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Falling in love is effortless…Staying in love takes a lot of effort!

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When you fall in love, your focus is on features and not on flaws. As the passion recedes, flaws start showing up. What starts with an unconditional acceptance then becomes an effort to mold the person according to your tastes and temperament…

But staying in love is an altogether different ball-game! It is about seeing the other person not in terms of features or flaws but in terms of ‘features and flaws’….Yes! It is about acceptance of the unacceptable and un-mold-able.

Well! Staying in love requires acknowledgement of dynamic nature of a human, continuous exploration into each other’s evolution, ongoing adjustment in priorities, timely juggling of roles, realigning of expectations, reassessing of other variables in life’s equation, and continual foregoing & forgiving; and yes…all accompanied by bona-fide humor!

…a lot of effort!

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But you know something!! Whatever requires effort…is generally…worth that effort!

You always have the last laugh…if you laugh alone!

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To me, Satya has always been a magnificent game-changing work of cinema! I can never have enough of the rustic originality dripping from each of its frames…

When I said this to one of my acquaintances, he exclaimed “What? But everyone hates Ram Gopal Varma, and so do I! Don’t tell me that you like him”! I said “I hardly know him then how can I like or dislike him! I loved some of his work and did not like a few others. But that has nothing to do with him”!

Yet…what was interesting was ‘how much he was enjoying talking about hating him’…

Well! We, the people, filled to the brim with the frustration from silent defeats in our diurnal struggles, feed on the sadistic pleasures of ripping off unarmed strangers conveniently placed for us in the public domain! Such ‘imaginary one-sided rivalries’ may give us anesthetic relief, but leave scars on our own souls…

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These scars then blur our eyesight… making us search for our existence in other people’s perceptions.

I said “People should come together to add value to each other’s lives…”

A friend asked…“But, what if it isn’t that way anymore?”

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It is impossible to not get frustrated and exhausted when someone close doesn’t respond to your goodness and when no amount of ‘time spent together’ or ‘effort put in’ yields any results. You just cannot get along…something just isn’t clicking anymore…

Well! Life at times complicates a lot of things about some people. They choose ‘misery’ as the pillar to be held on to! You might not have been around when they picked that misery but you are more often around to deal with the changes it brings in them.

And what if it now seems irreparable?

Well! If two people can neither cooperate nor cut-off, then…they should learn to coexist – redefining their expectations from each other and drawing new lines signifying the modified understanding of the ‘space’ they need, in whatever they share together.

So beyond a point, in such relationships, you have to let others exercise their right to decide for themselves. And on your part, just continue to be good towards them…but without an extra effort to persuade, please, improve or nurse.

Just stay good!

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At times, fate gets us into the slots where we don’t belong! This incompatibility is to teach us the value of compatibility, through its absence!

The lessons add up later…to make our choices wiser!

Personality isn’t about your impression on people…but your impact on them.

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It is not about ‘how good you are’, it is about ‘how good others are’…in your presence!

I have seen a lot of people who, in the name of developing their personality, focus a tad too much on themselves. They think it’s about being attractive in looks, articulate with words and aristocratic at conduct! Well! It’s fine if it all happens, but trivial if chased.

Personality is not to be in the spotlight, but to hold it so that others are able to see themselves better. It is not to hog the limelight…but to share the screen-space. It is not just about ‘being the best’, but also to ‘bring out the best in others‘!

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And well! Better if that impact becomes an influence…felt beyond your presence!

Ya! Pass on the torch.

“Mothers are women as well!”…I said during a talk! My question was simple “Why, after becoming a mother, a woman starts being more of a mother and…less of a woman?”

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It all dates back to sometime in the history…

Well! The honchos of society wanted to ensure the continuity of the society! Unlike any other animals’ offspring, human-being’s children cannot be on their own immediately…they need support. And more importantly they had to be brought up and programmed in a way that on growing-up, they go on to surrender their individuality to collective identity.

But then who would do that? Well! There started the grand conspiracy…

Overemphasizing the importance of ‘mother’ has been one of the best-planned conspiracies against women. The society plotted this to win her willing or unwilling consent to bear the inconvenience of conceiving, bearing, delivering and bringing-up its future members; repeatedly! In turn, she got the tag of being ‘Next-to-God’, enforced through stories, songs, poems, pictures and rituals.

Also, kids were the other coordinates managed by society in this plot – A Masterstroke!

Well! When kids are growing up then they don’t really worship their mother! They are simply more attached to her by virtue of spending more time with her and being dependent on her. But then society teaches them to revere her because this then becomes a reinforcing motivation for mothers to continue making sacrifices to bring them up. So…there we have – a true symbol of humanness…elevated to a pedestal like none other – enjoying superhuman treatment!

Really…?

Look at the ‘mothers’ around us! Mostly you would find a sentimentally-blackmailed, overburdened, emotionally-dependent, eternally-worried sacrificial being…made to live on borrowed-happiness by working on all seven days from dawn to dusk; trying her best to retain an unasked-for respect for a lifetime. Well! She can’t laze around, have fun, enjoy her space, get romantic, be ambitious, pamper herself, spoil her indulgences or simply ‘be herself’! After all! She has to behave in a certain way in accordance to her status of being the ultimate role-model of selflessness…

They say…“Only becoming a mother can complete a woman!”

So then what about those women who don’t or can’t conceive? Who the hell are we to declare them incomplete? Well! The ‘nature’s gift to women, for giving birth’ was for creating another life, but not to define her existence around it! We got to respect womanhood; beyond her role of being a mother!!

Well! Everyone says “Save the female fetus inside a mother”! Let me humbly add…“Please! Don’t kill the woman inside her either”. Please let her stay a woman as well.

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So! Go back and tell your mother… “I love you Mom…but not the most! I love you as much as I love dad, granny, grandpa, sis and bro! Feel light Mom…You are not demigod…allow yourself to stay human! Go…Breathe easy…”

PS: Well! If you disagree, and want to test this ‘point of view’, then go and actually tell your Mom the last lines of this post. Well! If she seems a bit hurt, then you know what is at work – ‘The mother of all conspiracies!’