but the oil remains. The same way the knowledge is necessary to get the wisdom out of it but ultimately the wisdom makes us relevant and takes life forward in a meaningful way. Siddhartha in the story puts it very nicely to Govinda at the end that, '...wisdom cannot be passed on. Wisdom which a wise man tries to pass on to someone always sounds like foolishness.' It's so true. He further goes to tell, 'Knowledge can be conveyed, but not wisdom'. I feel the story of Siddhartha gives a strong message that if we are only a seeker of knowledge we may only be a follower. But when we are a seeker of wisdom, we will be driven away from our teachers, religion and such things which imparts knowledge. Seeking wisdom makes us in charge of our life and help us to constantly reflect on the knowledge that we gather from our life and take out inference from it which is wisdom. I feel the quest for life leads us to collect wisdom. In the end, Siddhartha shared beautiful wisdom. He says that the world is not imperfect or on a slow path of perfection. The world is already perfect in every moment. What a great reflection and great wisdom. He continues to say that everyone is Brahman, a creator. Everything is within oneself. All good and bad, all sin and bliss are existing in everything. So love and venerate everything for the potential that it has in itself. But these are all wisdom that Siddhartha had. It is meaningful to him but can be foolishness to others. Hence wisdom is very personal to oneself. This quest for wisdom will lead you in life. 

This quest for wisdom, made Siddhartha and his friend Govinda, leave their home to join the ascetics, fast, pray and meditate intensely and yet Siddhartha cannot find his peace. They hear of the Buddha and Govinda decides to join his followers. But Siddhartha wants his own discovery for himself. He moves ahead, meets Kamala, is driven towards material pleasures but after some time abandons this life too. Eventually, all his experiences, all the events in his life help him to meet his spiritual guide and he has his own awakening. Siddhartha's life changes when he begins to question what he’s been taught. He wonders if gods are not just human constructs and if anyone but Atman (whom he calls the “Only One”) should receive honor and sacrifice. He’s desperate to find the path to this deepest part of himself. Despite his father’s objections, Siddhartha leaves his village and joins a group of wandering ascetics called the samanas. Govinda follows. Siddhartha learns to fast. He wears a loincloth, and his hair and nails grow as his stomach shrinks. His goal is to empty himself of every dream and desire, to become “un-selfed.” He meditates and takes on the forms of various animals and other natural formations. His voluntary suffering enables him to overcome hunger, pain, thirst, and fatigue and to linger in the “nonself” for a time. But eventually, he always comes back to himself and feels the torments of living. He notes even the oldest samana has not reached nirvana (or liberation from the endless cycle of birth and death). Siddhartha theorizes that words and learning are the enemies of true knowledge. Knowledge itself is all around and within the soul.

Although Siddhartha met and spoke to the Buddha and feels truth emanating from him, he still decides he must carry on in his search for Atman alone. This quest for wisdom was so strong in Siddhartha, that in spite of him believing Buddha, he still feels no amount of teaching can bring about the deliverance of a person’s soul. Meeting the Buddha shows him the only way one can discover the depths of his soul is through personal experience.

at one point of time, Siddhartha shuns the rituals and self-sacrifice that previously guided him and get sunk into worldly pleasure, sex, gambling. After a while, even these things can’t keep him from feeling sluggish and discontented with life. Loathing himself and feeling like something has died inside of him, he abruptly leaves this life behind. Siddhartha hangs over a tree near the river, contemplating suicide. He hears the “om” within himself that once reminded him to seek perfection and completeness. He sinks into a deep sleep and awakens refreshed and joyful. Siddhartha begins to find a particular beauty in the river. Once again, he encounters the ferryman, Vasudeva, who listens well as Siddhartha bears his soul. Siddhartha sees the ferryman’s joy and peace and realizes he can learn much by spending time in this man’s presence. He stays on to work for and live with the ferryman and to listen to the river speaking to him. 

Siddhartha continues to learn from the river, and Vasudeva helps him see a vision that changes him. He sees and hears the faces and sounds of all people, sees their goodness and evil, tears and joy, all coming together at once. Within this, he discovers a wholeness that could be summed up in the word “om.” The last climax wherein Govinda and Siddhartha have a final meeting summarises the quest which started in the beginning. Siddhartha reiterates that experiences rather than the teachings of man have led him to this place. He says time itself is a human construct, and he now sees how the past, present and future flow together all at once.

He says he believes the key to all things is the ability to love himself and all beings with awe and admiration. He asks Govinda to kiss his forehead, and the man sees a vision of his own, filled with all of the good and evil, pain and beauty of life in faces, actions, and animals. He sees the perfect peace in Siddhartha that he once saw in the Buddha’s eyes, and he falls to his knees feeling deep love. 

The story in a strong metaphor of river and ferryman explains that life is like the river which if heard with silence and patience will give you a lot of answers and points of reflection. It will connect you to your past, as it did to Siddhartha when it reminded him of his father's feeling when he was unable to handle his anxiety with regard to his son's future. And the ferryman resembles a guide that you need in your life who can give you direction. This guide can be you yourself but you should have your oars to guide yourself. If you do not have oars you can definitely borrow it for sometimes from someone.  

The story was in a very simple language but conveyed a very profound message for all seekers. It made me to understand life and seek my own wisdom. 

Article 15 films's tagline aptly says —“Farq bahut kar liya, ab farq laayenge (We discriminated, now we will bring about a change)”.

Recently I attended five days workshop-cum-training on Emerging Leadership Programme at Bangalore. In that workshop, I reflected on the word, "Power". According to the discussion in that workshop, I understood that "Power" is the ability to achieve the desired/intended goal. It has a positive connotation attached to it. But the word power in the real world has a very different connotation attached to it. It is generally understood and seen by people as a mean to oppress and marginalise other fellow human being. It is used to eliminate other's existence for the sake of my own existence. Power needs to be shown to empower others, is what we reflected in the workshop. But in real world power is used to dis-empower others and push them into fear and ultimately to the culture of silence. 

In the Hindi film, Article 15, the two dialogue, ' Unhe aukaat dikahan jaroori tha' and ‘Aukaat wahi hai jo hum dete hain’ clearly says how we want the power to be shown and understood/perceived by others. In the film, the three girls were raped and among them, two were hanged on a tree just to show the power (negative connotation) of the upper caste and create a fear among the lower caste people. It depicts centuries-old class and caste and gender privilege that exists until today in modern India. Every time the police officer used "in log" and "un log" to say something about the lower caste, I was feeling uncomfortable to see that how many of us through words exclude and divide people on the basis of the identity. On one side are the upper-castes and the untrammelled power that comes with caste position; on the other, are the lowest of the low, the invisible, the Dalits; and in between is the heartbreaking divide which shapes our destiny in this country even today. Right wings are in power now. They talk about Nationalism, Akhand Bharat... but what type of nationalism we want? what type of Akhand Bharat we want where the people of my country hate each other on the basis of some abstract thing which is caste. Another important word is used often by the police officer (in the film) to warn subtly the main protagonist - PS officer Ayan Ranjan (Khurrana) is "Santulan" (Balance). It is exactly what we are taught in our family and schools very much diplomatically and politically. We are always motivated to keep the status-co. We are always asked to keep the status co. People who disbalance or disturb the status co, like in the film the Dalit leader who mobilised Dalits to question the definition of power construed by the so-called powerful, are killed mercilessly without any guilty. State-sponsored terrorism is not against the people who want to show the "Aukaat" but against those people who want to empower Dalits and other marginalised community. It happened with Bhagat Singh and continues. At least in the English language,  when we say lower-caste it sounds not so bad but when we say lower caste in Hindi, the name of each of the lower caste is an abusive word. 

Caste discrimination is just not the main land's issue. It is also there very much in all over India. It has sipped into all our other religion which actually started due to caste-based violence (What an irony?). The film depicts very well the civil war that exists in our country for centuries based on caste. I really liked that the film started with the song by Bob Dylan (one of my favourite singer) playing in the background: "...how many years can some people exist before they are allowed to be free?" when Ayaan, the main protagonist, entering the village and comparing air pollution of Delhi with an experience of fresh air full of oxygen in the village, naive of the violent environment that he will experience which has taken many more lives than the pollution of cities. The first song in the film - "Kahab to lagi jaaye dhak se" is really a good song to make us understand consciously the difference between rich and poor on the basis of the privilege and hardship they enjoy and face respectively. Like Ayan, many of our young Indians are not aware of caste-based discrimination. They are very bookish and naive. But are they very much unknown to us? Do we need a film to say that? We have become so much insensitive that zero tolerance on caste-based discrimination is a distant dream in our country. 

One of the very important thing that the film wanted to show was how the government institution, the police force, which has the power (in positive connotation) to eliminate the caste-based discrimination is actually preserving and practising shamelessly.  The two police officer in the film - Solanki and Sinha have internalised the discrimination so well with such a perfection that they find it very much normal not to offer pakodas from their plate to the upper caste officers or refuse to drink water from a glass at his place. 

I am depressed and sad after watching the movie. I am among most of you all waiting for a hero. Do I have the courage to be a hero? Has our education system, family system, professional space failed us? Are we all suffering from an acute syndrome of 'culture of silence'? In the film at one point in time, Ayan calls to her lover and says, "... I will un-mess it". To which his lover replied that whether there is any word called 'un-mess' in the english language. Then Ayan says that we need to frame new words. This metaphor is strong enough message that calls all of us 'to learn, unlearn and relearn' many things that we learned during the process of our socialization. We Indians really need to go deeper and understand our value system. 

Having said all this, I want to say one thing that I find two actors - Ayushman and Sahid, showing their own responsibility as a responsible actor. One is working in a film which is misogynist and another one is using film as a platform to raise the critical question on how we Indians are behaving with our fellow Indians. History will remember them on the basis of the film they choose. 

Do we have Ayan like police officers in our country? Do we need them? Has the caste system so strongly rooted that no one can uproot it? Do we really need Article 15 in our constitution when we are not able to follow it? Is the article really making any sense to our government executives who need to ensure its implementation? Has the CSOs in India failed in empowering people of our country for the last 70 years? 

What is real romance?

I think a lot of people don’t understand what real romance is. Anyone can buy flowers, candy and jewellery. The truly romantic things in life are those little things you do every day to show you care, and that you’re thinking of them. It’s going out of your way to make them happy. The way you hold his/her hand when you know he's/she’s scared, or you save the last piece of cake for her/him. The random text or call in the middle of the day, just to say “I love you” or “I miss you”. The way she/he stops to kiss you when he/she passes by. It’s dedicating his/her favourite song to her/his, and letting her /him eat your fries; telling her/him she’s/he's beautiful/handsome. It’s putting your favourite show on pause so she/he can tell you about her/his day, and laughing at his/her jokes, even the really lame ones. It’s slow dancing in the kitchen and kissing in the rain. Romance isn’t about buying, it’s about giving. True romance is in gestures. True love is not letting go the person whom you love or even like. Letting him/her go means you never wanted him/her.  

Celebration of Democracy through exercising the Right of Adult Franchise.

Election for me is reflecting my own political ideology and analyzing it with the present political scenario/context. Election is a very important part of democratic nation. It is the time when I read lot of editorials of leading news paper, watch political debates in National television channels, discuss political matters with my family members and friends, interact with people whom I meet everyday like rickshaw pullers, auto drivers, shopkeepers etc to listen their political analysis. This help me refine my political ideology and guard myself to get fervently swayed by the rhetoric. I really prepare myself well to make a rational choice while I vote. This time, while discussing with some of the people in and around me, I found that they are guided by there selfish interests, conscious biases and unconscious prejudices. I also found that their narratives are highly coloured by the political parties' narratives. In India people vote largely from their perceptions on the narratives created by the political parties often ignoring the larger collective goods of the country. 

The Tamil spiritual classic, Thirukkural, clearly states that a representatives who guides the country wrongly is worse than numerous external enemies. It further goes on to say that "the ideal representative is the one who is physically and mentally strong, morally upright, hardworking, intelligent and compassionate." We all expect that our elected representatives (male, female or third gender) look into our welfare deeply, takes correct and firm decision as well as execute them boldly. 

As an Individual when I go for voting, I update myself on the two important things. Firstly the philosophy and ideology of the political parties and secondly the current political manifesto. If both the things are for the growth and betterment of the nation in the framework of our Indian Constitution, I rise above my own ideological biases and prejudice and choose wise representatives. Political appetite develops through our long and structural socialization process. It is sometime really difficult to rise above our narrow identities and choose wise representatives. Our political cognition is largely influenced by our family ideology. Then slowly it develops in schools through our teachers and then through the student political interventions in our colleges/universities. It was very important for me to read the political ideology and history as well as analyse the present political scenario of our political parties to come up with my own political inclinations. Since my politics is issue based so after sometime of my first vote in late 90's, I understood that I cannot have affinity towards one political party. Hence I supported and opposed different political parties on the basis of the issues, that directly or indirectly affected me or  the people for whom I am concerned. I always feel that issue based politics will surely encourage candidates to think, feel and act more responsively. 

It is very important in a democracy that the voters drive or lead the political agenda. Many a time, in India, the voters are not organised or not aware of the larger need of the country or selfish and motivated with their own identity that they are not properly aware of the political scenario. Hence many a time the voters are colour blind and get influenced by the narrative scripted by political parties and fall prey to their tricks. These influences will land the voters in a plethora of dissatisfaction and unrest. It is very important that voters are well aware about the socio-political and economic condition of the country and vote locally while thinking globally. before casting our vote, we need to read the manifestos carefully, listen to the speeches of various candidates attentively and scan through their work in last tenure, This will help us to figure out the candidates' character. We need a candidate who feels for others, ready to work for the people, who has high integrity values clothed with compassion, empathy and righteousness. 

 Jago Voter Jago...

Love that I knew and love that I want... in my singleness....

It was then, when I heard that my parents (Bengali-Hindu mother and Nepali-Christian father) had a love marriage, i realized that there is something called LOVE. My parents love story was like the Hindi film Ek Duje Ke Liye. This movie was about the love between a Tamil man, Vasu (played by Kamal Hasan), and a North Indian woman, Sapna (Played by Rati Agnihotri), who are neighbours in Goa. They come from totally different backgrounds and can hardly speak the other's language. When Vasu and Sapna admit their love, there is chaos in their homes, and their parents reject the idea. Same sort of matter happened in my parent's family too. But all those odd they could overcome and now they live happily ever after. They could do that because their love for each other (till date) is so strong (or so deep). After more than two decades, when suddenly my sister decided to marry a Tamil man from Chennai, I could again see the strong connection of LOVE. Love between them brought two families (culturally and linguistically different) closer to understand the respective culture with huge amount of tolerance and acceptance. Hence I always felt that I will also experience such love in my life. From them, I learnt that Love is one of the most profound emotions that they experience as humans. It’s impact is huge in human life. Though we can invite it into our lives but we do not have the control over the how, when and where love starts to express itself. Maybe that’s why 72% of people believe in love at first sight. Sometimes, love truly does strike like a bolt of lightening to the chest, and you aren’t prepared for it. It happened for me once for someone, but alas! it was just from my side and I had exhaust myself to the extreme to decide my love to let go. But in case of my parents and my sister and her husband, love was at first sight from both end and that made their life beautiful. May be for them, definition of love was not difficult as they got their tune and lyrics in harmony. But for many people who could not find love or if love is one sided traffic, then the definition of love is different for both of them. And when the love is defined in two different ways then there is pain and suffering which is huge. This pain takes away the peace of mind and make you mad, vulnerable, sad, angry as well as depressed. Here I would like to state that the difference between lust and love. Lust is a temporary desire which is fired by an increased release of testosterone and estrogen–it lasts for a little bit, then you normalize and it’s gone. But, when you feel true love, the brain can release a whole set of chemicals, allowing you to experience it in different expressions. Love can be blind, misguided, tragic, unconditional, steadfast and inconsistent. It takes on many different variants, yet, at its best, love is a passionate commitment that we constantly work to develop and nurture. When you break down and analyze different relationships, one of the key factors is how compatible two partners are, so love is compatibility. When you share the same values, likes and dislikes, interests, political or philosophical views with someone you are much more likely to be compatible and thus, are more likely to fall in love. Sure, there can always be situations where "opposites attract" (it happened with me) but there will always need to be some common grounds for the relationship to grow roots on, or it might fall into one of the other categories of love. Love and compatibility work together to build a relationship, so at the end of the day, you want to find someone you know you know you are going to be compatible with. 

But when I did not get love till the age of 40, like my parents and my sister and her husband, I started questioning myself as - What is Love? For me, at the end Tagore's Bengali song - Sokhi Bhavan kahare bole (what do you mean by 'thought', my dear - English translation below is by Anjan Ganguly) helped me survive without love till date. The songs narrates in the following way - 

What do you mean by 'Thought', my dear.
What do you mean by 'Pain' either.
What is that you yell 'Love' for,
What the word 'Love' means,
Is it saturated with pain?
Is that synonymous with tears or sigh of sufferings?
It is surely a wonder, why it fascinates people.
To my eyes everything is pleasing.
All are youthful, all are free from filth.
Blue sky, green parks, elaborate moonlight, tender blossoms –
All alike myself.
They laugh and sing all the time,
Face certain death delightfully smiling.
They know not sobs, neither fascinated to pains.
Flowers fall apart giggling, moonlight vanish while smiling,
Stars in the sky go out of vision in the ocean of light.
Who is happier than me –
Come O Darling, sooth your ears
With the blissful songs of a happy person.
You should be able to smile for a while amid routine sufferings.
Let us all sing for a single day ignoring the melancholy.

I always dream (hope) to be loved by and to love 'someone' from my deepest corner of my heart but as the time passes by, I feel that the hope is becoming impossible and I am leading towards hopelessness in finding love. Staying alone is possible and I can stay alone. Its not a problem but living without a love is something really painful. Love for me is someone who will emotionally and physically (together and not separately) care me from the heart. One of the pressing questions I hear overtly and covertly from every near and dear ones of mines is "Who am I with?" My parents, sister and friends supported me fully in my life, except in this one aspect, my singleness. We all talk about singles, loneliness, but we don't talk about what it's like to live without partner while longing for one over years and then decades. Very few of my close friends know that how much I long to have a partner in my life just like the one my parents have found among them, my sister and her husband have found between them. Its the Bollywood, Hindi films that have created my perception about love and having partners in one's life. It is also our religion, our society that have inculcated the belief, deep into my heart, in romantic love. How many Hindi and Bengali film songs that I have heard (from childhood to till date) revolve around the long search and eventually discover the beloved through the process of love at first sight. The phrases at the end of all Hindi and Bengali movie (of 80s and 90s that I watched), "happily ever after" made us strongly believe that two lives are made better by virtue of their union. Hence from my teenage I am looking for that holy union to live my life "happily ever after". 

Reference - 

- http://www.geetabitan.com/lyrics/rs-s/sokhi-bhabona-kaahare-english-translation.html)

Made in Heaven... to live in hell... what an irony?

Made in Heaven... to live in hell... what an irony? 

Made in Heaven, the web series in Amazon prime video could really reflect the hypocrisy of Indian society there on your face directly.  As an Indian, it made me ask a critical question as to what will it take for our society to move from hypocrisy to genuineness. Indian society is very harsh to the marginalised section of our society always and the series could rightly show it there on the face for us to reflect and understand the need to change. 

The protagonists in the series rightly showed the struggle for acceptance and belonging that each one of us has while traversing the path of personal and professional life. The struggle of certain marginalised people in an urban setting in a globalised world is constantly increasing in the line of gender, class and sexual orientation. These struggles will definitely shape the social, economic and political narrative of new India in the near future. The series very beautifully showcase the gender wars, class wars, and wars fought to legitimise sexual identity. The idea of using an Indian wedding (elite wedding), which is one of the important parts of Indian life, is used as the medium to narrate these struggles is really unique. If you need to see the hypocritical as well as a genuine part of the Indian family, then I think an Indian wedding is a right platform to observe and reflect. The series with its 9 episodes showed the hypocrisy and genuine outlook of Indian mentality very well. Made in Heaven exposes our "vulgar obsession with social perceptions, our all-consuming desire to be seen as belonging in an exclusive bracket, our raging need for upward social mobility". The series also showed the growing inequality in wealth among Indian society and the impact on the life of each one of us. The series also touched our constant inner struggle between our so-called traditional values and the liberal life that we want to live. "Tara Khanna, who’s had a less-than middle-class upbringing, is in a constant struggle to blend in a wealthy household and the high society, for Jaspreet the struggle is to fit into the mould of a work environment that’s far removed from her reality. For Karan, it’s acceptance, not just from family, but from society, while for Adil and Fayza, who inhabit the top column of the economic food chain, it’s the quest to find mental peace - they are both financially well-off but immensely lonely."

The series tackles very well the important aspect of our struggle "elitism, sexual abuse, toxic masculinity, celebrity entitlement, infidelity, the broken marriage, closeted existence",  with great sensitivity and understanding.  

While watching the series, I could feel constant pain in my heart, a subtle sadness through out. Though the show was about marriages, a happy occasion, there are rarely any happy weddings in it, except one, where a couple in their 60s get married. Rest all marriages were a naked showcase of patriarchal norms. In fact, the series name, Made in Heaven, was full of sarcasm on the idea of marriage - an age-old construct dictated entirely by patriarchal norms and one where women are at the receiving end of sexist ideas perpetuated by seemingly “woke” and “progressive” families.

I feel the series is a brilliant showcase of the damage caused to our Indian society (and the world at large) due to strong patriarchal sentiments that govern our socialisation process. The series interestingly portray men as both, perpetrators as well as victims of patriarchy, especially Vinay Pathak’s Gupta ji, who has one of the show’s most understated yet powerful track. Besides this, the series also reveals the age-old plot of how sexually impotency of men ends up directing their rage towards the women. The series blatantly points out the horrific ways in which women are conditioned to appease to male entitlement and the cost of rebellion if any. While watching those episodes I always had that frustrating moment when I hopelessly feel that will the world change or will the manifestation of patriarchy change with time. The voice over of Shashank Arora at end of every episode was chilling as it could summarise the moral of each episode. They were really reflective and the literal summary of every episode. 

Tanul Thakur, in his article at The Wire, rightly says that it "sees the world from a tower so tall that the rest of the world shrinks dot-like, magnifying the hypocrisies, prejudice and retrograde mindsets of the affluent." 

I find that the Indians need to be educated not just literate. Education in India could not liberate us. It just made us literate to earn money and not a spine to ask a critical question to our traditions, values, customs, beliefs, rituals, socialisation process, prejudice, biasedness, stereotypes and our mindsets. 

Reference: 

 1. https://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/made-in-heaven-review-zoya-akhtars-show-exposes-our-vulgar-obsession-with-social-perceptions_in_5c81327ae4b06ff26ba665a7