Life theory #2

(For life theory #1, click here.)

Last semester was horrible (this one's worse, but that's a story for another time). There was shitloads of work, and the end semester exams were absolute disasters. So to get over the calamity that had been the past six months, me and S decided to do our (by now almost customary) end-semester shenanigans involving contraband, the night after the last exam. We got a nice big fat one rolled and were generally content with ourselves. Unfortunately, the exams had taken a toll on S and she fell asleep. I could not, of course, let a good thing go to waste. So after a few futile attempts to wake her up, I had to pick another partner in crime. Now G does not involve herself in shenanigans of this kind. But she is a nice enough friend to give me company when I do. So we sat out on the terrace while the stick at the end of my mouth burned out. At some point, the conversation tuned to something like this:

Me: X has a very pretty face.
G: Indeed.
Me: And very nice hair.
G: Hm.
Me: That's not really fair.
G: Say what?
Me: I mean, she doesn't deserve it. If I had my way, I'd like to live in a world where people only get what they deserve. And what they deserve should be based on how intelligent they are. And X is not intelligent. She is, in fact, the complete opposite of that. And by intelligent, I don't mean book smart.
G: Hold up. So you're proposing a world where only smart people are good looking?!
Me: Yes, that's how it should be! Attractive people get what they want. That should not happen if they are dumb. Dumb people do not deserve to look good, that's not right. In my ideal world, attractiveness would only be bestowed upon those truly deserving of it, and those truly deserving of it would only be those who are intelligent.

I remember G laughing a lot, so I gather it would've been a funnier conversation than I can presently recall. That might also be because a lot of it hinged on me using X as an example, and G happens to think that my disdain for X is rather comical.

Now I realize this is a very flawed model. Although I think that for a person not fully in her senses, I did rather well. Its inherent failings however were pointed out to me by a couple of friends much later. A world like that would mean a certain section of population hogging all the resources, the resources here being intelligence and good looks. That part which had neither of these would be left to fend for itself in an environment of adversity, to say the least, since they would have neither of those valued resources to progress in life with.

But the fact that I came up with such a world, and in fact was ardently passionate about its desirability, gave me pause. I've thought about it many times since, in varying states of sobriety. And I've come to realize that I perhaps value intelligence above all else, sometimes too much. Much more so than other people do. After all, the first book I ever saw my Dad read was Edward de Bono's Six Thinking Hats.

A friend recently told me about a phenomenon called sapiosexuality. It had instinctive appeal for me. I can't recall a single instance in my life when I've been attracted to someone purely based on their looks. They have to at least start talking for my mind to assess their appeal. Only when I have some basic impression of their overall level of intelligence can I mentally process any sort of inquiry about their desirability.
MS Word lists "good-looking", "nice-looking", "beautiful", "gorgeous", "striking", "eye-catching", "smart" and "pretty" as synonyms for "attractive". Only one out of those eight relate to the mind, and that itself is debatable. To me, it's extremely unfortunate that societal constructs today make it impossible to divorce something as subjective as attraction from pure physical appearance. But while that may be so, it's not enviable to possess an inherent condescension of people who're not all that smart. For instance, I'm almost physically incapable of carrying on any form of prolonged conversation with people below a certain level of intelligence. It's agonizing to make that effort. It deeply saddens me when I make a witty joke and certain people don't understand it, but as a consequence, I immediately start looking down on those people.

There are many qualities one can possess which make them a "good person", or someone others tend to like. Kindness, helpfulness, generosity, love. The weird thing is, I can forgive the absence of all of them, as long as someone is intelligent. I have no qualms being close friends with a person who doesn't donate to charity or feel for the poor, or even someone who steals an occasional twenty rupee note from my wallet, as long as I can make intelligent conversation with them. This raising of the quality of the human brain to a pedestal worthy almost of worship, even at the cost of, and much above, other values which may be more significant or important, is unhealthy to say the least.

I realize that all this ranting sounds rather presumptuous, especially because of the inherent assumption that I myself possess very high intelligence. While I wouldn't say that that's necessarily true, I do believe I'm smarter than the average 20 year old Indian girl. And I'm open to the possibility that that is mere illusion. Unfortunately, this belief had long ago transcended from an objective, empirical fact about myself open to challenge, to an internalized thought stubbornly etched in my mind. It's like marriage, you suspect that there's something wrong with that construct but it's close to impossible to overturn deeply ingrained beliefs that society holds about it.

In other news, Game of Thrones Season 3 starts on Sunday! Life will regain a smidgenny modicum of the excitement that it used to have, before Seervai, Baxi and Nariman readings took over. And it will be awesome.

Top 5 Things My Brother's Wedding Taught Me

#5 That, surprise surprise, I am capable of looking pretty.

#4 That weddings are fun! I'm already looking forward to the next family wedding. (July, come faster! :D)

#3 That those who find love are truly blessed.

#2 That no matter how much you hate, despise, abhor, absolutely loathe your family in certain moments, at the end of the day, they'll be the only ones sticking by and saying it's alright even if you got a little drunker than expected at your brother's Sangeet. It's important to love them back. You may not be able to control the house you were born in, but because you were, you CAN control the amount the others who live in that very house dance at weddings :)

And last, but most definitely not the least:
#1 That someday, this will happen to me as well. And maybe, just maybe, that's not so bad. 

It's Time to Break the Silence

My silence, that is. I'm not sure if anyone still reads this space anymore, and even if someone does, my opinions can't possibly be a matter of too much significance to them. But I want to do this for me. So even though this is a little belated, for whatever it's worth I'm putting it down in writing.

I first heard the news of the gangrape a few hours after it happened, from a friend. I wasn't angry. I wasn't outraged. I wasn't shocked. I smiled wryly and went on with my life, because you know what? That's India for you. No, not just Delhi, even though it's definitely the worst of the lot. But this is the country we live in. We kill our girl children when they haven't even been born yet, we kill them when they're infants, and if by some stroke of luck they survive, we marry them off early because it's their 'duty' to bear children when they're at their 'reproductive best'. We think it's only natural for husbands to rape their wives because once again, it's womanly 'duty' to provide sex to her husband. We consider it routine, not even worth mentioning, when drunken barely-men pass lewd remarks on women on the road, cop a feel in crowded buses or elevators, stalk or follow girls trying to walk home from work, or "even worse", a pub. And God forbid if anyone ever saw a woman walking with, let alone hugging or kissing a male friend. She had it coming then, she really did.
And if women are not safe on the streets, they're not safe in their homes either. Uncles stare, house guests ogle, and unless you happen to be one of the lucky ones, some day a man from your family, who you've been taught to trust ("because beta, family surpasses everything"), will come into your bedroom, sit on your bed and give you that sick feeling in your stomach. And in the next half hour, things you're not even old enough to understand will happen. Sometimes I'm just glad I live in a house where I know I'm safe, because I certainly don't know it out on the streets, even in broad daylight.

And let's not even get into what we can wear, what we can't, when we can step out of the house and before what time we must be home, who we can go out with, what we can do with them in public, where we can go and the million other restrictions that start with, "beta, I'm saying this for your own good." Do women not have an equal right to go out late at night with their heads held high? Can they not go to pubs without being deemed "loose" and "lacking moral character", while it's okay for men to do the same? Am I asking for rape because I went to watch a movie with my boyfriend? Is it impossible to survive in this country without obeying advice such as "you can't go out late if you haven't fixed up a ride home already. Your brother can though, he's not a girl. But it's not safe for you."? The other day, I caught myself crossing the road after I saw a bunch of young, slightly boisterous-seeming men approaching on the side I was walking on. It was dark and I was alone. I lowered my head and sped up a little bit. And what really bothered me about the whole thing was not that I did it, but that it was a completely subconscious act. THAT's the kind of CONSTANT fear Indian women must, and do, live in.

No, it's not about the law. No, it's not about punishment, or even police enforcement (although let's face it, those things aren't helping either). It's about the mindset. Capital punishment or chemical castration is not the solution. India has some of the strictest laws against rape. Their implementation may be flawed, to say the least, but it's not about that either, which is where I take issue with the people who say the problem is the ineffectiveness of legislation and police action. In India, rape and...associated acts, for want of a more concise phrase, are about establishing your dominance over the woman. Humiliating her, degrading her. It's a power play. Certainly surer and swifter punishment can only better the situation, but these are short-term solutions. Rape and violence against women might decrease because of them, but it'll be due to fear. Not out of any sense of genuine respect for women, which is what's truly lacking in our nation. Women are to BE suppressed. Women are to BE the weaker sex, and if they are not, they are to be made so. How else can one explain people WATCHING, as women get raped?! They make videos on their cellphones! No one calls the police. Men FUCKING WATCH.
That doesn't happen anywhere else.

And the mindset doesn't just manifest itself in such acts. Frankly I've made my peace with the fact that rape and molestation happen every twenty minutes. When you read something or hear of it again and again in the news, it stops shocking you or making an impact. What really bothers me is that if I stay in this country, the one day I get raped, it'll be MY fault. MY fault for wearing a skirt that was two inches above my knees, MY fault for staying in the bar until 11 pm, MY fault for going out with friends who happen to be males. And I'm basically ASKING to get raped if someone sees me drinking or if I happen to approach a random person on the street asking for a light or a cigarette, when I'm wearing JEANS no less! ("How can woman wear jeans?! Do they not want to be 'good traditional wives'? Raam raam!!"). 

I'm not saying rape doesn't happen in other countries. Just not with such fucking frequency, intensity and impunity.

Sometimes I think we're lucky that things like female foeticide and infanticide are so rampant in our country. At least those girls would never have to live in a world like this.

Aaaaand...I'm back.

I just took a look at the date on my last post. The one which actually makes sense and isn't simply random webcomics or lyrics I liked. It was March 28. That makes it about two and a half months since I last wrote.

The past two and a half months have been rather kind to me. Life's good, on the whole. And I'm not complaining. A lot has happened.
April and May were spent working on something rather dreadful, and I'd pretty much lost all hope, not least because I myself sort of lost the motivation to work on it towards the end. But the results were better than anything I could ever have hoped for considering the kind of work I put in. The details are boring and inconsequential. Now I'm faced with the prospect of choosing between two options, both of which seem to be rather good. You see, when one gets a reasonably high rank, one has a multiplicity of choices available. It's the rich man's problem :D

I also had a rather fun birthday and got a haircut which people tell me, has completely changed the way I look. For the better, they say. I decided it was high time I should pamper myself. And the people at the salon did a pretty good job. I actually look, if I may so myself, rather hot. All thanks to a friend, who knew exactly where to take me and what to do. I basically put myself in her hands. She took me to this brilliant place I haven't been to before, near college. This has helped me overcome my previous fear of such places. You can read all about that here.

Exams were, as expected, absolutely horrible. I am very seriously facing the prospect of failing in at least a couple of subjects this time round. I'm just trying to enjoy my life before the results come out and I die.
Also, I've started my internship at this law firm, which I'm actually kind of liking. It's the first time I'm interning at a firm, and I've got to say, it's not bad. It's not one of those big firms, so everything is a little more chilled out here. Plus most people are on leave and the courts are closed, so workflow is less. (Which is why posting frequency on my blog has now gone up, as you may (or more likely, may not) have noticed.) There's lots of other interns, all of whom seem to be rather nice and fun to talk to. It's taxation, which is kind of boring, but for me, being inherently a researcher at heart, nothing beats the joy of finding that one case to clinch the argument your associate is trying to make.
I've also started taking French classes every weekend. Those are fun sometimes, like the other day we were supposed to write a dialogue (in French) in groups of two, where both the people had been dumped by their significant others, but one was happy about it while the other was sad. Rather entertaining.

I am currently sitting in office with not much to do, passing the time reading random things on the net, listening to good music, occasionally talking to people. I'm in a room with 2 ACs, with a constant stream of cold coffee and chocolate chip biscuits. And I'm being paid for this.
Life couldn't really get much better.

P.S. You can now follow this blog by email! How exciting! And no, I am not ashamed in the least to admit that this is a desperate plea for more readers. So go fill in your email address on the little widget thingy (is that what they call it?) on the right. No seriously, do it. I'm watching you.