Strangers in the living room

I didn’t know until a few days back that the feeling was a common thing in the world. You don’t know the person sitting besides you in your own living room. And what’s worse, they don’t know you too! I mean you’ve lived with them for more than two decades… they’ve given you life, food, shelter… and in many a case, a lot of concealed love and care. But why is it totally impossible to feel and understand the other’s likes, dislikes and emotions? Why do we fail to respect their thoughts, philosophies and way of life? Though we literally live in each other’s shoes everyday, it’s so hard to empathize with them, to pause for a minute to know who they are.

Living under the same roof, but raised in obviously different backgrounds, we end up being selfish, absolutely selfish, always wanting the other to compromise for our comforts and apprehensions. The dad/mom never sees a reason as to why their daughter has to go for her school trip and the daughter of course is hardly mindful of the zillion fears that her parents hold. So who wins in the end? The one has better control over the other, the one who can get his way out with a tight slap on the other’s face.

So what about the one who’s crying with her hand on the cheek? If this is the same case everyday, for very obvious reasons, an invisible wall builds its way between the two parties. So it’s like this – a living room, two parties, a hell a lot of commotion and a thick wall between them. But one of the two sides eventually gets bored of being a rebel, always trying to break the crapshit rules. What’s the point when it’s all proving to be oh so fruitless? Like a pregnant woman, with her life so full of hopes and dreams, our protagonist has waited all her life. But with frequent pregnancies followed by frequent (painful) miscarriages, she is forced into hopelessness, followed by a long cold silence. The two sides don’t fight…they just drag their feet along in the lonely road of dark silence and here stops the need to know the other. But here we need to understand that the problem is not solved. They feel its better this way; the fools just mistake the void for peace of mind.

But one day one of them slowly does realize that their lives, together is not for too long. At this point of time panic sets in. Is this the way things are going to be forever? Will the emotional distance widen with the map? Will I ever know the people who are a part of my biological cells?

Both sides have private lives of their own, which they don’t bother to talk about to the other for simple reasons that they are afraid to. But there is a lot to share, a lot to talk about and this would in fact make life a more beautiful place to live in. There are moments, joys, tears, relationships, which would gain more reason for existence, if shared with the other. But who is going to make the first move in 20 years? Who would be the first to realize that beneath that detestable veil that the other dons, there’s a beautiful person who is worth a lot of love?

Life’s about a lot of unanswered questions. Like those very desirable parent-child relationships in Jaane tu ya jaane na (I’m sorry, but for some strange reasons I’m still unable to get over the movie), everyone, I bet, would love to get close and personal with their kith and kin. No one loves to hate and no one hates to love. It’s all in that stupid, stupid mind! It draws polluted patterns in our heart, patterns which we should sweep out ASAP (even if it means getting the ONYX back in town!). A touch here and a touch there, and the pattern is now clearly a design …yeah, can you now see the shape of the heart?

We can try hard to make it simple. So here goes...I shout it out loud, for the world and for myself to hear – “Go to your bedroom. Slam the door hard behind yourself. Say, “don’t break the rules, just break the barricades”. Then rush out, into the living room and whooooooooosh, the strangers have gone!