Gouri, Amrita and..

I am fascinated by lives of Gouri Deshpande and Amrita Pritam. As like every man’s fantasy to be a 'husband' of an interesting woman, I would rather want to be Teruo of Gouri’s and Imroz of Amrita’s. A solace outside their established, standardised set of principles generally termed as marriage. Ever since I’ve come to know them, I am amazed to realise the clarity of thought they achieved and guts it entailed to follow in what they believed.

If I idolise these relationships and still want to be little practical in not going against tide, then what conclusions can I draw out of their lives. One is that being just a friend always works with whom you share your life, on other side taking up the roles of husband or wife over the individual self does not work:( One can take this as an extreme selfishness, but what Gouri or Amrita wanted at the end of the day - was to express themselves completely- which is so difficult otherwise.

I also try to look from Teruo’s or Imroz’s point of view. How he must have felt to be able to be with such strong women. Who gave and who received among them and what? I know it’s a typical question coming out of my patriarchal mind-set, where man is supposed to be strong and his woman is expected to carry his tantrums above all. How a man must be feeling to be at receiving end!! :)

I consider myself as one among ‘mango people’, trapped in some questions of life, constantly moving up and down, getting happy and unhappy with successes and failures. Unlike these ladies.. They questioned each and every norm put by society. I can’t imagine the amount of energy they must have had, so as to undergo opposition against all. I count their spiritual clarity is as much as that of Sri Sri Ravishankar or Dalai Lama. They are of equal magnitude but on opposite sides. Dalai Lama has enough chances to get a Nobel Peace but not to Gouri-Amrita, as it is not awarded to someone who established peace within oneself (and also to us by allowing us to go through their lives, how much we could learn and earn out of it), but to those who showered peace on 'others'. I would like to start a foundation giving awards to such men-women, anybody with funds to build in corpus?

How have they helped me building as a person. Reading them at first, made me go my head upside down. I found everything written, controversial?? Some of the questions rose against present societal order; especially between man-woman relationships were not as contemporarily practiced. I thought they are very selfish, what matters to them is their own needs. They are unnecessarily questioning the social fabric, which being right, running successfully all over! Had I not come across experiences in and around my own life, it was quiet impossible to relate with what is being written by them. One fine day, when you brush with the reality, things falling separately under you come together, and that collage convince you the necessary existence of Gouri-Amrita! When realised, it helped me to be non-judgmental towards looking at incidences, people. And also to question every norm, before I follow it or reject it.

Earlier, I had always afraid of divorce and to the worst out-of-marriage relationship!! How could one fall back out of marriage, it’s such an auspicious institution(!). But today I believe, like any other break-offs between parents-sons, girlfriend-boyfriends, two friends, why can’t it happen between husband and wife. Out-of-marriage relationship could have a friend outside ‘marriage’. I can accept that today, yeah it’s possible because it’s so natural! I know if I re-write this piece over period of times, my views would have further changed, hopefully more evolved than before!

Most of our energies have so far gone to curb what could be just natural, decent and so much important.