Tears Of Pearl

Funny how life is. You keep running from something but once it is gone from your life, you want it back, if only to start running again. The dance never ends. You break up from a non-working relationship but end up with the same person again. Breaking up again, you soon run back to the same person. It goes on and on.

Human beings have always loved pain. You always end up doing what know you know will hurt you. As absurd as it may sound, it seems logical if you seriously consider it. Sometimes, life gets too monotonous; you feel you are merely existing, going through this long road without taking in the scenery around you. That is when you want to feel alive. You can either go sky diving (or wherever else your fear lies), go have some hot-kinky-rough sex (which, mind you, is yet another kind of pain) or you can choose an option more handy and available - get hurt.

Be it physical or emotional, the pain serves to remind you that you are not yet dead. It makes you realize that your poor soul still walks the earth.  Maybe, it's for the best to feel the pain - it's for sure better than being an empty shell; a body zombieing through life.

Domination-submission relationships thrive in this masochistic world; one person's urge to be in control satisfies the other's needs to be hurt, to feel the ache. As the Green Day lyrics go, you'll find so many people saying

I love feeling dirty

I love feeling cheap

I love it when you hurt me

So drive them staples deep.

And this is quite a recent number. But check out AC/DC and you'll find some similar tracks there as well. Music, a reflection of the real world, clearly that these sadoistic needs have been there in the society for a while and don't seem to be on the verge of leaving.

The feeling of pain is like achieving a high. Some do it by cutting themselves, a way to escape emotional hurt, to feel an elation from the sight of the deep red blood.

However, there are examples of this in daily life as well. Take, for instance, a runner. Only the first few miles of a run are beneficial to health, the rest is merely to achieve a feeling of euphoria, not unlike the one achieved due to drugs. Soon, the speed, the pain, it all becomes an addiction for him. The same goes for people in so many other fields of life.

Another example, which might not seem too related, is how people love to experience sadness. We watch sad movies, just to be able to feel the pain of the protagonists and be able to cry along with them.

Consider your own life choices. Has there never been a moment when you considered an option even though you know you will end up hurt?

Engulfed in Darkness, a single slash
Made without fear
The flow, the rush
Is like no other pleasure
The dark red colour
Feels so like a treasure
I’m addicted, I’m obsessed
Mere beauty of it so infatuating
I’m fixated, I’m captivated
The fiery surge so intoxicating

The Gods That We Worship

We bow down our heads in front of idols of the numerous deities and worship them with all our heart but are these ‘Gods’ as flawless as they are claimed to be? No, don’t get me wrong. I do not say that they did not do right by fighting forces of evil, or that they are unworthy of being revered. However, they are not as unblemished as you have been made to believe.

Had Lord Rama been this faultless, would he have banished his wife over an overheard conversation in public, when her only crime was getting abducted. During an entire year of captivity, Sita protected her purity, strengthened by her values and by her love.  Rama, too, underwent various hardships for finding his wife – often succumbing to despair but coming back with a renewed hope of being reunited with her.  

After the war, however, Rama states that he had slain Ravana merely to protect his dignity and he could not accept Sita again. The dejected queen then stepped into a pyre and walked out unharmed, giving proof of her purity.

Inspite of passing the Agni Pariksha, sometime later, Rama exiled a pregnant Sita to Rishi Valmiki’s ashram for some of his subjects believed Sita to be unfit due to the long time she spent in clutches of Ravana – where I would remind you, she did not give up, never let the man set a finger on her. Since a king is expected to preserve the moral integrity of his kingdom, Rama banished his love. Is that the place his significant other held in his life? To distrust her again and again?

Take another example – Lord Krishna. Have we not all heard the names Radha-Krishna together? An eternal love story of the Indian mythology but how many of you know that Radha never became Krishna’s wife?

Stories are told of Krishna’s “interactions” with the gopis, which I would go ahead to say, in our language, would be called flirting. Despite these, Radha was a lady dedicated to her lover and what did she get in return? Nothing.

Krishna had a total of 16,108 wives, out of which eight were his princely wives, among which Queen Rukmini is the most well-known. The others wives include Satyabhama, Jambavati, Nagnajiti, Kalindi, Madra, Mitravinda, Bhadra and Rohini. The list of the children Krishna sired with them can easily be availed on the internet.

So, what was his love for Radha? Where did she stand amongst these wives?

All these, I daresay, were examples of amorousness on Krishna’s part. In fact, in the Bhagvad Gita, Krishna explains to Arjun that a woman is merely an object to fulfil a man’s desires. So, is this the respect that our God’s avatar held for women? 

Bowing down in respect is one thing but claiming divinity to be blissfully perfect – that seems to be a mere illusion.  So, dear friend, is the mighty pedestal offered to them justified? I leave that as a question to you.

She's Always A Woman

A woman - sometimes humble, sometimes self-righteous; sometimes quiet, at others vivacious; sometimes meek, sometimes a diva. 

The world was created in a balance. For centuries, this balance was maintained. A woman was protected for she was physically not as strong as a man but at the same time worshipped for her other stronger points. Time, however, took its toll. The feminine was slowly but surely curbed. The mighty hands of man, crushed her into nothingness. She was a mere object.

In fact, when I say a woman is physically not as strong, I do not mean she is weak. No, she is not.  You would be surprised to know that a during a pregnancy, a lady experiences pain equivalent to breaking of all 206 of your bones in one go. Ask a man if he can handle that pain without a complaint, forget about happily bringing it upon himself.

A woman’s greatest strength is her tolerance. For the sake of other’s happiness. She can tolerate the greatest pains, the worst woes. To feed her family, she can go as far as selling herself. To avoid disgrace to family name, she lives through a hurting relationship. To take care of her child, she will get up even in the worst of illnesses.

 A woman’s strength is unsurpassable, her will power unmatched. Let me guide you through a woman’s life.

The first stage – her birth. There exist places in the world where girls do not live to see even one day of their life. Female infanticide, though decreasing, is not yet eradicated.

Growing up, a girl faces numerous problems. The first being the superiority of the male gender. How would you feel were you treated with lesser respect that your sibling, had lesser freedom? You might argue that it’s not the scene today. Maybe not everywhere but there are places where this happens. A girl is not educated just because there is no ‘need’ to do so. While at other places, where women are treated better, there is still an unconscious reaction of families to prefer a son to a daughter.  

Reaching puberty, again she falls into the clutches of nature. How many of men could cope up with losing large amounts of blood every month and dealing with the cramps that accompany it? Yet, the young lady continues her life in the same way each day.

During this time, if you compare, girls in general are found to be better scorers than boys, also handling more activities that a boy could. Even in the professional world, there are men who admit that women are more reliable and business- like than men. Along with that, they handle relationships so efficiently.

Now, we come to the most important part of a woman’s life – motherhood. Career, education, spouse, all are secondary for a woman when it comes to her child. There would be only so many men who could say they can bear a child. Having the embryo growing in oneself, bearing the extra weight that the body cannot get used to, it’s never easy, not to mention the labour pains she undergoes. Raising a child is an even trying task. I admit, there are men who have excelled in this one, we do have extremely capable single fathers, yet I shall not deny that they are much fewer in number if compared to single mothers.

All said, a woman’s greatest strength is her diversity. A woman, she is always full of surprises She may not be afraid to cry and admit she is heartbroken, yet if she wishes, she can act stoic and you won’t even get a hint that she is hurt. She can be a rebel but if she loves someone truly, she shall not deter from following. She can be upset one moment, happy the another.

She can kill with a smile
She can wound with her eyes
She can ruin your faith with her casual lies
And she only reveals what she wants you to see
She hides like a child,
But she's always a woman