Men in Pink!!!

Our generation is a witness to a reversal in gender roles. Whereas
twenty years back, men were notorious for being chauvanistic,
dominating, yet committment - phobic and inaccessible, today we 
see these very qualities being fervently imbibed by women. Androgyny
seems to be the new thing, for men and women alike. Women today are
breaking away from traditional roles of home-makers, and are at par
with men everywhere. Not only are they more career-minded than ever before, they are seen to be venturing in not-so-traditionally-feminine jobs. Today, women are no longer only teachers or beauty 
consultants or PAs to big shots. Instead they are to be seen everywhere, 
and many a times, far ahead of men.

Howsoever, not matter how ardently a woman might seek this new 
equation between a man and herself, she still wants all the chauvinistic
charms in her man. Not only that, she also wants to be accepted and
respected in her androgynous role. She doesn't want to spend her days
catering to the needs of her man anymore, or rearing and caring for kids. She wants to hold a job, and wants an equal involvement from her 
man. But that is where androgyny stops for a man. A man who is
expressive with his emotions is called a crybaby, one who takes care to groom himself well is called a fag; 
a woman can disavow the painful saarees and chunnis, but a man who 
likes bling is tacky!!

Where does that leave a man? If he gives her woman ample space, she
suspects him of cheating on her. If he dotes on her all the time, she calls
him clingy. If he takes care to look good, she calls her feminine, if he
doesn't he's messy. If he doesn't tell her how much he loves her, he's a ?$%^@&*, and if he does, he's lovesick.
Who is to blame here? Is it man, with a compromised brain and very
confusing demands? Perhaps not!

Perhaps Freud was right when he said, "The great question that has
never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer,
despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is “What
does a woman want?”" Perhaps this question will never be answered!!  

Contemplating about contemplation

Today as I woke up, I found myself faced with yet another one of the untimely and unusually generous showers that Delhi has been blessed
with lately. Such weather usually puts me in a contemplative mood, and
today was no different. However, today I wasn't thinking about the 
paranormal, or reductionism, or even ways to convince people to 
make shrines in honor of Nietzsche. Today, I found myself thinking
about thinking. I was Metacognizing!

As I settled myself next to my window, with a steaming cup of coffee, 

and Peggy Lee humming a tune in the background, I found myself trying to fathom the need and importance of thinking to me. My mind has
always been a clock that never stops ticking. I have spent years as an
audience to almost involuntary thoughts that keep screaming in my mind.
Involuntary, that is what contemplation has been for me. But somehow,
during the last few months, it became a calculated task, almost ritualistic. Perhaps it was idleness. Or perhaps a necessity for me, 
considering the path I have chosen in my life. But, amid the transformation 
of contemplation from something intrinsic to me, to something that was
now a survival mechanism, I realized that I had stopped to enjoy it. It 
became work, like everything perhaps does after a point. 

They say Philosophy is either a luxury, or a desperate attempt at
justifying the desolation of life, for those who recognize it. Nietzsche said : "The great majority of people lacks an intellectual 
conscience. Indeed, it has often seemed to me as if anyone calling for 
an intellectual conscience were as lonely in the most densely populated 
cities as if he were in a desert." 
I find myself surrounded by people who go through lives doing everything they
 should when they should do it, leading lives they way they have been told to,
 the right way. I always wonder if these people ever even give a fleeting 
consideration to why they are doing it the way they are. Do they ever sit 
and wonder how life would be if they lived it any differently, or even if there
 is a way for them to do so.
All these people, they seem so happy in their existence, so content with
obeying their parents without questioning their beliefs, so content with
their wives and husbands and children, living up to the conventionalities
that have been fostered for so many years. And then I wonder for myself,
for the need to complicate my life by questioning everything I see, by trying
to tread a path that is all my own. But then, I know there isn't any other way
I would want it. Life isn't about choosing what you want' life is about choosing 
what you don't want. And I believe, I have made an informed choice of not 
wanting a life where I can't question.