Idyllic Thoughts

Here is a line on love by Joesph Conrad in his short story Amy Foster : "...you need imagination to form a notion of beauty at all, and still more to discover your ideal in an unfamiliar shape." This may the very truth about the emergence of love. Somewhere along the wavy line called life, we meet someone and fall in love. I don't believe in love at first sight. It is an emotion which comes of being with a person for some time, seeing our notion of ideality in that person and imagining him/her to be beautiful beyond description. One can be utterly happy and in love with the ugliest person -- I say this because I see many happy couples who do not have an iota of physical beauty in them, yet are in so much of love with each other that it often makes me wonder at how love and mental closeness disguise the physical ugliness. Once you become closer to someone, their colour, features are invisible to you. Though, at first you need imagination to see beauty in a person as Conra...

Relationships are very hard to maintain, especially if those involved in the relationships are insecure. Marriage is quite complicated as it is embracing a whole new family, with their interests, ways that differ from ours, likings and not-so-likings, stories and light moments, fears and emotions. Someone recently told me that being unmarried makes us retain our individuality. Maybe so. For someone who has been independent in thinking and has their own beliefs, it would be quite difficult to stay in a marriage happily, where one has to constantly consider the likes and dislikes of the spouse. Is love, family, worth sacrificing one's individuality for?

Last week I spent an evening with my hubby on the serene Maravanthe beach near Kundapura watching the aeonian waves splash on the sand and drag away some reluctant sand away. Watching the waves compete with each other, I felt that they were trying, just like humans, to surpass their predecessors on their path to success. Aren't we too engrossed in continually outdoing others in our professional or personal life? This is what compels us to achieve. If there was no competition, there would be idle people all around, with zero achievements and a complete lack of enthusiasm to work and live. And in this regard, I think jealousy can be a positive emotion.

Once upon a time, I felt love was overrated. I thought love was the most overhyped feeling ever. But now I realise that love is like a mixture of a heady potion in which drugs, hypnosis, addiction, vulnerability, dreams, attraction are mixed potently forgetting to add logic, reasoning as seasoning. When somebody loves you, it brings such a happiness that is beyond description. It is like floating up in heavens carefree and looking down upon mere mortals who are unaware of the joys of love. It is also like a personal little fairydom of dreams where no one else has the permission to enter.

From many days, a question is bothering me. I haven't found a satisfactory answer yet. So I'll write it down here. Maybe anybody who reads this may think of an answer. "Just because we are journalists, writers, opinion creators and thinkers, do we have the right to judge others? Either personally or professionally? If not, then how can we write without judging? Our writings obviously focus on judging others." 

See what happens when the ego of one person surpasses the common good of the mass. A lawyer, stopped by the Police for riding with two pillion riders on bike, created ruckus and the incident was reported in the media. This has finally led to attack on scribes. I consider our country a near-banana republic where people live and behave in a manner that is quite not suited for democracy -- they believe what they comes out of their mouth is gospel truth and behave accordingly. Don't you think instead of more laws with each such incidents, we need stricter enforcement of existing laws? But who is going to implement it when the fence tries to devour the crop? 

Modernity has brought along its own interpretation to India. Here, the word means skimpy dresses, vulgar dances, table etiquette, maintaining skin-deep beauty and obscene behaviour, as far as I could see. Our thinking has not become modern, with the ousting of superstitions and embracing a scientific temperament. No, modernity has failed in inducing a modern way, a new way of thinking in us, or in the way we perceive things, events. We have not become thinkers, we have just become followers of a culture alien to us and one which doesn't suit us. I had to write this prelude because I witnessed two contrasting events in the last two days. One was a cultural programme being conducted in front of a house in Mysore, I don't know for what reason. Two very young children were gyrating sexily to the tunes of some song which was unbearable with no apparent meaning. Their parents and other elders were enjoying the dance with a smile on their faces. Their dance was unbelievable as it wa...