Love and Patriotism

In all these years, tomorrow's going to be the first Independence Day I will spend away from India. I don't know if I am missing my country. But I am missing today my home, my family, my people. I am missing my wife's chatter about her college lectures, my son's little antiques. I am missing the exhausted sigh I heave slumping down on the sofa on returning home from office after a heavy day, as if to breathe out all the tensions of life. I am missing the evening tea which, for me, stands as a pinnacle of affection and pampering care from my wife.

May sound melodramatic, but today I have been listening to the National Anthem since morning. It's bringing moisture to my eyes. I am even playing aamaar shonar bangla again and again. The images of rural Bengal, the ponds, the green fields, the mud huts, the palm and coconut trees -- the environs which I have never lived within, but have only visited and seen in pictures -- and those words of Tagore! Could a national anthem of a country be any more unassuming, any more innocent? It just says, 'I love you my Bengal!'

These tears of ecstasy aren't about patriotism. They flow in thankfulness for that divine blessing we humans have got which allows us to be aware of all the beauty that surrounds us. It needn't be for the richest nation of the world. It needn't be for the most popular tourist destination. It needn't be for the most beautiful person in the world. That beauty may lie in our poverty: in how we share our scanty provisions and help each other out through difficulty. In the sweat with which we build something together, however insignificant. That beauty could be in every little thing which makes us all happy and sad together.

Yesterday afternoon, I was walking through the university town of Ann Arbor. The fall semester is starting. I could see students moving into their apartments. Their parents helped them with the luggage. For fleeting moments, I could feel what they must be feeling. The nervousness and anticipation in the young heart. The strong pain of separation in the parents. The dirt in the new apartment. The chores of setting everything up. The experience of getting acquainted with a new roomie. There were students sitting around a table somewhere, doing their assignments probably. And there was a senior giving some orientation tips to freshmen at some street corner. The place appeared to me the most beautiful little corner of the world. It reminded me of IISc, Roorkee...and all my friends and all the good times.

Some time back, there was a brief phase when I almost believed that 'Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious' (Oscar Wilde). But he must have been talking about its bellicose variant which drives people to wage wars on others. Probably, that variant happens only when you think your nation is great and it needs to be greater still.

Love doesn't arise from the sense of greatness of the object of love, but from the fineness of our sensitivity  for little details of beauty. Your beloved mayn't be the most beautiful in the world; but it doesn't diminish the truth in your saying you love her. Your child mayn't be cutest; but that doesn't reduce the satisfaction you get from embracing him. Your life mayn't be a shining example of success; but you may still serve it, love it. When someone builds a house, he falls in love with it, however small and dingy that house may be. The love resides in his awareness of each brick he has laid, each ounce of mud he has used as cement, each straw he has collected to make the thatch.

The ability to be aware of the all pervading beauty also serves us to stay away from becoming overly footloose. If there is something specific that takes us afar, well and good. But if the absence of something here takes us there, we will probably never stop shuttling here and there. Before setting out on a journey to faraway lands, it's good to make sure to some extent that the absence, the void, is not within ourselves. It takes effort to grow the ability to find that thing you are looking for right where you are, preferably within yourself. That's love. That's patriotism.

This day, I am separated only for a brief episode from my wife, my child, my country. Tomorrow morning, for the first time in life, I will not hear the Independence Day celebrations and National Anthem playing at some nearby school. But, I am happy I played the national anthem today. I am happy I am thinking about my dear ones today. I wish I could preserve those two drops that escaped my eyes today. Because they are full of love. Those precious two drops are full of the feeling of being alive.

The Man in Your Life

A piece got as a forward from one of my friends. The article talks about how a newly married girl copes with the difficult task of adjusting with her new environment, and implores the husband to be supportive to her in achieving this.

I felt the spirit of the piece very good and it makes its point well enough that I find it unnecessary to make any further additions. However, in the process of admiring the woman, at some points it repeats the old ultra-feminist mistake of putting down the man. This post is about that. Follows the poem, and then my comments.

I am making this post to address a wider problem of ultra-feminism. I appreciate this forwarded piece, and my words aren't directed only to that.

Note the points in the poem which I felt were in a bad spirit. The orange ones are which I feel just start being unfair, and the red ones are plain deplorable. Everything else is in good spirits and is appreciated.


Tomorrow you may get a working woman, but you should marry her with these facts as well.

Here is a girl, who is as much educated as you are;
Who is earning almost as much as you do;

One, who has dreams and aspirations just as
you have because she is as human as you are;

One, who has never entered the kitchen in her life just like you or your
Sister haven't, as she was busy in studies and competing in a system
that gives no special concession to girls for their culinary achievements

One, who has lived and loved her parents & brothers & sisters, almost as
much as you do for 20-25 years of her life;

One, who has bravely agreed to leave behind all that, her home, people who love her, to adopt your home, your family, your ways and even your family ,name

One, who is somehow expected to be a master-chef from day #1, while you sleep oblivious to her predicament in her new circumstances, environment and that kitchen

One, who is expected to make the tea, first thing in the morning and cook
food at the end of the day, even if she is as tired as you are, maybe more,
and yet never ever expected to complain; to be a servant, a cook, a mother,
a wife, even if she doesn't want to; and is learning just like you are as
to what you want from her; and is clumsy and sloppy at times and knows that you won't like it if she is too demanding, or if she learns faster than you;

One, who has her own set of friends, and that includes boys and even men at her workplace too, those, who she knows from school days and yet is willing to put all that on the back-burners to avoid your irrational jealousy, unnecessary competition and your inherent insecurities;

Yes, she can drink and dance just as well as you can, but won't, simply
Because you won't like it, even though you say otherwise

One, who can be late from work once in a while when deadlines, just like yours, are to be met;

One, who is doing her level best and wants to make this most important,
relationship in her entire life a grand success, if you just help her some
and trust her;

One, who just wants one thing from you, as you are the only one she knows in your entire house - your unstinted support, your sensitivities and most importantly - your understanding, or love, if you may call it.

But not many guys understand this......

Please appreciate "HER"


I hope you will do....



My comments:


Can't agree more especially at this juncture of life. I am just watching day after day the host of irreversible and significant changes that are coming about everyday in my newly wed wife's life, and can't stop marvelling at how she's taking them all with a smile on her face. My love and respect for her rises exponentially everyday. No professional achievement can equal this unearthly mix of maturity, flexibility, modesty and sacrifice.

I wish to tell a little less known thing too. It's often talked about a lot what a great transition it is for a girl to leave behind her past life to join her husband. I think it's true. Very true.

What's not quite right is to imagine that the guy doesn't go through similar anxieties. Nor is it fair to project it as if all sacrifices are only on the girl's side, and none on the guy's side. It mayn't really strike you as significant, but for record's sake let me point out that it's not trivial to change from a boy to a man overnight. Till yesterday, he was all alone, free to move around in the world, exploring everything with not a worry in mind but his own whims and fancies. All of a sudden, everything starts revolving around another person -- you. Your concerns are his, and he is responsible for your happiness, health and everything. He brought you home from your house where everyone was crying and wailing so to making him feel miserable and guilty of causing so painful a separation in a family. And now, he is immediately responsible to make that girl, who is badly missing her family and is coping hard with her new life, feel at home and loved. Do you think it's any easier?! I wouldn't be so sure!

He is aware of your capabilities. He is proud of it. It's a different matter that your feminist predecessors have ground it into you that it's you who always protects his silly ego and that's your job. I think, it's time to dump that bullshit. Men are better than that. Go ahead and conquer the world in the way you want. Dump the household work on him. It's his responsibility too. It's his right to struggle like you do. And most importantly, what you mayn't know is that he knows it. Where expression of capabilities is natural, it will receive admiration and cheer from all men and women; where it gets adulterated with false egotism and the wish to prove a point, it will invite scorn, not just from men, but from women as well. I think, one should stop blaming men of chauvinism in this capability business. Men are no more egotistic than women.

In this (ultra)feminist world, it's becoming fashionable these days to write poetry saying laudatory words about women and their sacrifices (every word of which they deserve) and bash up men for their insensitivity, and selfishness (not all of which they deserve). Perhaps, the pendulum of male chauvinism has now started swinging back to the other amplitude in the form of ultra feminism. :(

I have met many men and women in my life. And I can say confidently that men are every bit as sensitive and caring as women. Their modes of expression aren't so sophisticated as those of women. Women have many vents to their soft emotions. But it's not fair to imagine lack of sensitivity among men just because they are not so capable of expressing them well. While you may call up home when you miss them, or shed a drop of two of your precious tears to vent the emotional pressure, your man will be out there suppressing all that, trying to look strong and unaffected, more out of a habit of suppression society has imposed on him than anything else. Do you really think it's all nice and good for him while you are making all the sacrifices. Well, think again!

To conclude, marriage (and every relation of the world) is not a one sided affair. It's based on love and respect on both ends. It's good to mention the good things on the one end, but it's unfair to make it look as if the relation is tailor made to serve all the fair and unfair needs of one party while to give a raw deal to the other (presumably the nobler one). Guys and girls! Marriage is a very personal thing between you and your wife. The terms of your relations are defined as you define it, not how a chauvinistic tradition or a feminist activist would like them to be. I believe that mutual love, care and respect takes a relation to heights which no amount of political correctness can. Here's a simple mantra: Let's be fair. That's a good starting point for a relation.

And to set a good example, I am saying this to all men, and women too.

Men and Women

Here was one quite a nice poem written in praises of women, that I got in an egroup.

Why Women Cry
 
Why are you crying, a young boy asked his Mom?
 
"Because I'm a woman," she told him.
 
I don't understand," he said.
 
His Mom just hugged him and said,
"And you never will, but that's O.K.".......
 
Later the little boy asked his father,
"Why does Mom seem to cry for no reason?".
"All women cry for no reason," was all his Dad could say......
 
The little boy grew up and became a man,
still wondering why women cry.
 
Finally he put in a call to God and when God got back to him, he
asked "God, why do women cry so easily?"
 
GOD answered......
 
"When I made woman,
I decided she had to be special.
I made her shoulders
strong enough to carry
the weight of the world, yet,
made her arms gentle enough to give comfort...
 
I gave her the inner strength
to endure ch! ildbirth
and the rejection
that many times will come
even from her own children.

I gave her a hardness
that allows her
to keep going and take care
of her family and friends,
even when everyone else gives up, through sickness and fatigue
without
complaining....
 
I gave her the sensitivity to love her children under any and all
circumstances. Even when her child has hurt her badly....
 
She has the very special power to make a child's boo-boo feel better
 and
to quell a teenager's anxieties and fears....
 
I gave her strength to care for her husband, despite faults
and I fashioned her from his rib to protect his heart....
 
I gave her wisdom to know that a good husband never hurts his wife,
 but
sometimes tests her strengths and her resolve to stand beside him
unfalteringly....
 
For all of this hard work,
I also gave her a tear to shed.
It is hers to use
whenever needed and ! !
it is her only weakness....
When you see her cry,
tell her how much you love her, and all she does for everyone, and
even though
she may still cry, you will have made her heart feel good.
 
She is special!

I felt that there was need to do a balancing act. After all guys, particularly nice guys like me, have seen or done none of the atrocities that their kind have been charged with for milennia. We keep hearing that we belong to that sex-starved, beastly kind called 'male'. After all there's a need to recapitulate on our true nature. So, I wrote the following:

Baap re! Are women so very good! Let's write something parallel for men...
***********************************************************************
Quoting God...
I gave him a kind and noble heart. Covered that up with muscles, so he
could be powerful enough to carry the load and sorrows he must bear.

It was him for whom I secured all the bothering of finance for
his family. I also gave him the forbearance to never show its difficulty
to the family he loves. He too wanted to sit back and sulk on somebody
along with his kids. But he couldn't. As a man he must see to it that they
live on.

I gave him the responsibility for making his family feel secure. Even if
he is left with no strength he manages to make his family safe and secure
from the greatest dangers of the world. He too wanted to tremble like a
leaf. But he couldn't. Because he is a man!

I gave him the role of always acting the ideal person for his children so
that they grow up to be as good as or better than him. Even at the face of
being ridiculed as old-fashioned and boring by the very children he lives
for. He too wanted to cry and scream expressing his pain. But he couldn't.
Because he is a man!

While the woman could care, love, caress, laugh and cry with her child --
and be called the Mother, the greatest friend, guru etc. The Father had to
go out in the heat so that his child and wife could eat. He too wanted to
caress and love his child. But no! he is a man!

But then I just had stop short of making him the perfect creature. I
couldn't give him a single drop of tear. For, I had already given all of
that to women.

A women thus can express her love, hate, fear, happiness and sorrow all
through TEARS! And earn love and regard as 'Oh so feminine!'

Man keeps taking the blame of being unfeeling, heartless, mean, physical,
base, and what not - because he can't cry!

Poor men!

***********************************************************************
In summary...

Hey, we all are the same, with some minor external differences. Don't
romanticise unnecessarily. Let's love and respect everybody equally (I
know, that's easier said than done).

I will be happy to see the day when men will be actually enchanted by
women showing the talents men think themselves good at.

I will be even happier to see the day when women can see a man crying
without thinking, 'how...!'