It’s so difficult to know where to begin. I’ve been thinking long and hard.
Being stuck in a never-ending opening.
At first, it’s the real thing, sheer delight. Its that part of the relationship in which one is at ones best : fun, charming, excited, exciting, interesting, interested. It’s a time when one is most comfortable and lovable because one does not feel the need to mobilize ones defenses, so ones partner gets to cuddle a warm human being, a big teddy bear instead of a giant cactus!
But beginnings cannot be prolonged endlessly. They must move on and develop – or die of boredom.
One moves onto a series of protracted reopenings – some separations necessary and most manufactured.
One goes further than intended and one stops short of what the other sees as the next logical and lovely steps.
Both parties have a vision of something wonderful that awaits them, but then how do they move from here?!
Especially if one is faced with a solid wall of defenses. Walls don’t protect, they isolate!
One longs for richness and fullness and fulfillment of further development, while the other ways to avoid it.
Both parties are frustrated – one unable to go back, the other unable to move forward – both in a constant state of struggle, with clouds and dark shadows over the limited time that is allowed to both!
This constant resistance to “that” something wonderful – often causes pain on one level or the other.
And then the fierce inexplicable cutoffs.
Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. Not knowing which to do is suffering.
Away and apart or together and apart – it is too unhappy a scenario.
One of them cries a lot, for it seems that pity is necessary before kindness is possible. And this one knows that one has not come this far in life to become pitiful.
One is starting to accept the failure in letting know the joys of caring.
One is now saying this softly, even tenderly without camouflaging an underlying anger. There are no accusations, no blames, no faults.
One is simply trying to understand and stop the pain after being forced to accept that there is no development, much less the glorious climatic expression of a relationship grown to full blossom.
But despite the pain, one is happy to have known the other in such a special way. Both have grown and learned much from the other and both are today much better people for having touched one another.
Our life is like the chess game. Each party has its own singular objective even as it engages the other; mid-way struggle develops and intensifies and bits and pieces of each side are lost, both sides diminished; an end game in which one traps and paralyzes the other. And in the bargain – both the king and the queen are lost!
A promise so rare and so beautiful is going to go unfulfilled.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Saturday, May 29, 2010
In the “middle” of everywhere and yet nowhere!
After spending nearly 4.5 years in Singapore, I came back to my base, Delhi, on a transfer, 3 months back.
I must confess that settling back into life – at work and home – has not exactly been a cake walk! – the weather, pollution, traffic, total loss of my space and my time and the endless deadlines and pressures of being back in the HQ – et al…..yeah, I sound every bit like one of those snotty, spoilt NRI’s returning to motherland.
But I am not totally off tack.
My angst, especially evident since then, driving around Delhi, which has given me more than enough time to think of my own class, the middle class!
Not that driving gives you time on hand, but traffic jams do.
These jams and traffic lights and the endless wait has given me enough time to ruminate on the sad spectacle that is the Indian Urban Life.
And that leaves me with a lot of anger towards the middle class and the government.
Just merely living in Delhi one may not notice the kind of things that would detain unless you really hit the road.
The most noticeable is the way people, these middle class drive – these people invariably do not like to wait at traffic lights; they are the ones who will make a right or left turn without bothering to indicate and yes these are the same middle class who will straddle lanes and overtake from the wrong side and that too at high speed!
Oh and not to miss the jams that the middle class are confronted with and the ease with which they swing out of the lane and drive to the top of the queue in the way of the coming traffic !
And yet we young, middle class are amongst the most self-righteous and complaining – and yet this is the tribe that believes in high speed drunken driving killing anything coming in their way – even the mighty Delhi Cop is not safe these days!
Yes these very urban, educated middle class, often well-travelled citizenry of our great country will park where they are not supposed to, they will ignore or quarrel the traffic cop directing some semblance on these horrid dug up Delhi roads, or in some narrow colony lane, their fancy cars will be parked protruding making sure no one can pass or they will in the name of greening their immediate environment make flower beds or build a canopy for their chowkidars – taking up half the public road space !
I really wonder why do we the middle class behave in such a inconsiderate and often dangerous way? Is it out of a sense of entitlement and impunity that we have stopped caring, caring about each other fellow human beings?
And despite all that we have achieved, we the middle class love (its almost fashionable) to blame the government or the disadvantaged for everything, without any self-consciousness.
No I am not another Arundhati Roy in the making, fighting for the no-cause!
I am certainly not claiming that the disadvantaged are above any blame – what about the defacement of buildings, public property, spread of refuse, peeing in public (an Indian male fantasy) – don’t these people realize this is ugly and unhygienic?!! But then why blame them – it’s the government (rightfully for this class) to be blamed. Ordinary people are truly disadvantaged.
The ordinary class do not have a sense of ownership of public spaces, where we the middle class think, we own everything and have a sense of impunity because we pay taxes and money can buy everything else that we don’t own! But is this justification enough for us the middle class?
The government does not prosecute the middle class when it breaks the rules and neither does it provide the ordinary class – then why blame them then?
After sixty years and 1 trillion worth an economy, the government is still cowardly, complacent and cruel; the ordinary class is still remains less than ordinary and the middle class ? – has just about lost it all!
This is the sad bitter truth about everyday life in this great country of ours.
I must confess that settling back into life – at work and home – has not exactly been a cake walk! – the weather, pollution, traffic, total loss of my space and my time and the endless deadlines and pressures of being back in the HQ – et al…..yeah, I sound every bit like one of those snotty, spoilt NRI’s returning to motherland.
But I am not totally off tack.
My angst, especially evident since then, driving around Delhi, which has given me more than enough time to think of my own class, the middle class!
Not that driving gives you time on hand, but traffic jams do.
These jams and traffic lights and the endless wait has given me enough time to ruminate on the sad spectacle that is the Indian Urban Life.
And that leaves me with a lot of anger towards the middle class and the government.
Just merely living in Delhi one may not notice the kind of things that would detain unless you really hit the road.
The most noticeable is the way people, these middle class drive – these people invariably do not like to wait at traffic lights; they are the ones who will make a right or left turn without bothering to indicate and yes these are the same middle class who will straddle lanes and overtake from the wrong side and that too at high speed!
Oh and not to miss the jams that the middle class are confronted with and the ease with which they swing out of the lane and drive to the top of the queue in the way of the coming traffic !
And yet we young, middle class are amongst the most self-righteous and complaining – and yet this is the tribe that believes in high speed drunken driving killing anything coming in their way – even the mighty Delhi Cop is not safe these days!
Yes these very urban, educated middle class, often well-travelled citizenry of our great country will park where they are not supposed to, they will ignore or quarrel the traffic cop directing some semblance on these horrid dug up Delhi roads, or in some narrow colony lane, their fancy cars will be parked protruding making sure no one can pass or they will in the name of greening their immediate environment make flower beds or build a canopy for their chowkidars – taking up half the public road space !
I really wonder why do we the middle class behave in such a inconsiderate and often dangerous way? Is it out of a sense of entitlement and impunity that we have stopped caring, caring about each other fellow human beings?
And despite all that we have achieved, we the middle class love (its almost fashionable) to blame the government or the disadvantaged for everything, without any self-consciousness.
No I am not another Arundhati Roy in the making, fighting for the no-cause!
I am certainly not claiming that the disadvantaged are above any blame – what about the defacement of buildings, public property, spread of refuse, peeing in public (an Indian male fantasy) – don’t these people realize this is ugly and unhygienic?!! But then why blame them – it’s the government (rightfully for this class) to be blamed. Ordinary people are truly disadvantaged.
The ordinary class do not have a sense of ownership of public spaces, where we the middle class think, we own everything and have a sense of impunity because we pay taxes and money can buy everything else that we don’t own! But is this justification enough for us the middle class?
The government does not prosecute the middle class when it breaks the rules and neither does it provide the ordinary class – then why blame them then?
After sixty years and 1 trillion worth an economy, the government is still cowardly, complacent and cruel; the ordinary class is still remains less than ordinary and the middle class ? – has just about lost it all!
This is the sad bitter truth about everyday life in this great country of ours.
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