Funny! Isn’t it? As I start writing this article, I am not in a bit of decisiveness to the perfect start for the subject that I intend to brood upon. What is it that I want to write? and what is it that I can’t or that is making me hesitant! Well, rather than just sounding very analytical in an attempt to disguise the pandemonium in my mind, I’ll be honest and start telling you what is on my mind.
Morality! One word, four syllables mo-ra-lee-ti! And yet the most ambiguous word that I have come across personally. So what is it we are talking about. Surely if you know me, then you’d know that I wouldn’t be stupid enough to preach a sermon on morality. For all you know I might turn out to be like a priest in the whorehouse.
Just a few weeks back I was having on of my relatives at my place. When women meet and gossip starts, time seems to be running away for them. Ironically for us men, time seems to stop. My venerable mother and aunt were talking and gradually the course of the conversation took a turn and got onto the recent incident in Gurgaon, when a 19 year old muslim girl hailing from Delhi was found dead at a nearby mall. Supposedly, the lady had died due to a fall from the 3rd floor after coming out from a pub at 3 in the morning. My mother innocuously not aware of the issue in totality were conversing and overhearing this made me sneer and feel very uncomfortable. My mother and aunt were talking on today’s culture and were amused at the fact that these days’ actresses are paid more for dressing with smaller and shorter pieces of cloths. Naturally extending this theory, they concluded that soon, highest paying actress would be the one for no clothes at all.
This definitely made me smile and my mind drifted to another of those fantasies of mine. But I think I’ll spare you of all those details. Coming back to the tête-à-tête, the ladies were talking of the immoral days we were going through and how today, there seems to be no respect for the culture and women are dressed so skimpily revealing almost everything. This made me so sick and I felt so sad that my own mother was being so orthodox and outdated. I felt like a teenager trying to avoid a topic when his parents try to tell him have sex or something embarrassing and so I soon left the room.
A few days back, I went to meet another good old friend of mine. As per usual protocol, we sat down in a pub and after a few drinks, my friend approached the subject of women and as usual when a few men sit down they obviously brag and boast of their chivalry and adventures with ladies. However in this case, there were only two men and I always innocently listen to all the stories in awe as I surrender right in the start of the duel by getting my hands up. I pretend to be the simple man with clean heart and not so cool.
So just like any other day, I sat down and heard my friend out on his journeys and voyages to the unknown. On how women fell to their knees and submitted to his charm and smitten by his good looks and they purred like sex kittens. Initially, it sounded great and it made me wish I was lucky enough. Who wouldn’t want a favor or a fellacio in the car. Obviously like any perfectly normal guy, I felt so aroused and wished that my lucky days started. Meanwhile, my playboy friend counted out innumerable instances of ladies whom he had taken out for a drink and then in a few days time, he was getting physical, in the pub, in the car and perhaps at times in his own house.
As I kept on listening, there was somewhere something that started disgusting me about him. Some where deep inside there was some thing that was bugging me and I couldn’t get to it. Firstly, I felt sad that my friend was finding it so cool to be the new age Emran Hashmi the wannabe. While I was safe behind the so-called curtains of morality, like majority of us do, who love to make a sling shot and throw mud at others, yet I tried to identify what was it that was making me adopt standards of duality. Perhaps the fact this friend of mine had a girl friend who with all her heart loved him in totality and waited for days when they could be together. She loves him more than he can imagine and is still clinging on to the past memories whereas my bastard friend goes around the city humping on different women with no control on his libido and no care for the lady whom he has promised to love once upon a time.
I had another friend who has slept with many men, perhaps more than 100 but then when I talk to her, I realize she is also correct. She says that abroad, men go through women as if they are going through pints of beer. Next morning they don’t remember. But if a woman does the same she is branded as a whore who is not subscribing to the moral standards of society. She has a daughter with a man she loved so much and who conveniently estranged her. The man also turns out to be my friend who ended up in south American and fell in love with another lady and then again came to India to fall in love with a lady from the north east.
Love! Relationships! This brings me to another anecdote of my life and my past and trust me this is the last one. I know you must be wondering if I’m planning on just telling you stories. Often I have seen my friends fall in love and so called affairs and then profusively praising and expressing their love. With utmost devotion them carrying forward their lives for some time and then more often than not, those relations shattering like infinite pieces of glass. And I wondered how people are so shallow and blindly put things under the tag of true love when don’t even know whether 5 weeks down the lane they might not know whether they might like to continue. Once in my own life I came across a lady whom I really loved a lot and then there was a relationship developing that had no name. True love and yet there could be no commitment as that had already been given to someone else. I knew that the lady in this context was supposedly and officially going out with someone else.
But still I treaded on this dangerous path and as fate had it, we despite the supposed societal rule and norms came close and got involved. There was a compromise in terms of the name to the relationship and there were difficulties but that did not deter us from coming close. It reached a point when separation for even an hour was difficult. And while I always craved for the name and doing everything that other guys get to boast of by being called as a boyfriend, yet I realized that it is not the name but the feeling that really count. Being in involved in a relationship of such a nature where the girl whom I loved and who loved me was supposedly involved with someone else out of cmpulsion was something that was not common. We gradually came close enough to the level that was physical and emotional in nature. This probably the time in my life when I realized how people who never bother about you ever are the ones who take the first shot at you to sling mud at you. Often I had to face the wrath of my other female friends who conveniently told me that I was being immoral and doing the wrong thing. I believe these ladies were playing the role of moral policemen. These were the days when I hated the world for being nosy into everything that they shouldn’t be talking about. A great level of contempt was in my mind and perhaps being the rebel and defying the norms of morality and so called conduct of society, I ended up with public display of affection to level I believe shouldn’t have been done just because of the fact that I was trying to prove a point. How and why the relationship ended is another different story but I realized for one thing that there are times when you have relationships that can’t be branded or named, when you are so helpless and consequently consecrated after being circumcised on the alter of societal norms.
If you notice I have mentioned four short stories with a viewpoints that are all valid. When I sat down to write this blog, I wondered whether my mother was wrong. Perhaps at times one does get a feeling that wearing skimpy outfits can’t be termed as immoral, it is just a form of expression and existence. But when you go to a pub in M block GK, or for that matter any pub and see young school and college girls getting ready to the extent of bending down and submitting to small time sexual favors, it really makes you think whether everything is indeed correct. Of course being at the receiving end as a guy, no guy would refuse an offer for that matter and so it is not just about women. What pains me is the fact that men as big hypocrites as ladies for that matter. Maintaining dual standards and going about hitting on the gas to fuel their libido is not something that I would count as a justification.
At times you do feel that perhaps the viewpoint that our older generation profess at times may be misdirected and orthodox, yet they do turn out to be true for that matter. We as a part of the society love to judge. We judge and judge and judge. But for what. Just to prove that we are so correct, is that not. More often than not, every one derives sadistic pleasure by judging others and trying to set standards of morality. I do the same. Why complain or boast. When I was involved in a relationship without a name and with loads of physicality, I was on one side of the line and when my friend was screwing around while his innocent girlfriend was crying remembering the good old college days of togetherness, I was playing as the judge on the other side of the line. And this is perhaps one of those topics that can’t be conclusive. Every time the bajrang dal or sushma swaraj try to play moral policemen, we cry foul, and yet whenever we get a chance to sling spit balls at others, we pounce on such opportunities.
So the bigger issue is whose morality is correct at the end of the day? Is it my mother who is so against skimpy clothes and cleavage display! Or is it mine when I was in a relationship, which according to people was merely an adjustment to satisfy my sexual urge. Or is it my friend whom I term as a bastard for not being honest to his girlfriend and going around getting small favors? Maybe he is honest, as he puts it, because he doesn’t engage in intercourse.
Sexuality is a very basic tendency of homo sapiens, but that doesn’t mean we have a blind world with engaging in sex implying that we do act as in the animal kingdom. We are different and though basic instincts can’t be denied, yet we have evolved and we need to respect some aspects in life. We might like girls wearing minis and showing their assets but at the same time we might not like our best friends and sisters doing the same and getting the glimpses of horny men.
Sexuality exists everywhere. In the office, in the market place, in the shopping mall, in the bedroom. Every place you talk about. Why don’t you have women perhaps bending a little bit extra to show their cleavage and panties to just get a few favors in the office. The accidental touch, the so called overtly tight friendly hugs, the casual patting and stroking. It all happens. So what do we do! In fact nothing. It is easy to go fucking around the city but it does destroy relations for sure. And then there are those convenience relationships which are open ended with no strings attached. Free and casual sex.
At the end of the day, one can go on and be fascinated or disgusted with what he sees. I don’t say that thing will change as I write. Morality is something that is personal and needs to be dwelled upon by each person by giving time to self and introspecting. It is easy to judge and be the so called critique. But the real challenge at sunset is to practice what you preach. Morality is something that can’t be fixed. It is one of those grey areas. I don’t proclaim myself as the alter of sanctity. I am also vulnerable and tempted. I might say deviating once or twice is correct but not more than that. But then this would probably be when I am on the verge of getting lucky. And when I have no distant chances, I would change my status and view. The then morality would be total sexual fidelity and abstinence from any unfaithfulness.
We twist and distort truth to suit ourselves, we undress it as if we are about to enter it and reach an orgasm. This is perhaps the dilemma or the unfortunate situations. We justify things to convince our self and adopt to dual standards. And this is what id like to close upon. I don’t give a fuck about what the world does. It is me who matters the most and I believe that adopting dual standards and hypocrisy is the worst thing a person can do. So I don’t say don’t have sex with anyone other than your wife and neither do I say do. I just say that define your own code on morality and have the balls to stick by it. You might be a master fornicator but then accept and stand by it. Second, do anything you wish but be ready to face the consequences.
As for me, I walk alone and still finding my own answers…………….
