Recently read 2 blogs and result - I am also on this Lamhe - The Moments page again.
Kiran's - Break Free, Un-shackle, Disrobe
Rashmi Bansal's - The Naked Truth
Kiran, very well written, all of these points are something which has been in my mind from a long time, and you know what, I keep telling or suggesting my younger brothers, sisters, cousins etc that "its not how the world is, what matters is how you are. Its you who is going to decide what path you have to take, good or bad."
Same like you, even I had pre-concieved notions and they all only broken when I get into Engg Hostel and get to meet/live to all kinds of people.
One more thing to keep in mind is "Nobody is BAD for all, he is obviously good for some or the other". We cannot be just against one and supporting other. Life is about walking all together.
"Smoking" and "Drinking" (Read over-alcohalic) is always bad, but not necessarily the person doing it. yes, we have been told in our childhood so that we doesn't get attracted to the bad habbits. The point is that this is not the right method, but this is the only way we Indian have been doing it and keep doing it still.
The correct way out here is to explain in the childhood about the goods and evils of relavant things and let them give an option to choose.
Writing this I remember "My Name is Khan" scene where the SRK's mother in childhood time, explains him by drawing the 2 similar pictures and ask SRK to choose ond of them, and in real life too, this is gonna work surely.
Coming to second point of "vegeterian:non-vegeterian" debates, I have to say only one thing - its not about good or bad, its about ecological balance, employment, way-of-living, bread-&-butter, sustainence etc etc.
Kiran's last point about "Shame" deserves special applaud. And it again goes back to the same point-1 thing, that we have been following the wrong methods to correct children.
About Rashmi's blog, I am not pointing all the things here, but one thing I have to say there is that every paragraph of her blog poses a question in front of us and forces us to think.
India is really a diverse country, I feel more bad things then any good about it, for exampple the latest includes -
(1) Khap panchayat & Honor killings
(2) Different opinions of religions on smoking and drinking as well as dressing
(3) Various cultures and their customary beliefs
If we count like above, we will just doing whole day and it will still not be over.
I have also been in the US for a short time and it was a good experience, being there living their life. It was a life-time experience. My US collague told me once - "All people come here and capture the scenaries in cameras, and YOU have lived the Life here, captured the American culture which you will take with you".
What I am trying to say here is - Rashmi's blog is very true in all sense, but first of all we need to find the root of why its happening, why we have these beliefs and lets come forward to break it. Loosen ourself.
Many places outside India like US, the best thing is less diversity. One fact - "There are as many similarities in European Countries as we have dis-similarities in Indian states itself". We need to come out of these cultural beliefs and reason ourselves intelligently and logically without hurting the existing "right" facts. And finally we need to follow our heart.
The day you leave any worries aside about what others are thinking, you are gonna live the world fully, that's for sure. But never cross a thin line in whatever you do while following your heart.
Not everything in the world is debatable, any 2 people may express in different ways which may seem like opposite but the same 2 people may be trying to say the same views. I always advocate vegeterianism, but I don't oppose non-vegeterian. If we don't drink, doesn't mean we have to be against it. Also, I feel there is a thin line between nudity and intimacy.
Lastly, we should also respect the opposite opinions, listen to them and find answers to those, if not to the opposite person but may be to ourselves.
6 comments:
@Deepak:,
Great post. Good to see this topic generating a healthy discussion. There are way too many points crammed into this post that I want to comment on.
First, I like your concept that "nobody is bad for all". What you are saying is "good-ness" is relative just as "bad-ness" is. Neither of these is absolute. I agree with that. This is the mindset that we should be bringing children up with. I'm not sure I grasped what you were trying to imply about vegetarianism in that para though.
Regarding your comments about Rashmi's blog - that is exactly how I felt when reading it. Every paragraph makes you think. Evaluate yourself. How do I stand on this matter? Am I following a belief without questioning? As you righlty pointed out - it is this "closed belief system" which will make people kill their own sisters/daughters in order to defend the "honour". Ask any one of them what that honour really means and I'm sure not even one of them will be able to give an answer.
It is great that when you were in US, you tried to adapt to their way of life. This is what I love about travelling and adjusting to other cultures. It opens up your mind and heart to such an extent that you'd never think was possible.
I disagree with your view that less diversity is a good thing. Quite on the contrary, I feel diversity is the best thing to happen to us since it gives us a lot of perspective about other people. What we choose to do about it is our own problem. We can either choose to savour the diversity; or we can choose to be intolerant of others and whenever the debate comes up, we can claim that our own [insert-any-aspect-of-culture-here] is the best. This holds true for language, religion, caste etc etc etc. I have quoted 2 things about this at different times - these are contradicting and it is upto us to choose which one we want.
1) Diversity is the root of all conflict.
2) Diversity makes the Earth beautiful. Savouring it makes life beautiful. (More in this post: Outsider Insider)
Coming to your point about "not everything is debatable" - I see exactly what you are trying to say here. Often we think we are debating but what we are really doing is stating the same thing in different ways!
Regarding the thin line between nudity and intimacy - I do not think that is true. First of all, I think we are not comfortable with our own nudity. I am talking about the case where one is alone; not in company of others. That is the first hurdle that we need to cross. Like I mentioned in my post, we teach kids that "shame shame puppy shame". As a child, I used to have something on even while taking a bath!
The second point is that because of this kind of restricted upbringing, we automatically associate nudity with intimacy or sex. IMO, this is totally undesirable. If one is brought up with the proper concepts of the body, then the person will learn to respect another person's body - even the other gender's. If a child is used to nudity from the beginning, then that child is unlikely to get unduly excited in adolescence and get on the wrong path.
And like both Rashmi and I have mentioned - think of this metaphorically. We discussed this from nudity standpoint since it grabs everyone's attention. Now, apply the same logic to everything in life. Beliefs, customs, debates, difference of opinion. One will definitely feel light and open-minded when you adopt this line of reasoning.
@Kiran
Since, you wrote - "I'm not sure I grasped what you were trying to imply about vegetarianism in that para though."
What I was trying to say there is that vegeterianism and non-vegeterianism is again another non-debatable topic, I am a strict vegeterian, but not against other people eating non-veg.
As you also commented - "I disagree with your view that less diversity is a good thing." and "I feel diversity is the best thing to happen to us since it gives us a lot of perspective about other people."
You are very true and again, you don't have to disagree with me because I also have the same mindset. But at the sametime, when I see people fighting over border-issues, language issues, killing over caste-religion, killed in riots, I feel so bad about it that I chose to go with less diversity.
I also feel that its good for me that I will have so much learning, will have so much perspectives etc etc, but at the cost of what, so many lives. I cannot, so chose the other one. You got here, what I am trying to say, again if you see, I was also feeling what you said (you saw here, we had similar opinions here but expressions were different), but reality made me comment differently.
Now, coming to this one - "Regarding the thin line between nudity and intimacy - I do not think that is true."-
I agree that people might not be comfortable with their own nudity, but that is in presence of others, publicly, but in alone, I would say many people are actually comfortable. A few acts might give you a different opinion, but if you give personal private space to everyone, you will see most of them are comfortable with nudity. We are in a country of 1 billion population, and most of them don't have the previlege of having the personal space and hence how will we get to know the actual facts in India. Majority of the rural population even doesn't have the toilet-bathroom. If we get to survey the people in India who have their own personal space, I am sure most of them will be comfortable with nudity.
Secondly you said that "we automatically associate nudity with intimacy or sex" - this is not exactly correct. I feel, Intimacy or sex is beyond nudity, it is not only a means of creation or just pleasure, it also deals with knowing proper concepts of the body, respecting another person's body same as what you said. May be, I couldn't express what I meant to say, my english not that great :-)
And yes, I agree with you that "If one is brought up with the proper concepts of the body, then the person will learn to respect another person's body - even the other gender's."
Thanks for commenting.
@Deepak:
I think I understand what you meant now. You had mentioned the same thing in your previous comment - that in many cases there is no debate really. 2 people are saying the same thing in different ways. This is what happened when we both commented on the topic of vegetarianism and diversity :)
Coming to the second point - you say that many people are comfortable with nudity when given their personal space. Agreed. But, how many people would admit to it? And if a person does admit it, then what is the reaction? That of shock, right? Especially if it is a female, then the reactions are even more pronounced. Just see the first few comments on Rashmi's post - where people did not react in shock; but they did mention that she might get unfavorable comments since she is a married woman who has disclosed her comfort with her own full self.
Why should that be the case? If everyone knows that everyone else is comfortable with their some concept (be it nudity, or be it something else) then why hide it?
Point I am trying to make is, we are yet chained to some concepts of shame and guilt in this context. Similarly, we know several of our beliefs are baseless and yet we cling on to them under some false pretexts. That is what needs to be eliminated. And it will only happen if people start letting go on a mass scale.
@Kiran:
"But, how many people would admit to it?" How does that matter to you or me or anybody who is doing what one wants to do? That's all.
Also, you did say - "few comments on Rashmi's post - where people did not react in shock; but they did mention that she might get unfavorable comments". Fine, right, she may get, and she is a famous personality, she is bound to get good as well as bad comments. She just has to ignore any evil effects of those comments, and use her conscience to get/learn any good from all the comments. As she is a married woman, so what matters is what her partner understands, that's all.
If you try to think more openly and broadly, you see my profile, it says - "Indian by Religion", Had I been a famous personality, just these 3 words would have created a furore by all the kinds of extremists. We all are different kinds of humans, even the open-mindness or broad-mindness is a superset of lot many sets and various open-minded people belong to such sets. Its possible that for me something which is completely yes-yes can be completely no-no for you.
@Deepak:
In response to my question about how many people who are comfortable with their own nudity would admit to it, you said "How does it matter?" It matters - because, again remember we are not only talking about nudity here. We are talking about broad-minded opinions.
A person should have it in him/her to admit that he/she doesn't conform to the traditional stifling beliefs. A person should stand up and tell that No - I dont believe in tearing my country to a thousand pieces just because of some minor and meaningless differences. What good is it if a person privately believes that all this in-fighting is bad, but doesn't express this opinion in public or doesn't act upon it?
So, a person should first admit to himself/herself; and then to other like-minded individuals/groups about how they want to shatter the wrong concepts they held till now. That is the first step towards reform.
@kiran:
"How does it matter?"
I meant that it does matter only to one's near and dear ones. If one's significant half understands it, one's best friend (be it husband/wife, close friend, parents etc) understands, its just a matter of time to flow it to the whole world.
Moreover, I meant that whatever is the reaction from unknown peoples, how does that matter to you when you are following what your heart is saying.
Post a Comment