PLEASE NOTE
The content below is copyrighted to me. I write about things that people only think about but are too afraid to accept, leave alone confront. Some of the topics might violate the conventional mindsets considering that people assume they are 'free in mind' but are merely a chip of the same conventional block. Do embark on soaking in the content below if you have an open mind (literally) and no weak heart. If on both those conditions you find you are in the negative, then I would suggest you refrain from dipping in my thoughts and its processes and go find yourself some candy from la la land to indulge yourself with.
ASS err ARSE
The mass media is humming with enough and more material for a while now that advocates that the frequent usage of profanity is not only good for the health, but also a telling sign of soaring creativity, intelligence and what not.
Profanity might have its advantages, I am nobody to
dispute that, but when crude and offensive words are used liberally for abuse,
they tend to become a habit, and the habit tends to become a normal functioning
of your nature and consequently a fragment of your day-to-day culture.
We live in an era where to refer to the penis as a
cock and the vagina as the cunt is not considered offensive. Describing your
elders as dumb fucks, or addressing somebody who has blundered as a bastard or
a bitch is common custom. We are at liberty to express our anguish or anger,
but there is decorum for that as well. Simply because the world considers that dung
is gold, it certainly does not make dung gold. Likewise, employing profanity in
the written or verbal medium is rather an indication of poor rearing and
pathetic self-conditioning.
The people who use cocks and cunts might think it ‘cool’
to swear at a drop of a hat, and by all means they are free to think of
themselves as such, but the cool ones must be rest assured that the
thoroughbred would distance themselves from them simply because one becomes, in
time, a reflection of those one surrounds oneself with.
On second thought, those vulgar in disposition would
not ‘give a rats ass’ while we would shut our eyes and mouth silently, ‘God, when will they get it? When!’ And that is when it precisely dawns on us that
much as we want to bridge it, there lives a glaring gulf, and to be concerned about
the polite is not quite coded into the DNA of the vulgar like grace is hardcoded into every
ounce of our blood even under the most trying situations.
It is imperative to preserve our values regardless of
the transitory and dreadful drift of the world. Let those who think of you as
old-fashioned or an oddball, think of you like that, you stay steadfast and do
not dip in your endeavour to be an original. Always respect what you have been
taught. Do not sway with the fickle. Do not erode your manners for those who do
not quite know who they actually are.
LARGELY INNOCENT
Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should’ve behaved better.
~ ANNE LAMOTT
Bigotry is the best friend of ignorance. They quite go hand in hand I observe. To slay human beings has become such common custom that nearly everyone is rather desensitised to death, or the very idea of it.
Last night I was speaking
with a psychologist friend on the recent killing of the people at the gay club
in Orlando, when my father, who was nearby and clearly eavesdropping, dived
into the conversation and mumbled that they deserved to die. I was well aware
of the exact drift of his abhorrence when he referred to them as ‘they’, but I
wanted to hear it from the horse’s mouth and thus I asked my father who ‘they’
were. “The homosexual men,” he said without an iota of hesitation, “they are
sinning by engaging in unnatural and unlawful acts,” he paused and continued
with further emphasis, “and they deserved their death.”
I was appalled at my
father’s inhumane declaration. I wondered that people who were well bred, had
graduated from premier institutions of the world, coexisted with the exclusive
members of the society, as it was their natural prerogative, their circle given
to them by virtue of their birth, harboured within their chests such constricted
thoughts.
I do agree that the
older generation is largely ignorant, more so because of the warped sense of basics
inculcated in them by their ever more ignorant elders, but once an individual imbibes
what is happening in their surroundings and obtains the sensibility to discern
right from wrong, the individual simply cannot view the world in black and
white now, can one? I knew that I was in no position to sermon my father on
this matter, but I would urge the people reading this to be a bit more
sensitive, I mean, the least such people must do is rewire their mental
prejudices and refrain from expressing themselves like a pillock would express.
On hindsight, this is not
the first time that my father’s idiocy had stunned me. For the longest time in
my life, I deprived myself of closeness with any male for the very purpose that
my father had drummed into me that two males together, unless they were related
by blood, were guaranteed to develop homosexual feelings for each other. I was
too young back then to understand or resist the repercussions of such bunkum,
and would quite look at those who were in love of the same sex as oddly
bizarre. I remember even saying certain hurtful things about such people, which
I had regretted in all earnestness. If the atonement of apologising of being a
bigot was not distressing enough, my father, had further embedded such a profound
phobia in me regarding men that he would not allow my male friends to stay home
beyond a certain time: seven in the evening was the last. I was not permitted
to invite my male friends into my bedroom. “Their place is only limited to the
drawing room!” he would make clear, “The bedroom is reserved only for your
wife.” It was normal for him to grimace and admonish me for having them over. A
sleepover, well, even suggesting it or seeking permission for it was like I had
committed murder. If you think that that was unreasonable behaviour brace
yourself for more because he thought that sleeping next to a man, like how
friends would harmlessly do when travelling, or when nestled in a packed
automobile, would cause one to develop homosexual tendencies due to the proximity
of skin stroking skin. If that was not traumatic, he abhorred any of my female
friends visiting home as well. His favourite adage – “A woman was only a sister
and mother”. One fine day I was so satiated with his empty disapprovals that I
asked him that if all women were one’s sisters and mothers as he claimed,
whether it was not incest that he had me with my mother. Even today those unsound
philosophies have left me rather rigid about such an outing that I find myself feeling
awkward, as if I am encroaching on people and their time, and I begin to be
struck with a restlessness past the timeline of seven in the evening.
Arvind Thimaya, a young
friend whom I was enormously fond of was the first to dismiss the draining
demons from my mind. I distinctly recall that evening. He was relocating to America.
At first I was miserable that he was leaving; we used to spend a fair extent of
time together, and I knew I would be missing a large part of my life without
him around. Once recovered from the forlornness, I stopped by his house in the
morning of the same night that he was supposed to depart to America. We
exchanged pleasantries with heavy hearts and then he gave me a hug and kissed
me on my cheeks, telling me at the same time how much he loved me. It struck me
as odd, this open display of affection from a human of my gender, and yet, I
had not rebuffed him like I would have somebody else who had tried coming that
closer to me. “I know what you are thinking,” he said with a smile and
indicated with his right hand that I sit next to him. When I did sit, he made
me understand that something was amiss in the manner with which I pushed
friends away quite literally with my hands when they offered me a normal bear
hug that men were so used to greeting each other with. He then made me
understand that there was nothing wrong in loving a man so long as we were not ‘in’
love with men. I felt myself a liberated man that morning.
His words played on my
mind, and coming to think of it, I realised that my father has never even
patted me as a token of affection. He has seldom whished me on my birthday or
been the role model that all son’s look up to in their fathers.
I also felt that perhaps
if those around him were sensitive enough back then, they ought to have
subjected him to some psychological help in order to let go of his demons. Now the
time is far spent, and I personally do not care what he or anyone else for that
matter thinks.
In Earnestness
Being a healthy heterosexual
despite the mental badgering and the absence of a father figure, it becomes a moral
duty on my part to support those who are not of my orientation since is not a
matter of blasphemy as it was for my father. I am happy to be there for my LGBT
friends. I am happy to love and be loved by a man. Thankfully, I have detached
myself from the lingering stigma of thoughts that people like my father, and other
people like him embrace.
We ought to be free. We
ought not to get carried away in the hatred and nonsense of people who have no
mind of their own even if they are your own parents’ or anybody else who are
close to you. At times such situations prove to be tricky, especially if you
are not as strong as me, but no matter what your range of emotional
intelligence, we ought to assimilate the valour to pronounce a spade as a spade.
In the circumstance where you do not subscribe to the ideologies of the
ignorant or the obstinate who choose not to see despite possessing the acumen
to see, then quietly drift away from such discussions. And if such senseless
individuals persistently try and enforce their dogmas on you, then politely change
the subject or refrain from offering any opinions because it is irresolvable to
debate with fools and make them see reason since they are wired such that they
have no room for any reason.
In the end remember
what Tolstoy said, “Everyone thinks of changing
the world, but no one thinks of changing
himself.”