A Marriage Of True Minds

In the middle of a perfectly harmless online chat, a journalist friend popped a snap poll question for an article she is writing: "If you had to choose between being bored out of your mind in your marriage and your husband's infidelity, which one would you prefer?" It was a no-brainer. I'd choose the latter option with or without its qualitative comparison with lifelong boredom (which, I'm afraid, is a logical inevitability in any long-term relationship, but especially marriage -- considering the floozy, faulty premise on which it's often based). She was taken aback and I asked her why. "You are the only one who's chosen this option," she said. "Most people I spoke to (and they're all 'people like us'!), are mortified at the mere idea of their spouse's infidelity."

I'm not surprised. Most people grow up with fairy tales that inevitably end in "And they lived happily ever after", watch Hindi films (or their Hollywood equivalents) where the hero and heroine walk into the sunset having overcome all odds against their undying love, read Romeo And Juliet (or Mills and Boon, depending on their literary leanings) and have dreamt of eternal love. They may never actually have seen a perfectly happily married couple (I confess, I haven't, and am beginning to suspect it's merely a fictional concoction), but believe that they have the will, the capacity, and most of all, the patience, to build that one exceptional marriage which makes the rest of us believe fervently in this institution and plunge headlong into it with foolhardy bravado. I did too. But this article isn't a confessional about my relationship (which isn't any better or worse than any other I've seen from close quarters -- which, I might add, is almost a huge relief, considering my own impatient temperament!), but rather about the very nature of marriage and the idea of infidelity.  

It is not, therefore, with cynicism, that I believe monogamous relationships between woman and man (or woman and woman, or man and man) are a mythical idea we are desperately trying to cling to, because of generations of brainwashing and lack of other practically suitable alternatives. As a point of argument, I'd invite anyone who's ever got married (or even been in a long-term relationship) to stand up and declare she/he was never maddeningly attracted to another member of the opposite sex (movie stars and tennis players included, because they're far easier to embed in our fantasies than real people who have the potential to complicate matters), or wistfully imagined being with someone/anyone else, or contemplated the hypothetical possibility of not being in marital bondage and hence free to exercise choice without guilt. Naturally, none of the above has anything to do with eternal love. If anyone were to actually try being in love with another human being with single-minded devotion forever, they wouldn't have the time to do anything else, and would eventually start slipping into boredom. Guaranteed. Remember, Romeo and Juliet died long before they could find out. 

Marriage is a practical option to keep the human race better organised and easier to manage, just as prisons are a sensible way of keeping errant elements isolated from society to minimise their nuisance. So instead of exercising our free will in accordance with our animal instincts and mating without moral inhibition, which in turn may lead to innumerable social inconveniences, we choose to 'settle down' in matrimony, and like all good creatures of habit, soon forget that it's possible to even conceive living any other way. Then we turn this practical necessity into a virtue and swear by its near-religious sanctity like hard-core fanatics. Obviously then, infidelity must seem equivalent to complete blasphemy. We expect our spouses to be utterly 'faithful' (like our friends of the canine variety), no matter what, and can accept almost anything else, but the thought that perhaps we aren't actually entirely equipped to fulfil their needs on a lifelong basis (nor is it our cardinal duty to do so at any cost) and hence, they are well within their right to look elsewhere. Infidelity generally isn't about 'us'. It's about 'them', and their tendency to stray from the straight road, while we continue to trudge along, despite the odds and the temptation -- which also gives us the higher moral ground. Mostly we do it because we're reined in by our upbringing and because it's too much trouble to rock the boat and live with the consequences. 

If there really were an 'ideal' relationship (marital or otherwise), it would be one that has no room for 'ifs' and 'buts'. Where two people didn't live in dread of each other's choices and actually encouraged each other to live to the fullest, irrespective of its impact on their own lives. That would, I suspect, also be the relationship that's truly based on love, where no risk is too high; and not the conditional contract we seem to mistakenly refer to as the real thing.As my beloved Sting aptly put it, "If you love somebody, set them free." 

Children Of God

I am an atheist. And am acutely aware that it's not a very nice thing to be, considering the alarming level of intolerance to dissidents and freaks within the human race. All the more reason to be grateful to my parents and grandparents who taught me about honesty, hard work, simplicity and compassion, without ascribing any covert or overt divine significance to them. I was never told to speak the truth because god says so or because god will punish me if I don't. These values are their own virtue and a measure of our being 'human'. I was allowed the freedom to form my own ethical framework for living and to practise it without fear of divine retribution. 





I admit I don't have too many answers about the evolution of the universe, but am entirely unconvinced about the idea of a supreme entity that may have created the world. It could have come about instead, through a series of accidents beyond human comprehension. Because after all these million years of evolution, humans can't claim to have understood the story of their evolution and that of all those who came before them, with exactitude. Which is perhaps where god comes in.

It is my belief that god didn't create man, man created god -- to help understand all the complexities of the world he was living in, and the worlds beyond that he hadn't yet explored, and all the natural phenomena that overwhelmed him and threatened his race, and all the strokes of good luck he couldn't explain rationally (it had to be a man, because women have been obliterated from human history for most part, so nobody really knows if they could think back then -- today, we know that they are allowed to think, but only just and so long as they behave themselves within the realm of man-made morality).

It is possible then, that god was born of human weakness. 

It is also possible to believe that food and water cause human strife, because they are essential for the survival of the species. All animals kill for their own survival -- humans may be intellectually better of, but that doesn't necessarily dull their primitive natural instincts. So they fight for the most fertile land, negotiate for exchanging their goods and services for money, hack each other for profit etc. without much gumption. But the human race has also invented this mammoth monster called religion and further divided it into a million 'gods' of the mythical and super human variety, most of whom apparently preach the same thing, but according to their subjects, each is holier and more relevant than its predecessors and contemporaries -- be truthful, be kind to your neighbours, love is god, wisdom is divine, work is worship, don't be greedy, desire is the root cause of all suffering, etc. The vocabulary may differ, but the message is always the same.

You don't need new gods to tell you this, but we invent them anyway -- just in case they have some ready answers to questions we haven't cracked yet. I haven't seen a single follower who worships their gods with such astounding fervour, actually adopting their preaching in their own lives -- because there is a direct conflict between being a child of god, and fighting for survival, and these days even more, sacrificing the lure of material comfort. Most times, you can't achieve both. But you can pray earnestly, break innumerable coconuts, take pilgrimages, sing praises of your god, do elaborate rituals to atone for your sins and hope that all this adds up and is taken into account with the 'final judgment' is delivered; or if you don't believe in such hogwash, at least alleviate your guilt about being human and therefore, shamefully flawed. It's far easier than giving up a cushy life and being simple in thought and action, stepping out of the competitive environment and not lying to make a fast buck, being the sole judge of your own worth and actually spending time reflecting on the human condition and the meaning of life -- let's just wait for some god to tell us what to do while we go about our business of making lots of money, so that we don't have to think and stand up for our beliefs, irrespective of whether the rest of the world agrees with them or not. 



The beauty of the idea of god is that it's so vague, anyone can interpret it in any way and claim a copyright on its absolute superiority. For some reason, this entity which no one has actually seen or experienced (except in their dreams -- and that too perhaps because it's so much a part of their daily consciousness, it's bound to visit them in their dreams too) has become such an overwhelming aspect of human life that now, we don't kill each other for food, we kill each other to prove the superiority of our god! We decide the worth of a human life based on what religion it's affiliated to. If it's not the same as ours, it has no value -- and worse, is a threat to us because if its tribe grows, our superiority comes under threat.

Then there are the decent sort, who don't actually pull out a knife and stab people to uphold the supremacy of their deity. Instead, they build temples and erect idols and worship them at every street corner and then find unique ways of spreading their religion -- remember the Christian missionaries who came to India and offered bread to the poor in exchange for undying devotion to Jesus Christ? Something like that -- the Parsi Panchayat provides free housing to those who keep the faith and throws out those who've 'dissented', the church builds schools for its own, gurudwaras feed the poor, as do shopkeepers who distribute leftovers to beggars lined up outside the Mahim dargah; various gurus float socially beneficial schemes and their devotees go around doing the 'good work' with one hand and handing out photographs and memorabilia with the other, lest the poor beneficiaries forget where the charity came from -- it's a bit like corporate branding; only because it's attached to god, you can be struck down for calling it that.



I've yet to see a religious group that goes about helping the poor without telling them who their benefactor is, i.e. merely for the cause of doing good to society. For that you don't need god, you need the spirit of men like Baba Amte -- who never sat on a celestial throne, never gave lectures to his subjects about how they should live their lives, never claimed moral and spiritual superiority, but stuck his hands in the muck no one else was willing to touch and didn't get carried away by his own greatness. Baba Amte would also be the kind of god who had his own human weaknesses (which he wouldn't need to hide in the garb of divinity), who wouldn't want his followers to worship him -- he'd exhort them instead, to keep the good work going, without attaching a 'deity' to it. I am convinced there must be others like him around the world, doing things for others in their own little ways. I've heard of a doctor couple in rural Maharashtra who don't eat in restaurants because they believe the money spent there can be put to better use to treat their poor patients. Only, given their lack of flashiness or visions of immortality, they don't proclaim themselves gods, don't expect their followers to pray to them for salvation, don't allow them to build temples for them, nor promise deliverance through charity.

In short, they are the losers who've understood the essence of human existence, and have forgotten to move with the times and advertise their methods for maximum exposure. They're the people nobody wants to know because they don't qualify as achievers -- they're probably all poor, having emptied their pockets to benefit others, don't dress for the part of god men and can't act like they've understood something lesser mortals can only dream of. 



Give me these nameless, faceless gods any day and I'll worship them with all my heart -- and no, I won't need temples or idols or banners all around to remind me of their existence or the value of what they stand for. They live in my conscience and pinch me when I err and help me tell right from wrong. That's all there really is to it all.