50 Shades Lighter
I have been reading 50 shades of Grey recently. I know it is a bad idea when you on No Nut November and I am learning from the mistake: I am not reading it any further. But God, that book can take you to extremes, especially if you are me, a wild dreamer in No Nut November. Every sentence I would finish reminded me of my ex. I wanted to go back to her. I wanted her. I craved her. All the memories came crushing down. And I called her.
I called her once. She didn’t pick up. I stopped myself from calling again…for a while. I called her again. I thought she was busy. I called her again. She didn’t pick up. I texted her then. She didn’t reply. Then I finally stopped, maybe she was asleep; otherwise, she would have received. If she had picked up the phone, I would have promised the stars and the moon to never leave again. She didn’t. She called in the morning. And she was very happy to talk to me too. And she was quite rational about my state. I had also calmed down and was thinking rationally since my energy level had become stable. We talked and laughed for a while. I told her about openly about yesterday how I was feeling, she found it quite cute and shared she had been missing too these days. Oh, we aren’t backing, it was just a call.
What astounds me the most was that the book made me feel so much! I had been doing good, I was accepting myself, my current state; and then the book comes along, fucks me from inside. How influential are words!
I have always deliberately avoided Romance because I never wanted to become a Bollywood Lover, that’s why I watch Porn, I wanna be the Hollywood Lover. We become what we watch and read. Words, or Art in general, if crafted properly can have a deep impact on a person’s belief system. And now compare my triggered emotional state by a book to people who have been brainwashing others with ideologies and doctrines for years in the name of Fear or Liberation. The more I think about it, the more I feel sad, not angry, for people who are conservative, or orthodox. And then there are modern-people with movements calling the orthodox-belief a ‘malice’ and referring people who hold them as ‘enemies of society’.
My mother is a super-religion-geek. If Religion is a nerd-society, my mother is either Mitchell Moffit or Gregory Brown. She thinks a woman in her periods has negative energy and she shouldn’t be allowed to touch men or women until five days. We have debated about this for a while Before I always used to end up making her sad or angry, but her belief never weakened but she just found different incidents that she would tell me to prove I was wrong. Not just this thing, but I used to debate about a lot of other superstitions that she holds. But then I realized, I had been wrong from the beginning, not that her beliefs are right or morally good, but who was I to correct her? She had been hardwired in believing this from the beginning of her childhood. Her entire YouTube Recommendation is filled with Gurus and Prabachan-geeks. She watches nothing except Shani Dev, or other Dharmaaatma-Series. How I can a dude, who has like lived for 21 years ,comes along and say: Mum you were wrong all along, Your religion is fucked.
Now this doesn’t mean we should never argue. We still talk about these superstitions. These days I try to relate with the reason why she holds her belief. I understand her. I try to give her my perspective in such a way that justifies her reason to hold that belief and yet consider my perspective too. Like about the Chhaupadi system, I told her: Back in the days women didn’t have all the sanitary pads and all, and having them in temples or kitchen where sanitation is utmost, might be disgraceful, that’s why there were considered impure, but as we are human we stretch every rule or goal instead of ameliorating it over time, the rule got worse. She didn’t actually agreed but she was happy to take my perspective too. After sometimes, she started sharing her memories about her experiences and how she wanted more attention and didn’t get, wished this rule was never there. But of course, she isn’t changing her belief about this. But I was proud that I was able to give her another perspective to look at it. And that is all you need for a change: a strong trigger.
Change is gradual. A person sees a movement happening in the social media. And there is a outrage of emotional posts coming for a month. ‘We need a change, We need to eliminate all our enemies, they are our enemies’. Like who the fuck do you think you are fighting — that’s what I am thinking all the time. If you were to look closely, the person on the other side is you too because that’s how he sees you too: a threat to society. If there is one thing we can do now is to empathizes other people. Stop seeing others at threat, don’t even take them as possession to achieve.
I get pain in the ass with the amount of bullshit that goes around: “Ten Tips that would make others like you” If we are all investing in becoming more likable, who is going to like us? Have you ever even considered that thought? After all, we are all complex beings. We all have egos and identities that we preserve; love and admiration that we crave. WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?