Tears of endearment

Why do we cry at movies? Maybe it is the movie or the psychological baggage we schlepped in with us. Or is it empathy? Maybe genetics or cultural conditioning. Or were we simply bursting to spill that night because our boss refused to give a week off for Christmas.
This much we know: all of us do it in varying degrees of blubbitude. Some of us are waterfalls, others are Saharas. Most of us fit somewhere in between.
The trigger maybe the moral injustice in Schindler's List, or the way Heath Ledger's throat catches when he confesses those forbidden feelings in Brokeback Mountain, or the final showdown of Rang de Basanti. Or that cheesy Micheal Keaton movie-you know, the one where he's dying of cancer and so on.
Whatever. There we sit, teary-eyed, vulnerable and helpless. And we become as emotionally intertwined with the characters in the movie as we do with real people.The movie reached us. We related to it. It spoke to something inside.
And in our dinner or parking lot discussions, the cultural myths [and facts] tumble out: Women cry more than men. Women go out of their way to find 'chick flicks' cry-athons. Guys cry only if someone squirts Mace at their eyeballs.
Research in this domain concluded that girls and boys do equal amounts of crying until puberty. But as boys take the testosterone highway and women take the estrogen bike path, their responses differ. Women do tend to cry up to four times more than men. Also the emotional kind of crying was discovered to release internal toxins as opposed to the onion-slicing variety.
What really trigger the waterworks is a combination of conflicted emotions. We choke up , essentially, at the fulfillment of social roles, such as a couple pledging a life together at a wedding or, the father dancing with his daughter. But we cry for bittersweet reasons, realising we can never sustain or measure up to , that iconic moment i.e. we strum a mental guitar chord that combines positive, major feelings with sadder minor tones. And the tears flow before we know it.
So we are empathising , we are strumming , and we are philosophising in the flickering chiaroscuro. Bur whatever we are really doing within the ineffable inner machinery we call soul, and whatever the prolactin content in our tears, we are forging a personal bond with a particular movie that we'll never lose. As with love, perhaps it's better not to understand the mystical algebra that connects us to Beaches but to be grateful it adds up to moments like these.
[LAT-WP]

Mindless..

I wish i had the leisure to update my blog on a daily basis. But since that is not going to be possible at least till i graduate and figure out what exactly I want to do afterwards, I pretend to be content for now.
Writing blogs , i personally feel acts like a hanky. Blow your nose and keep it away. Ok i know thats grosse, but thats the first thing that came to my mind. Speaking of mind, sometimes i spend hours on end trying to understand how does this super organ work. It stores and remembers dates, days, timetables, constants,variables, calorific vals of each food, metabolic cycles, stuff we study, or even read once while trying to cover a syllabus soo vast.
And let me not forget the emotions it is capable of producing. Happiness-the endorphin high, excitement-the adrenaline high, stress-the epinephrine high...and so on. And all it mainly requires to function is not some great wonder food, but merely glucose. Seems wonderful!
It tells you when you are having fun, getting bored, feeling happy, or depressed.
Imagine a day with no mind of our own. A world devoid of opinions, ideas, ingenuity. How plastic. The only thing then capable by a mindless human is survival. We would no doubt survive, just like the others in our kingdom, but never really understand the meaning of our existence.No self actualised-evangelists required. Love would merely be a chemical activity, which would occur between two individuals, so as to help them copulate. Survival of the fittest would take over our feelings of humanity, care and concern.The self-destruction of our planet would seize, and maybe our future generation would survive in a healthier atmosphere, living long and fruitful lives.
So when I reason with myself, I see myself bending towards a world without a mind. A non-dramatic, dull planet to some, a haven to most.

The diwALI-RAMzan connection.

Its not that obvious from the title itself. Just as people in India would like it. Subtle mentions in people's blogs. But I'm not trying to fit in their criteria. If they had the power they would control the mention of sexuality in front of the 'young' minds so as to prevent perverting them.What hypocrisy i must add.
But religion is something close to their hearts. Some wear it on their sleeves, most choose to be neutral and rarely one may find the ideal striking a balance.
The ones displaying it are fervent fanatics, intolerable and idiotic to a certain level. These people have egos which are hurt so easily that one may even wonder when and why. They feel superior to the Lot. They feel they have the right, the supremacy and the power to change the future by indulging in foolish outcries, which not only proves to affect the health , sanity and interests of other people, but also sometimes compromises their own. But do they mind? I guess not.
The ones who choose to be neutral sometimes maybe a cause of concern too. They have the same loud emotions in their hearts, but only fail to participate in the outcry. Thus, what results is a somewhat muted expression of their emotion, which in turn further disappoints them. They maybe the ones bursting the loudest of crackers or throwing the grandest of Id-parties, but they never go beyond that. When its the time to show communal harmony, they put their best foot forward. On the other hand when its time to show communal hatred these neutrals put on masks and participate with the intentions of safeguarding their interest.
The Ideal is a rare find. Not only do they understand and appreciate other religions, they participate in their festivities not only for the namesake, but with an open heart and mind, thoroughly enjoying the culture and tradition the festival endures. They are never judgemental, nor do they ever compare. They promote communal harmony by being impartial, which brings out the true essence of people. They discourage hatred among equals by bringing to light issues which usually are kept in the dark , which tend to be the breeding grounds for fear.
So all i ask of people is to:
light a diya in their hearts to find their ideal,
distribute shirkurma, not merely as a sweet, but to sweeten bitter hearts,
thus, making our diverse country an example of unity, tolerance and brotherhood.