Wednesday, February 23, 2011

The Good, Bad and The Ugly

A cliche for a title, but possessing enormous scope for debate. As much as Clint Eastwood makes me go weak in my knees, its not the movie I wish to write about, rather a general debate that I keep having with my inner self.

One day I heard my old neighbor pass a comment, "Such an indecent dress for her age" and as I turned to look at what really that woman was wearing, I saw that she wore a loose chudidar which in every angle looked to me more sophisticated and refined than the cheap artificial fabric sari draped around my corpulent neighbor with her ill fitting blouse showing more than is intended in a sari. That day I had realized something very important. That one incident taught me that we human beings are too unstable to decide what is good and what is bad. We who are so carried away by the our own whims and opinions on a person based on their behavior towards us, I find it excessively ridiculous to brand someone as good, bad or ugly.  When I say bad, I do not talk about heinous crimes but I stick to the quotidian experiences of a middle class man. It so often happens that you find the difference between good and bad is just a fine line and your discerning capability is in a fix.

If we gave in to the every tenet laid down by our over conservative society, then we wouldn't be leading much of our life the way we want it. Given a choice between having the best possible image and living life on your own terms, I would undoubtedly prefer the latter because as long as YOU are convinced that you are right, it doesn't matter what people think. Good and Bad are two sets of the same Venn diagram of life with a considerable intersection portion which is the most difficult to make out.

Surpassing good and bad, it is beauty that is given more importance in our society and it stands tall in full force especially during matrimonial matches. Some people demand only fair, slim, educated (only in top universities) and rich girls/boys without as much as taking a glance at themselves in the mirror.  I am surprised to see even girls making such demands and them even being met as the girl's father ready to do anything for the marriage agrees to any enormous amount and the fair boy gets sold to the relatively dark girl for a 2 crore rupees. One such wedding I attended left me dumbfounded. Why is beauty given so much importance? What fun is it to get married to the most beautiful psycho in the world, I do not know ! Life would be a much better place if profundity weighed larger than superficiality.

Good, Bad and Ugly are words that are so relative that I no more find any real value attached to them because I feel that among all the living forms on this world, the human brain is probably the most biased. So, it is always safer to follow your own intuition than to rely on colored statements made by others.