Raving about Ravan within!
Today I decide to break the silence on something that I've been carrying around for 4 years now.
I could let this reside within the deep recesses on my heart-mind space without probing it and gently allowing it to turn into other beautiful possibilities.
Or I could bring this very personal account to the open in an attempt to trigger introspection in the light of toxic conversations in the name of righteousness, that are steering the national dialogue of our country.
Whatever arises is allowed, valid and accepted.
The hero in this story has a charismatic personality, is well-read about current affairs, fiercely independent, extremely strongly opinionated, has a dry, sarcastic, witty, often mean sense of humour.
He hardly ever appreciates anyone in conversations instead is quick to recognize flaws and easily labels friends, relatives and people as authoritarian, moral policemen, dictators standing up to them in rebellion.
He is a popular public personality, and frequently writes for major dailies which are read by a number of followers.
The heroine is more in tune with her inner voice - it is a demanding voice which has in the past until now, looked to its own resources to resolve its dilemmas, establish a clear path free from obstacles to take its own story ahead.
She is more interested in arriving at a space of shared understanding with the world in general than on attracting attention, applause, adulation solely for herself.
She currently explores the stage through collaborative dance, music and theatre.
She learnt early on in her life that real relationships are quite transactional.
She was raised by a family under a 'food-for-marks' regimen.
After many years, when she raged that she didn't play enough, she read about nations of families who raised Olympian medalists.
She later came to know about the 'Food-For-oil' program that her nation had signed with their friend nation 'Iran'.
From then on she knew to look at her own inner resources to address her needs.
They met on the common ground of their matching stance against totalitarian regimes, ideologies, beliefs.
When they met she was under great duress, pushed against the wall by a patriarchal social structure to find herself an appropriate groom and settle down into the idealistic security of the proverbial 'happily-married' life.
Making things more complicated was also her inner confusion about her own beliefs about motherhood, the constituents of a mutually enriching and satisfying relationship, general strategies to deal with the ever-growing number of distractions that hinder the development of trust among people, etc.
Initially he showed her off to their friends like the Pandavas showed off Draupadi to Kunti - 'look who we've managed to impress'.
Later he scoffed at her accomplishments as being the result of bourgeoisie privilege.
She thought differently, as she had democratically through a legitimate interview selection process landed herself the job that she had.
She recognized her desire to live independently and identified a role in alignment with her skills and interest and chose to apply to it. She was told that she always wanted to be right.
Every meeting turned out to be about his shows, the next or the previous.
Every person potential material for the next original joke.
Over the course of time their kingdom became plagued with staggering emotional poverty. Where every attempt to establish trust, to engage in a meaningful conversation about meeting and calibrating mutual expectations were drowned in deafening silence.
Where when he raged on, expletive-ridden, about how the audience didn't laugh at his jokes or how many 'likes' on his post were authentic or about how the rights and freedom of a particular animal-eating people were under threat, she listened patiently with undivided attention, waiting for her time.
But when she told him about the challenges and accomplishments of her day, he hardly paid any attention.
His indifference towards her goals, dreams and ambitions hurt her as she positively, courageously invested in his, emotionally, financially and personally.
On voicing her doubts she was told that there were people before who behaved with absolute disregard for his feelings (like psychopaths) - that he reached a point when he kept calling but never got any response while the other person nonchalantly moved on with other people.
Although this was hardly any justification of the displayed indifference, she believed his story to her own peril. She hoped that since he recognized the afore-mentioned behavior as hurtful, he would be sensitive enough to not met it out at her.
She would soon understand otherwise.
She had recently been physically attacked on the road by 2 ruffians and had defended herself courageously against her assailants.
The next morning she went with the police and got them arrested and kept under remand.
During this difficult period, she looked towards him for reassurance, comfort, support, understanding.
Nothing that a friend wouldn't naturally give - she would definitely not withhold herself if she were in his shoes.
Much to her surprise she got none, instead he went on social media to make righteous statements, righteously, intellectually and impersonally, against marital rape and the like.
She shared his work like champions on her page, he never visited her blog even after repeatedly being requested to.
Over the next couple of months as she grappled alone with the psychological remnants of the brutal incident - she went from mindfulness to healing to taking dance lessons, to taking up new responsibilities at her workplace, all the while sharing her efforts with him hoping for some form of acknowledgement, a little encouragement, validation which would bring back the bounce in her step, help her resume the sense of normalcy prior to the incident.
He continued with his efforts of the preservation of his self-image on social media - from writing witty, intelligent articles for the newspapers to publishing provocative rage comics on social media - his attempts to establish intellectual superiority over everybody else were unabashed and unstoppable.
She had observed her inner dialogue and understood thought to be preceding feeling - and thereby any thought that suggests a belief to be 'incorrect' can be assumed to have another corrective/alternative thought/belief system behind.
When she asked him for the alternative, there was none and when she asked for the reason of his rebellion - it was said that shutting up the internet trolls was fun.
During their time together he triumphantly revealed that he casually, often mindlessly spent brief periods of time with several women, one recollection revealing how he callously switched between TV channels while getting a blowjob.
Many times his absolute lack of respect towards anything in general, his inability to feel any positive emotion for anything except 'cats', the abusive language he used shocked her into numbness.
He said he believed in Batman and loved language in general. Through the days of dealing with appalling indifference and absolute disregard for her feelings, she looked at Batman closely and then at Godzilla searching for any redeeming quality that she could relate to, find endearing.
There by find it worthwhile to remain in the shared space.
There were none.
Instead she began to feel contempt for the Dark Knight in armored gear mindlessly bashing up the defenseless thief into pulp.
Theft, like most weaknesses in humans stem from a feeling of lack or scarcity - it will hardly be corrected by the brutality of self-appointed vigilantes or state-appointed policemen.
It will also not disappear if we don't talk about it or are indifferent towards it.
He chose to speak with her only under the throes of alcohol after a night out binge drinking with friends. She would be unable to understand most parts of his slurred delivery. The next morning however, he would have no recollection of the last night's events and days would continue with the non- acknowledgement and indifference.
When she thought she was out of her wits, trying to lower her expectations and finding a common ground to stand on, she checked with friends, mentors and life coaches of what she was doing wrong.
They confirmed that within any relationship, if one was hands and feet invested it was only fair to expect the same from the other person.
And then one day, we were able to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all - That we led ourselves to feel contempt for a fictional comic character. We understood that belief systems were not right or wrong but that they were simply powerful.
Because they are shaped by repeated thoughts and feelings and hence exert themselves powerfully when faced with resistance.
That it is easy to take a stance about 'Education', 'Rape' 'Foeticide' , 'Child abuse' - but not so easy to take up the responsibility that comes with a committed relationship, one in which people mutually inspire, take care of and love each other.
In the mind-map that unfolded in front of our eyes, we saw generations of well-mannered and polite but extremely ambitious and driven mothers who diligently set their daughters to work their asses off at great personal cost towards the maintenance of the highly functional and productive households.
We saw that our society is largely made up of such competitive and productive households and that comparison between the productivity of similar households often propelled members into increased productivity.
But this delicate and fragile structure resting on great personal sacrifices is doomed to crash as each member goes off in the pursuit of their own stories.
Stories that are shaped by great grieves and insurmountable rages against parents who fight, lovers who scream at us, friends who don't applaud our efforts, colleagues who didn't have faith in our abilities because we were a certain gender when our performance clearly proved otherwise, suitors who rejected us without even asking our names.
We were sucked for a long period of time into this unseen 'food-for-marks' algorithm in which 'marks' were soon replaced by better university degrees, more financial gains, better performance, increased material assets and even the procurement of a similarly-minded companion.
We pushed ourselves to large emotional and financial sacrifices in this pursuit.
We clung on through the debilitating pressure of performing, clutching tightly on to images of a compassionate, redeeming Christ, a kind-hearted Kabir, the incessantly charming Krishna, all the while searching for similar redeeming traits behind every human we encountered.
Until we questioned our assumption of the truth of our stories - questioning for the first time if they were indeed 'ours'.
When we did this we were for the first time able to reclaim our emotional sanctity, the freedom of deciding for our self, and our lost time.
We don't have a stance anymore on polyamoury or monogamy or even being in relationships with less emotional investment.
We are able to see our desires in the light of an evolutionary agenda, we offer up those which we cannot fulfill to Nature to be recycled into something that is in our domain to control.
We know our self to put all our resources to the best of our abilities into that we decide to put our mind on - time, money, heart, body and soul. We trust our feelings more, to do anything otherwise would feel dishonest.
We've found our reconciliation by looking plainly at everything - and finding out that our minds are quick to corner us into binaries in a world which has been largely operating on a spectrum.
But we feel strongly when people who have little accountability for their own actions speak so loudly and strongly against the oppression by authoritarian figures - a well-meaning close relative, the prime minister, the govt. in power.
These attempts in our eyes reek of attention-seeking behavior - we've been in systems revolving around people who derive their security from the act of eating and around people who feel uncomfortable the moment people around them are not attending to their immediate needs.
The voice of this witness has only become stronger through the years holding up the mirror for ourselves and others. It constantly states its wish to sing clearly and dance fearlessly, draw magnificently and write in a way which is not threatening and provocative.
Through this piece it begs an important question to be answered -
How can this powerful medium of voicing thought, opinions, feelings be better used to take the common discourse to a more sustainable level?
How can it be used to shape thought and language and behavior that is respectful even while calling spade a spade?
What if we find that we have more in common with our perpetrators than we allow ourselves to imagine, where does that leave us?
How can this medium be used then to explore the paths of reconciliation and understanding between our different selves as complex and layered as to label the act of copulating as differently as 'making love' and 'mindless fucking' and everything in between?
Generally, we've found humans to be at peace with themselves and others when they operate from a level of inspiration.
When there is an exchange of positive emotion and creative thoughts that exceeds the cost of the exchange.
The cost of exchange are often related to the survival and sustenance of the complex mind-body-heart space.
When these needs are met as the by product of mutually creative processes, humans find themselves cooperating with themselves, the joy of the shared creative experience as a mutual reward.
It is not very difficult to find and co-exist with your tribe without having to change others to match what makes you peaceful.
Find a friend who likes the opera, better still go watch it alone.
You'll find yourself amidst your tribe.
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