Forgive. Never Forget.

They say erring is human, forgiving is divine. Apologies for starting with such a trite quotation but please receive it in all the scathing sarcasm it has been written with. Lately the newspapers have been going on and on in a similar vein; when they get down to specifics it has unfailingly been about women forgiving their philandering husbands. I really do not think Mrs. Woods has forgiven her husband yet. She is simply devising imaginative ways of making him pay. The public apology, for instance. And rehab. What could be more humiliating? I have a feeling she knows and so will we, in good time. Hillary Clinton. She stayed with her Joey-of-a-husband. Does that mean she has forgiven him? Nope, not if her public behaviour is anything to go by. More power to them, I say. It is simplistic to believe that just because there is no divorce, forgiveness has been had and peace reigns. Money, power and a certain sense of stability have helped women go beyond their husbands' sluttiness.
But never mind that, for I have an issue with the whole business of forgiving and forgetting itself. The art of forgiving is bestowed with so much wonder and awe and sheathed in so much moral righteousness that it makes me balk. Everyone seems to assume, at least everyone in popular media, that forgiving means you carry on with that same philandering spouse, backstabbing friend, abusive partner.
Kidding me? Since when was it necessary to do that? Perhaps I am incredibly cynical, but I can only understand that when circumstances involve money and power. I have seen women turn partially, if not fully, blind when there's a fancy lifestyle involved. I have rarely heard or read of men forgiving their cheating wives and even if they do, the articles are never written in the same reverential tone as when speaking of a woman forgiving her husband. Blah Blah, double standards, blah blah. But honestly, to continue in the same strain as before with the person who humiliated you, gave not a fig for your well-being, showed you such utter disrespect, means you either have a huge financial stake in the relationship or have obligations in the form of children. If you say it's your emotional stake in the relationship that keeps you from picking yourself up, do yourself a favour and recognise a low self-esteem when its staring you in the face. Can you stay happy and at peace with a cheating spouse, a partner who denies you to the world or a back-stabbing friend?
Articles written on forgiving leads me to believe that its basic nature is misunderstood by most. You never forgive for the other person; you forgive only for yourself. You forgive to let out poisonous hatred, to purge yourself of self-pity, to be able to move on and not carry the baggage into a new bond you hope to build with another spouse/partner/friend. You forgive for yourself. It is possible, it is remarkable when achieved, and that's the time when you can even be friends with the person who betrayed you. Can you forget? Impossible isn't it? The betrayal might not be on your mind 24/7, but can you wipe its very last vestiges from your memory? Can you create a blank pocket there? Not in the least. I have made long strides in the path to forgiveness and with my parents, I have been beautifully successful. Of course, they have also made up for various traumas inflicted upon me, intentionally and unintentionally, in many ways, from direct apologies to unflinching support for whatever dream I have wished to pursue. Today, we love each other better than we used to, simply because we have given each other space in which we could grow to have an adult understanding of each others' personalities. In other words, I've grown out of viewing my parents as just my parents and my parents have grown out of seeing me as an extension of them. Most significantly, this happened because we have lived apart for over seven years. I mean that in all sincerity without a trace of sarcasm, or even irony.
So can that necessary space grow if you are carrying on with that same person who caused you so much grief and humiliation? I am a total believer in forgiving, but not in forgetting. In my experience, whenever I have forgotten, I have been hurt all over again. Words are not to be believed, action is to be experienced. I have reached the conclusion, the old-fashioned hard way, that no good ever comes from staying with someone who vows “you are my world” but still needs a fix elsewhere. No good every comes from staying with someone whom you have bared your soul to but tramps all over your self-esteem in the slyest ways possible just to keep you under his/her thumb. No good ever comes from being treated like a complete nobody in front of people by someone who claims “you are everything to me” and “who are they to know anything about our special bond”.
Do yourself a favour and ask them to Fuck themselves. Learn to recognise their sly, insidious attempts at emotionally blackmailing you and doing their darndest to keep you exactly where you are – grovelling, pleading for better things to come, being available to them whenever it suits them, and pointing out the trifles they give you as signs that they do indeed love you. They have sly ways of keeping your self-esteem where it is – at a low point – so that you are ever-dependent on them.
Must you forgive? Of course. In order to move on and find something better, more wholesome and more equal. As for forgetting, memories can be mitigated, certainly. But the asshole who doesn't even acknowledge that he/she has done you a wrong and that making amends is necessary … that is one memory I would never mitigate. I would hold that person up as a lesson to myself.

Rose-Tinted Glasses

The funny thing about rose-tinted glasses is that we love them. We love to see the world from our naive perspectives. Whatever makes us happy, whatever makes us smile, laugh, feel safe, feel loved.
Once we settle in, we love staying put. If something unpalatable pops up, we close our eyes to it, bury it. When we cannot, we make excuses and tell ourselves it's there for a good reason. Once in a while the thing that pops up topples us over from our ivory towers and we look up, dazed, confused, but determined to climb back up. We do it. Then again. Then a third time, a fourth time, a fifth time, an nth time.
Moving on is not something we all like to do, but there comes a time when there's no better option. All the different ways of staying out and still being happy are tried out, but once those rose-tinted glasses come off, there's no putting them back on. Sometimes rose-tinted glasses are all we have, and that, my friend, is the time they must come off. Stomp them to the ground, crush them, grind them up and fling their splinters to the fickle wind. And turn your back lest they fly back.

Let them know it's the last time they blinded you.

to know me

To know me is a long time.
I am both virulent and kind.
Everyone is different at different times.
But knowing what I'm about to get, or dish out
Is trying.
I have tried long and hard to understand myself.
To know me better, to love me better.
To be kind to myself, yet knowing when and how to draw the lines.
I have won kind friends
And some who are with me no matter what.
I can unleash myself on them, with all my quivering emotions
Destroy them.
Yet they still have the strength to stand up after the storm
And embrace me all over again.
It is with such friends I have learned to grow.
And I thank them.

The Hurt Locker

Is it a good thing that The Hurt Locker is totally devoid of a female gaze? My gay male friend says, Yes, because that means you don't necessarily need a man to make a man's film. What kind of a female gaze do you want in a totally guy movie anyway?
Let's see. Aparna Sen had pointed out to a disbelieving me the femininity in Farah Khan's movies. Until then I had seen Farah's movies as unabashedly towing the '70s male-oriented style of movie-making, done so that she could laugh her way to the bank. Hats off to her, but Aparna pointed out how Farah makes fun of the He Man. The man tripping over his own muscles, the helpless bowing down to the woman of his dreams, etc (of course, she admitted she doesn't like Farah's second movie) -- it's subtle, but it's there. The feminine humour is a USP of Farah's films, one that I had thoroughly enjoyed but failed to see in all its subtlety. The Hurt Locker has none of that. In fact, not only is it a movie made out-and-out only for the boys, it has a scathing disregard for 'the others'.
The only protagonists here are American boys. Boys who love to play with bombs, who relish violence, who can't get enough of it and get mind-numbingly bored when at home on furlough. Sure, the danger faced by the American bomb squad is real. But why are the bombs there in the first place? Who's planting them? What is the bigger gameplan here? Kathryn and her fellow Americans don't care. Her protagonist William Chase is a hard-boiled, flippant, brash American soldier much like ex-husband James Cameron's protagonist played by Sam Worthington. His only moment of softness comes in the shape of an Iraqi boy who sells porn and plays soccer, the only Iraqi character who scratches beyond the mute 1D portrayal that dots Bigelow's landscape. The film is unashamedly pro-American to the point that the non-Americans here are less than even stereotypes. The Iraqis are mute unblinking faces at windows, sinister shadows merging into walls or sightless figures waving silently. Considering that the film picked up six Oscars, this criminal blanking out of 'the others' meets with approval across board. Besides the core of this film that turns me against it, the excessive outflow of testosterone put me off.
The Hurt Locker might as well have been made by a man, and I'm far from assured that that's a good thing.

I sit in a cab, leaning against the door/window to get the full blast of the wind in my face on a typically hot, sultry day. Red light. Stop. A familiar bike sidles alongside me and moves up slightly ahead. An exchange of smirks. A nod of the head. The accelerator is pressed. The cab creaks forward just the right amount. The spotlight came on, blinding me. I couldn’t see my beholder’s face. I couldn’t feel my clothes. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t hear anything save the turbulent liquid nearing a boil, I couldn’t move. Light changed. The smirk stayed. The liquid was compressed down to the pit of my being, where it stays, simmering, sputtering, but not boiling over. Never boiling over.

Haa hahaahaahaahaaaahaa!!! Can't help it!!! I rolled over in laughter and nearly died!

Deepika Padukone and Genelia D'Souza -- doing fairness ads!! I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw this. Apparently fairness creams can not only make the sun shine out of your ass but also stupefy the target beholder, ala the witches and wizards of Potter's world. Of course, the piece de resistance came first: Kajol simpering 'Love the skin you're in' as she accepted gawd-knows-how-much moneh to have her skin pasty-fied. That was a shocker, but when Deeps and Genes got in the act t'was a bit much for moi.
Of course, everyone can't afford to pay top dollar. So to be one-up in this game and shoot up the hilarity quotient, peaches-n-cream models were taken on by other companies and the peaches removed from their complexion in the final punch-line. These chicks and dudes look Caucasian and I won't be surprised if they actually are. What is India coming to??? Is this a new touchstone for cynicism, or plain 'n' simple boobtube humour?