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.

Of Babies (and my somewhat tumultuous relationship with them)

At the outset, I would like to make it very clear that I do not hate babies. No, I do not think they are evil aliens (let's face it: sloppy, messy, icky, have their own language. Just because they're not a sickly green in color doesn't mean we have to give them the benefit of doubt) put on Earth to foil humanity's plans of progress with their own cunning schemes. What I hate is the almost-universal assumption that if you have a vagina, you must love babies. Unlike some of my friends, I like babies. However much I always come down to referring to them by 'it' instead of 'he' or 'she' (just so much more convenient). As long as they're being nice to me.

Think about it. Would you tolerate a grown up person who has suddenly taken to rather hurtfully pulling your hair and stealing your glasses all the time? No, right? (If your answer to that was yes, please get yourself tested for insanity. Or (yay!) start reproducing immediately!) Then why must we extend the same courtesy to persons who are simply a little smaller in size?

I just think kids can be annoying sometimes. I fail to understand how their mothers handle them. For the life of me, I cannot figure out a goal for babies other than to destroy everything they see about them and irritate the fuck out of rational, sane people like me.

Having said that, I must also stress that the following events were NOT INTENTIONAL.

Going in chronological order, when I was 8, I dropped a baby out of a window. . It was a ground floor window so no major damage done (no trips to the hospital and the like, but that was perhaps simply because I went outside, picked him right back up, came in and acted like nothing had happened). And yes, it has been drilled into me time and again by people to whom I can feel sufficiently unashamed telling this story, that any mental retardation that this kid might suffer once he grows up, however slight, will be my fault. However I assuage my guilt by telling myself that on the other hand, he may just turn out to be another Stephen Hawking. But then I remember how Stephen Hawking probably hasn't gotten laid in a long, LONG time.
Again, I emphasize that this was NOT deliberate. Here's how it happened. I was simply sitting on the window ledge with the window open because it was such a nice summer day. For some unfathomable reason, all the rest of my family were busy and had given responsibility of the baby to me. If you think about it, it's their fault really. I'm the real victim here. I mean, who the fuck gives responsibility of a tiny baby to an irresponsible 8 year old?! And the little thing was so tiny, I was simply trying to shift his position in my arms and before I knew it, I heard a loud splat on the pavement outside. This has given rise to one of my rather infamous nicknames, aka 'window-popper'.

Something similar happened when I was 10. Clearly I hadn't learned my lesson. I was very fond of picking up my nephew under the arms and flinging him round and round in circles until we were both dizzy. Dangerous, you say? Fun, I say. After all, Mom used to do the same thing to me. Soon enough, I realized that that was probably because she was more responsible. One of those times a-flingin', he slipped out from under my small hands and fell. Thankfully again, no real damage. But this time I resolved to get my act together.

Cut to 2010, when I slapped a random baby at a metro station. Again, I must stress that this was not intentional. It was simply one of those busy intersections at Rajiv Chowk when I was in a hurry to get to college. It was a rather chilly Monday morning. Now in order to get to college I must put in a good 1.5 hours of commute, which means I must wake up at an ungodly hour in the middle of the night when it is still dark. And I cannot stress this enough, but I am NOT a morning person. Pissed off, cranky and barely keeping my eyes open, I managed to hear the announcement for my next train which was to arrive in a minute, while I was more than a minute away from the platform. So I made a run for it, with some five bags of luggage in my hands. Now under such circumstances, a certain amount of random baby-slapping becomes inevitable. I rue the woman in the burkha who had her son in her arms and was walking calmly in the opposite direction across the bridge which connects the two platforms. She probably used to think the world was a good and happy place. After her young son's head had finished lolling from my impact, her beliefs would have been shattered. My friends seem to find this highly amusing and in such circumstances, I am ashamed to admit, it is a little difficult to be as contrite as I probably should be.

More recently, I have been frowned upon for simply airing my opinions about kids in a metro. We were talking about how annoying babies are and how we might prefer puppies instead. Now there is good reason for this. Right next to us were a couple of kids who were reaching new levels of irksome I did not know existed, fidgeting relentlessly, wiping off their boogers on our sleeves and generally creating a completely unnecessary fuss. Next to them was their mother who was clearly incapable of controlling these two tiny creatures from Hell. Just as we were about to get off, she berated us for our views and told us that it was not her fault, kids are 'like that only'. She even scolded the only one of us who was talking pro-baby. And on the station we saw her pointing us out to who undoubtedly seemed to be her husband, in a rather contemptuous manner. My compatriots seemed to be all up in arms, ready to fight to the death about their right to freely express their opinion in a public place (a sad occupational hazard that law students suffer form), but I managed to calm them down and dissuade them from their death wish, for in a public place like this, the public would surely take the mother's side. In fact my own mother did so when I narrated to her the incident later in the night.

And today all this seemed to be a source of much entertainment for some gentleman eavesdropping on our conversation in the metro while pretending to read his newspaper. Moreover, this has led to many unfortunate nicknames that I've been christened by some of my friends. I repeat, I am not against babies per se. I simply doubt I'd ever like to have one. I just think I would be the kind of mother who forgets that she's left her kid at Walmart or on the changing table, or tells her young child to fuck off because Mommy and Daddy need to get it on.

Tee Hee :)

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net