Two Sides of a Coin

Symmetry is perhaps the most suitable tagline for our world. We have day and night, light and dark, good and bad, trust and deceit - basically, Yin and Yang. Even the Earth gets one side daylight while the other is plunged into the darkness of night. You have a flip-side of everything - even people. 

Especially people. We human beings have always been fighting with two primeval instincts - conscience and desire. And history tells us how desire won most of the times; actually nearly all of the times. Had it not been our submission to desire, mankind would still be living in caves and running wild.

Modern man has got so many cravings that its taking toll on his life. His desire to live in luxury is making him pay the price by depriving his peace of mind. You eat a bagel and immediately feel guilty about cheating your diet plan. You make gooey eyes at the handsome actor on screen and immediately feel guilty for your boyfriend sitting beside you. You scowl at home food and immediately feel guilty thinking how many loving hours your mom put into it. It's your conscience prickling you for not choosing it above desire - a constant battle of mind and heart.

Amidst all this, you start developing your alter egos. You are decent and introvert when you are at work, but outspoken and a bully at home. You are docile and submitting when you are with your girlfriend, but arrogant and egoistic with your wife. You are an ideal citizen in the eyes of the world, but a monster and a fiend to the person who loves you. You carve out your desires and conscience apart and try to treat each other separately. And fail, dismally.

And writers write stories about it. About MPD (multiple personality disorder), Temporary Amnesia, Delusions, Schizophrenia and what-not-tongue-twisting-psychological-words that are sure to scare the hell out of you and at the same time fascinate you. You try to give a name for what you are pretending to be your mental weakness. You try to persuade yourself that actually you are behaving diabolical because you have a perfect reason to be.

Once I was told that people often project themselves the way the world wants to see them. A politician pretends to be passionate yet indifferent. A soldier pretends to be gallant in the face of a bullet. A teacher pretends to be a perfect know-it-all. A doctor pretends to play God. And yet, every single person knows that it is not the way it seems. They know that this pretence is only a facade to keep themselves from going insane. A mask, for the world to believe that everything is alright. No need to panic.

For only a politician knows that he has to pretend even if inside insecurities are crushing him. A soldier knows that he has to pretend even if the mortal fear is driving him nuts. A teacher knows that he has to pretend otherwise he will be loosing the respect and faith of the entire class. A doctor knows that he has to pretend for science has not yet found a medicine to bring back life. And if they don't pretend, the world will crumble. The delicate balance of the desire to believe and conscience of absolute truth will be crushed if people didn't pretend.

Every coin has two sides. We can see only one at a time. We can judge based on the one side we see most of the times. But there will always be the other side, hidden away from you. And that will be the clear conscience side. It will be the side that tells you of the original nature of the person. It will be the side that doesn't care whether you judge or not. It will be that side that will always exist, a constant. And that side, will be the side that you will see, only when there is a calamity, a danger or once in a lifetime chance.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Gummadikaya donga ante bhujaalu thadumukunnattu

So, first let me tell you the story behind this proverb. There was a rich landlord who had a pumpkin growing and selling business. The business was going well until one day the landlord noticed that his sales were dropping. It was not by much but there was a definite drop in the sales. So, he started going through the entire process of selling to find out what was going wrong. So he went to the pumpkin farm and saw all the farmers honesty growing the pumpkins and then reaping them. He went to the market and found his shops operating without a glitch. Finally, he went to the storage and found that instead of the hundred jute bags that held the pumpkins, only 98 were there. Every week he went to the storage and found that two bags were missing. One night he decided to go and and find out the thief himself. He went, hid himself behind a bush and saw his night watchmen patrolling the storage alert. He suddenly jumped out of the bushes and shouted aloud. “WHO DARES STEAL MY PU...
Read more

Dasi Mantri Mata Rambha Lakshmi and Dharitri - The roles

Today I wish to talk about the shloka "Karyeshu Dasi, Karaneshu Mantri, Bhojyeshu Mata, Shayaneshu Rambha, Roopeshu Lakshmi, Kshamayeshu Dharitri, Shath dharma yuktah, kula dharma patni" There have been many interpretations of this shloka. The most accepted one is "a woman who works like a servant, advises like a minister, feeds you like a mother, pleases you in bed like sylph (a beautiful goddess), is the embodiment of goddess lakshmi, forgives you with patience as that of mother Earth, that woman who possesses these six virtues is your true wife who can share the dharma of you and your family". So, is this the interpretation? But this makes no woman eligible to be a wife. Not every woman is sylphlike, not every woman possesses intelligence enough to advise you, not every woman can please you in bed, not every woman can dress up and prance around in anklets, not every woman can forgive your monumental mistakes and definitely not every woman can feed you unle...
Read more

Supporting a Choice

People talk a lot about making a choice. How difficult it is, how hard it is, how mind-racking it is, how nerve-wrecking it is, etc-etc. Some choices we make to better our situation, some we make to get out of a situation, while some we make nonchalantly, some we make for a higher purpose and so on. Every choice has Yin and Yang side. It doesn't always mean that a choice has good and bad sides. It merely has advantages and disadvantages. If a choice offers more advantages, one simply opts for it. But sometimes, we simply make a choice not because its advantageous, but it is morally right. For example, a desperate man stole medicines for his ailing wife. He is a righteous man, so he surrenders himself to the law. He made a choice of surrendering himself, because it is simply the right thing to do. Another time, a student has to choose between two equally competent colleges. He looks at the advantages of each college offers to him and then decides. Here he makes a suita...
Read more