Sheila Ka Jawani

Being stupid has its merits.

Knowing that you are stupid and yet doing what you do fully realizing its consequences is the epitome of stupidity. I stand completely guilty of it.

In my defense, I can only state that the choices I have had did not make it easy. It meant to chose me over others. The choice hence was in some ways, I guess, pretty predictable. It helps that my nature prevents me from dwelling on things or worry about consequences. Whatever time throws at us, we tend to have to deal with it. Not in a fatalistic , depressing kind of way, though that too is ok I guess, if that works for you.

It doesnt work for me.

You see, I have given a lot of attention to this nature of mine. I am beginning to realize that its a result, not something inherent. The distance that I carry is perhaps due to my vulnerability. Perhaps that is why I don't get too close. I allow space. For me, having no expectation from people I care about is the best I can do for them. But I must affect, nevertheless, despite my best intention.

Such is life. A intricate complex connections each affecting the other and setting off a chain of reactions, causes and such. Everything is connected. Like the matrix.

Anyhow

Was talking to wife yesterday. She is doer unlike me who is all fart and no shit.

She is an active catalyst for movements that has seen the initiative of random required acts of compassion for those in need. It is something she feels strongly about and actively immerses herself into. What can I say? She's pretty fantastic.

Of course there are days, I can almost strangle her but I do have to admit that shes pretty neat.

Currently I am in the dog house, since I am in exile in the Sand City while shes stuck with the brats in India. She feels I did this on purpose, leaving her alone to fend for herself. I guess more than anything, she feels the helplessness, since this is not what she signed up for. In the midst of looking after the kids, taking them, even during her weekends, for the various classes like gymnastic, drama , dance etc , she has no one to look after her. That was my job. She, I know, is not happy.

And, there is nothing I can do about it.

Maybe there is . But that is a choice I cannot make. So I guess she is right. I didn't choose her. I chose what I felt was the right thing to do. I chose me.

So I am kinda fucked.

When all this is over and I go home, I hope I have a home left.

Life is funny in the way that everything gets repeated. I too, like my parents, will miss my children's child hood. I will probably win the battle but lose the war.

Anyhow.

Back to our conversation. She mentioned that she had met with this guy who is running a clothing store, hiring and rehabilitating abused women. She was speaking to me about the objectification of women that is the root of all the violence, abuses, molestation, segregation, exploitation of women.

She is kinda right.

The objectification of women. Seeing a woman as as sum of her body parts. This tendency, this conditioned response, fertilized and given acceptance through media, songs, movies, books , in fact every visible expression, reduces a gender to an object. The solution is to be able to see a woman as she really is. A person beyond the roles that is assigned or nature has bestowed upon her.

Question is how do you do that?

Empathy is a misunderstood word. You cannot truly empathize with anyone. You just cannot get into the shoe of another. You can , based on your own experience, imagine the other's condition but it still will not evoke the profoundness of another's experiences as your own. You can imagine it but you will never know it. We are built that way.

Even when we say that her touch is soft , the touch you felt as hers is the response of your skin to nerves to brain stimuli. It is still you interpreting pressure. Every perception is internal. In reality we do not even know what a rose actually looks like, since if we could see it without the limitation of the spectrum of visible light we can see, I wonder what the rose would look like. Even the psychedelic aura like spectrum that we see as ultraviolet rays or spectrum beyond our visibility are again just interpretation of it to our visible spectrum. We really cant see it.

Hearing, Taste, Smell every senses that assists in experiencing and perceiving the world around us, is limited to a fixed position. We function within that limitation. Considering that genetically our DNA is the same with all living beings on this planet, only sequentially different, the potential or the possibilities are probably within us.

Where am I going with this?

You see, objectification is a human interpretation.It started with language.If you look out of the window, you will probably see the sky, the trees, the birds, the buildings , the people etc. All those are words, sounds, to identify something, so that it can be communicated. It has a purpose but the word does not define the object. The word in fact by defining it also limits it.

For example, the word infinity defines something our perception cannot comprehend. By naming it, we believe we understand it. Conceptually we do, but perceptionally ? Zilch. Nada.

If we could actually 'see' a tree. Really see it . Without conditioning or defining or the limitation of our spectrum of visibility or anything...

everything drops...

In order to see, we become it.

Not in some spiritual , psychobabble way, but that is logically the only way you can see anything.

Back to objectification of women.

It will continue. Reality is that, we are guilty of objectifying both the genders. It is not in the mindset this problem arose, but in the social order of things we created. We assigned roles. We pegged people. We subjugated,exploited, twisted truths to justify our ends. We made something as natural as birth into a privilege or a curse based on its gender, due to the society its going to be born into.

The solution is to even the odds.

Technology has ensured that today, man and woman can play equal roles in the society. No longer is strength a deal breaker. No longer is women confined to the role of a wife and a mother. You take away technology and the so called progressive mindset that we think we have will drop. The natural way of being is functional. Its purpose was survival and procreation.

Everything that we demand now is new ground.

Sexuality is part of our being. We are programmed to be attracted to each other. Denying that will only lead to another form of repression. Censuring, oppressing, banning , acceptance of only politically correct opinions...all will just drive it under but never address the issue. Let objectification remain or not remain . It was never the problem.

The society that prevented equality for all beings that represented it is the problem.

Equal rights. Equal status. Equal representation.

None above, none below.