“I am your
handiwork made flesh. You took beauty
and created hideousness, and out of this monstrosity your child will be born...
I am the meaning of your deeds. I am the meaning of your so-called love; your
destructive, selfish, wanton love. Your
love looks just like hatred.... I was honest and you turned me into your
lie. This is not me. This is not me. This is you.”
Salman Rushdie’s
character, Boonyi, in Shalimar the Clown,
spits out the above dialogue to her husband Max Ophuls. Relationships have the tremendous power to
wreak such havoc on people.
Relationships can be devastating.
Relationships
can be beautiful too. It depends on the
people involved, their attitudes and motives.
Relationships
are quite like chemical reactions. The
elements can enter into strong and beautiful bonds creating admirably different
compounds. But unlike in chemical
compounds, the individuals should be able to retain their own unique
personalities in human relationships. In
a good relationship, the individuals grow and help each other grow.
The primary
ingredient in a sound relationship is mutual understanding and acceptance of
the otherness of the other. When I
understand that the other person is such and such and I am also able to accept
those traits, I enter into a beautiful relationship – provided the other person
reciprocates with similar understanding and acceptance.
That’s not
easy, however. Most people are not much
different from Rushdie’s Max Ophuls. In varying degrees. They like to impose
themselves on the other. And go on to
create lies out of honesty. Re-create
the other in one’s own image or after one’s own ideal about the spouse or
friend. Since people are not insensate
clay to be moulded by a craftsman or craftswoman, such attempts at re-creating
are doomed to end in disaster. The other
individual ends up as a living lie, an
impostor, a fragmented personality, a victim, unless she/he ends the
relationship and walks away to rediscover her-/himself.
I have had
quite a few friends who insisted on reshaping me because they thought that my
soul stood in terrible need of redemption.
Some thought that I had to be tamed if not reformed altogether. Some had ulterior motives like breaking me in
order to please the boss who would award him a promotion as a reward.
I have never
understood why I attracted so many such ‘friends’ and may never. So much so that I have embraced virtual
solitude. But I know that relationships
have their beauty in human life. Relationships
can enrich. I have had at least a couple
of such experiences too. Not everything has
been dark. Some light is good. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here as a writer – I mean,
blogger. But I do wish I had met different
people on the way.
Solitude gives an opportunity to build a beautiful relationship.. often neglected... It is with oneself.
ReplyDeleteThat's true. Solitude is making me saner at least :)
DeleteI agree wholly with Durga's point - often to be appreciated, we tend to become what we are not. Other times, due to criticism, we become what we are not. We have multiple selves in front of other people. Sometimes, we are deluded in our own eyes too. Solitude lets us reach our inner selves.
ReplyDeleteSartre was right: hell is other people.
DeleteNicely written and good to know about your experience...it helps always.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Jyotirmoy.
DeleteAcceptance is very important in relationship, good to know that you were always on positive side of it :)
ReplyDeleteI was a slow learner in this. But most people around me usually seemed eager to teach others 😀
DeleteEverything has its ups and downs...even relationships, as you rightly pointed out. However, never suffer too much in the wrong hands.
ReplyDeleteLife would be meaningless if it goes just in one direction!
Sometimes one is rendered impotent by the overwhelming might of one's'benefactors'!
Delete