Live-in Monsters in India and the Institution of Marriage!

It's out of piercing anguish and pain that makes me write these lines. The fundamental fact of life is that it has always been imperfect. Nothing about human beings and their society is perfect. Perfection always remains a dream, perhaps the way God desires.

The institution of marriage was born and evolved out of sheer necessity. And, since a long time back this system had been marked as one of the most imperfect or even regressive ones. There were love marriages or arranged marriages, but it got proved again and again that there was no guarantee of happiness in either. Divorce thus has become the order of the day in almost all countries and with it women's liberty has been the thundering clarion call. Nothing wrong in that, absolutely.

But, what have we got as a result? Mangled and chopped bodies of women in all corners of our country? Yes, you can put in immediately a reference about the horrible dowry deaths, the honor killings, subjugation of the fairer sex within the four walls and the numbing atrocities committed in the streets, in cars and so on. Well, I must clarify that I'm not in support of any system created by the flesh and blood of humans.

However, the institution of marriage still has some advantages: marriages happen mostly between known families with their social status also known; things are always sorted out, allowing the boy and the girl know each other well; and of course, there is always a family support system in case the couple face problems.

But what about the live-in system that apparently grants full freedom to women to choose their partners and which in turn ensures women liberty? Well, how do they choose? From the extremely superficial and dangerous social media platform or from the casual working/drinking/smoking sessions? Okay, let it be, dedicated to the ideal of an equal society. But how do they know each other before deciding on a live-in relationship? Who are there to protect the girls who suddenly discover the monsters within their liberated four walls? Physical inequality is something that has to be accepted by all, and the concerned parents, despite living in a digital egalitarian world, still cry scandal or stigma in case of live-ins concerning their children and insulate themselves against any interaction. So, the girls are left alone to fight the monsters—fights they cannot realistically hope to win.

The emerging situation is in India at the moment thus suffocating and unbearable with the chosen male life-partners cum monsters killing and chopping the bodies of their supposed beloved, storing the parts in fridges or throwing outside and some perverts even roasting or cooking those parts. Again, no perfect solution for all such imperfect systems! The immediate solution that comes to the mind is that of granting a legal recognition to live-ins, although live-in relationships in India at the moment are not illegal either, in terms of at least a provisional registration and a certificate like in the institution of marriage. Or that of a mandatory courtship period in the process of registration? At the same time, the self-assertive girls should apply full caution and doubly ensure safety, identifying the true colors of the persons they're going to live-in with, and their families must not wave their hands in absolute surrender and instead, try to keep up social mixing. Besides, the politicians must desist from making brownie points in sourcing out the faith or caste or religion related identities of the perverted perpetrators, and instead, focus their movements on girl-safety and reducing crimes against women.

Movie Jugjugg Jeeyo: Divorcepanti Could Have Been a More Apt Title!

If you had ever got the idea of perceiving ‘divorce’ as one of the funniest and craziest words or concepts in human conjugal life and then had dismissed the idea as a wild one…well, you were not entirely wrong. For your solace or rather vindication we have here a movie titled Jugjugg Jeeyo(correct Hindi form is ‘Jug Jug Jeeyo’ meaning ‘live long and prosperous,) that reduces ‘divorce’ to the kind you’d perceived, doesn’t matter if you’d done so with experience leaking or not as the movie itself doesn’t bother about that either. Your conviction is further heightened by the fact that the movie is not of the ordinary type, having the iconic Karan Johar as one of the producers and his famous banner ‘Dharma Productions’ to boot. And then, the star-cast is really mouthwatering with the ever popular veterans Anil Kapoor and Neetu Singh along with the immensely talented actors of the younger generation—Varun Dhawan and Kiara Advani in the lead roles—supported well by the ebullient television anchor with a good comic timing, Manish Paul. Perhaps it’s thanks to all such ‘helpful’ factors that the movie has proved to be a hit. However, the ‘divorce’ obsession remains throughout its length of 150 minutes and the storyline has reduced ‘divorce’ to such a funny-crazy-lopsided caricature that, in the glorious traditions of movies like ‘Pagalpanti’ or ‘Heropanti-2’, we’ve declared at the title level that ‘Divorcepanti’ (divorce-ism or divorce antics) could’ve been a more appropriately funny title.

 

The movie did try, however, a refreshing beginning with the indication of a budding school romance between Varun and Kiara who were attached to each other since their school days. But, as in the case of numerous other Bollywood (read Hindi) films, a boringly longish background song took full charge of the proceedings thence, watching them grow up and getting married as anticipated by us, more than the characters involved in the act. To make matters worse, the movie had undergone a further transition of 5 years by which time both Varun and Kiara were in a foreign country, with Varun struggling to earn a living by working in a hotel while Kiara is the topnotch VP material in a top corporation.

 

And things were not at all alright. For reasons unknown to us or the characters, apart from the job-difference between them, the staggering theme of the movie ‘divorce’ has already taken deep roots in their relationship. Again to make matters worse, before we could get a fair idea of the whys, another background song with heavily-loaded uncontrollably emotive sadness took us totally unawares, forcing us to get used to the ‘divorce’ phenomenon. A miserable Varun pleads with his childhood lover-wife to wait till the wedding of his sister get over in India, and then he promises her a divorce.

 

The movie comes back to Johar’s wonderful India; but the divorce syndrome does not leave any of them alone, and to the horrors of the hapless spectators that word or concept even seamlessly penetrates the 35-year-old relationship of Varun’s parents, played by Anil Kapoor and Neetu Singh. We don’t want to say that ‘divorce’ is an unrealistic concept, but as we’ve already made it amply clear we don’t buy the ludicrous proceedings centered on that word or concept. Again, the older couple decides to wait till the wedding of their daughter is over and done with. But not quite!

 

We don’t want to waste your or our time in trying to explain the caricaturing storytelling. The ‘divorce’ gets worsening more and more, even compelling the to-be-married daughter, played by debutante Prajakta Koli, to have re-think on her decision to choose a ‘reliable’ partner on parental advisory than the boyfriend she really loves. The girlfriend of Anil Kapoor, Tisca Chopra really wasted in a senseless role, heartily joins the caricaturing with ominous absurdity while the ‘wronged’ wife Neetu frets and fumes in one scene and breaks out laughing in another to perhaps help the director push the ‘comedy’ forward. There could be a near thousand background songs that never cease to litter the narrative, and heinously well supported by the grotesquely ‘comedy’ background music.

 

All the crazy happenings stop in the end when the males succeed in wooing back their female partners (legit). Therefore, you cannot expect even an iota of feminism in this worthless movie, and it’s all about the domineeringly chauvinistic husbands convincing their partners to not go ahead. Well, for the males ‘woo’ is the buzzword, they need to woo the girls in their prime youth, keep on wooing the wives later while having additional ‘wooing’ too and then when things go wrong for them they ‘woo’ back their life-partners. I write about such horrible waste of public money in these absurd and regressive movies, ‘hits’ or ‘flops’, just because of the reasons listed throughout this piece. And, when I get to watch these free on Prime Video.

Self-Respect And Respecting Others!

We more or less understand the meaning of self-respect which is to keep or show respect to one’s own self. A self-respecting person is one who tends to justify his/her deeds or actions or reactions in the intrinsic belief that s/he cannot possibly do or say wrong things, and if s/he gets insulted by others in the process or is asked to do or comply with ridiculous tasks s/he gets mortally offended. Losing one’s self-respect is often the end of the world for a truly self-respecting individual. This, of course, differs from individual to individual depending on the individual’s perception about it and whether his/her sense of self-respect is genuine or cultivated or vain. To this point we will come at a later context. First, we must try our best to explain the syndrome of self-respect or self-esteem further.

 

How does self-respect come about? We have to be clear about one thing that we cannot possibly create self-respect on our own; supposing we can the questions are at which stage of our personality development have we created this: at birth itself or in school/college days or during working life or during married life? Obviously, we cannot provide the answers. Therefore, we must consider this with a detached analysis.

 

Respecting one’s own self is subject to the basic fact that one knows oneself well. To put it in a personal perspective, I know myself well which is dependent on the attributes of my personality: what is my nature, how I speak or communicate to others, am I honest and frank, my beliefs and convictions, do I look presentable or not and so on. Now, for these attributes to develop in us we need a background or a base, and that base is obviously our society and our upbringing. Our personality develops from these: the environment we are born and brought up in, our traditions and beliefs given by our parents, the education we’ve got in schools and colleges, our level of intelligence and presence of mind, quality of the company we’ve been keeping all the time, nature and stature of our jobs or businesses, and most importantly, how the society and the others behave with us, look at us and treat us in all respects. From all these attributes in me I come to know my personality, and convinced in my ability, I start respecting myself or that I become a self-respecting person.

 

Another factor of paramount importance about the syndrome of self-respect is how we treat the others. It is said that we get respect only when we give respect. So, our inability or unwillingness to respect others is a factor of which we are often not aware at all. It reflects our mental state of being, that is to say, how egoistic or condescending or simply proud we are in our outward dealings and how this impacts our self-respect along with relationships. In reality, there is an inverse relationship between our presumptuousness or imperiousness and our self-respect: the more the former the less gets the latter. We may be truly unaware of this process or we may pretend our ignorance about this. Whatever it is, this process impacts the sense of self-esteem in us, and if we still go on with our peevishness then we start getting similar reactions from others and our self-respect becomes vain and showy.

 

This brings us to the point about having a false sense of self-respect. This is only natural, because we cannot deny anyone of the privilege of having self-esteem, and everyone has a right to it, even a vagabond or a thief or a dreaded criminal or all plain corrupt people. If they still prefer to continue living their lives with vain self-esteem, it’s their call, entirely.

 

For us all normal human beings the key to our self-respect in its truest sense, is to go on respecting all others in every stage of acquaintance in our life in every decent sphere of activity, not only for their jobs/tasks/deeds, but also for their good gestures and behavior. And, as we have mentioned earlier, you must not allow ego or pride come in the way of respecting others. Else, one fine morning you may find one of your closest ones complaining bitterly and disconsolately that you had never really cared for or respected him/her in all your life, which would drive you mercilessly in a spree of introspection as to exactly where you had gone wrong: till you find a clue to it you, as a genuinely self-respecting person, will not be able to live on with self-esteem.

 

The crux is then, mutual respect for a healthy living in the society of fellow human beings with your head held high, never having to stare at the ignominy of losing or probably losing your self-esteem. As a bonus, this would further strengthen your relationships with family, kin, friends, colleagues and all acquaintances at all levels of decent activities of life.

Relationships: Misplaced Priorities…A,B,C, Drivers…Maids And…!

The family, particularly the Indian family, is supposedly the most closely-bound unit in terms of blood relations, in terms of proximity and in terms of unconditional love. In the joint family system, slowly dying even in India, there are tensions concerning the kitchen or concerning wives, husbands, brothers, in-laws and cousins. However, in all cases some people like drivers or domestic helps get into the thick of things. They understand the family moods, they know the underlying conflicts if any, have access to all the secrets and they are always conditioned to swim as per the waters. They are immensely capable of bringing a mere disagreement in the family into a shattering climax and can be a party to damaging relationships, sometimes irreparably. The members of the family in their effort to manage such ‘members’ often succumb to these third-party plays and the misplaced priorities catapult the happy family into an apparently insoluble crisis.  We will take examples describing the major players in a family by the alphabet and making them totally gender neutral to avoid any possible bias to any.

A and B are extremely close in terms of blood relation and friendship. One helps the other on every occasion possible like arranging cars, accommodation, get-togethers and so on. Now C is inseparable with B and by that bond is naturally close to A too. However, the level of priority for A is different as far as C is concerned. As it happened once C visited A’s place alone. A had to provide some facilities due to its closeness to B. C was provided with a car for some of its work assignments. As it happened again, one day C got very disturbed by the way the driver of the car behaved with it. C informed B first and then complained to A. Now A was furious thinking, ‘I gave a car to you, and instead of expressing gratitude you dare complain!’ B understood the case immediately. The driver behaved rather too politely, almost going out of the way, with B once after A provided the car. The intelligent driver understood that if it created problems with B the latter would complain to A and A like all other members of the family would believe B only. Now, in C’s case nobody believed it, particularly E who was extremely close to both A and B, all taking side of the driver fully. C was inconsolable lamenting the fact that despite being a member of the family it got no support from anyone and instead, all got angry with it creating a ruckus. Neurotic rants rent the air and continued creating a new low in the relationship matrix.

Once upon a time B and C visited E. As has been proved over the years C and E do not see eye to eye. They could never gel despite being members of the same family. On this visit too minor scuffles continued between C and E on petty domestic issues. Now, there was a concern for B. It was informed by A that E had developed a worrisome health condition. B took it to heart rather too seriously, maybe because of its bond with E. B was determined not to give E any kind of tension during their stay.

The minor scuffles continued and on two occasions B found E crying and complaining. Not to take further risks, B advised E to go to F’s home, another member of the family. However, E did not take the advice and B could not speak to C about all these due to work pressure of several assignments and B’s growing irritation with the state of things and the weather too. One day, finally having some time, B entered C’s room, closed the door and started a dialogue to try sort out things. But suddenly E threw the door open and baring its teeth started attacking C with most filthy language. Getting disconcerted and surprised B somehow managed to take E out of the room and almost ordered it to go to F’s place immediately. Later B came to know how the spark was provided for the shattering climax. C made a casual remark out of exasperation about the goings-on in the house to the domestic help. Feeling the simmering tension over the days the smart help put some colors to that remark and presented it to E finding it alone and sitting aloof one day at home. Misplaced priorities once again led to putting trust on a domestic help and distrust on a member of the family. The damage was already done.

Relationships are as brittle as they are beautiful. One should always try to nourish and protect them. Ensure peace, tranquility and everlasting love in your family.