The Fogged Mirrors .....

All of us experience fogged mirrors , they seem strange , you try and find yourself and you don't . We wipe the mirrors often with our hands , to find a more familiar image of us . We keep wiping the mirror till we find of what we remember of ourselves .

Today's blog is about how I see mankind seeing itself in fogged mirrors .

We Seek Lookalikes :  We all think we know ourselves really well but are we really saying that based on what we see in the mirror of our conscience ? There is a strong reason to believe that those mirrors are fogged. Events in the past few months , re-validate my assumption that all of us  wish to come across as a unidimensional and unilayer personality while in fact we have a concoction of characters and personalities  inside us . No one is unidimensional .  This Thought triggered while watching my favourite movie Lamhe on Tuesday  Night this week. The Movie "Lamhe" has 2 central male characters , the protagonist , Viren and His friend Prem. On appearances , the two , while they are best friends, seem diametrically opposite in their mannerism. Viren is quite, serious, thinker yet every emotional  person with depth . Prem, on the other side, seems happy go lucky , bubbly, carefree and outspoken person. Can two diametrically opposite people be such good Friends . People like movies , not for their stories but how they relate to the characters sketched . In designing the character, a personality type is always kept in mind . This unidimensional trait is however restricted to films and script writing . I often say , Everyone's a Hero in the story of their life , then who is the anti-hero. Even the anti Hero or the villain will write his biography portraying as  a Hero . Fact is in real life we are all multidimensional. I quoted a few weeks to a friend that at least three personalities live simultaneously within you , it just depends what meets the Public eye more and what gets more prominence. Fact is we make no effort to  defog our mirrors and discover all those personality types, we seek happiness in seeing and seeking a unidimensional personality on screen . We spent majority of life seeking Lookalikes , because it's easier to love them , reality is we should love people for who they are and not because they are similar or dissimilar to us . The fear of the unknown, and the security of the known, the insecurity of the unknown, the unpredictability of the unknown, makes one very much frightened.

We Hide : Man has lived almost four million years on this planet. In these four million years most of the time there were dark nights without fire, wild animals, danger all around, and every moment full of fear. Out of this fear and danger man has had to create a certain capacity to survive. You may have observed that man's child is the weakest child in the world. He needs care for years until it is possible for him to stand on his own. And man's child is so weak against any animal. You cannot fight hence you had to invent weapons as a substitute. You don't have the claws of a tiger, you need something as a substitute. You don't have the teeth of the lion or the crocodile; you needed to be inventive enough so that you were not too close. The mother was continuously afraid for the child: in the deep forest -- all the wild animals were in search of food just as man was in search of food. That was the basic search for millions of years -- food. And even today, for millions of people, that is the basic search. Mind developed as a survival measure -- how to hide yourself, how to find caves, how to make caves? How to live in darkness without being harmed, how to live in trees? It has been a difficult time for millions of years.

We all Hide , in our flats , rooms , in get togethers , blocking whatsapp and FB contacts . We are a scared tribe . Mind knows only one language -- that is of fear, danger, and how to survive and make yourself safe against an antagonistic universe.

Unhiding is always so difficult , coming out of our inner shell is difficult . Shell is cozy , we love our shell but life is always out of the shell.  Thats why outspoken people are likely to face more criticism . 

We seek Substitutes : Mankind has learnt that what it can not achieve by great effort , must be substituted by with a cheaper alternative . he will create a easy and Cheap substitute for. Someone who has read my blog for years commented , that my most profound Statement has been , that Romance is the cheap substitute of true love . I think parenting is an appropriate example, if we throw gestures at a child but no real time, no emotions and no actions, will that child ever feel the connect . 

What we can't find soul in, we apply mind. Festivals have substituted festivity. All festivals are templatized now . Gifts have substituted true Giving . Love is now a templated process , a give  a take, a barter trade , a tareeqa. What if you just want to love and not expect anything in return ? But that's now how love has been marketed. We seek easier more predictable things , This is no way to live, and the reason, the fundamental reason, is we have forgotten the language of love. We are no more courageous enough to go into that adventure called love. Hence people are interested in sex, because sex is not risky. It is momentary, you don’t get involved. Have a few meals , few Vodkas and few nice evenings .  Modern men and women are living in a dark cell’ it is narcissistic. Narcissism is the greatest obsession of the modern mind. Love is involvement of the entire landscape of emotions,  When you meet  with a woman or a man in an intimate setting ,  you have not met at all’ in fact, you avoided the soul of the other person. You just used the body and escaped, and the other used your body and escaped. You never became intimate enough to reveal each other’s true persona.

Two words will be hurting this society in long run,  "Instant " and Disposable" , eventually they will become bad words. They have made inroads into human behaviour where it will start reflecting on lives very soon . Instant is the substitute to "over a period of time" and Disposable, a substitute for treasurable .  

The journey of evolution is the journey of finding better mirrors and defogging them .The reflection that you will find in the other of your own self may be ugly’ that is the anxiety. Dont avoid the mirror but do avoid the fogged ones .  

This Piece is penned by Jan Nisar Akhtar (Please don't connect him with Farhan or Javed , although Javed is his sister's son ) , was used in movie Called Razia Sultan , released in 1983 . This is what teenage obsession with Good music and poetry do to you ..... :(

ऐ दिल-ए-नादान...........आरज़ू क्या है............जुस्तजू क्या है
Justju is Pursuit ...
हम भटकते हैं, क्यों भटकते हैं, दश्त-ओ-सेहरा में......
Sehra is desert , dasht is wilderness ....
ऐसा लगता है, मौज प्यासी है अपने दरिया में......
Mauj is Tide/wave . The connotation is that Tide which is reflection of water , is in fact thirsty (not in touch with water) , the tide may not always be in sync with whats beneath it.
कैसी उलझन है, क्यों ये उलझन है, एक साया सा रूबरू क्या है......

Rubaru is part of personality , around .

क्या कयामत है, क्या मुसीबत है, कह नहीं सकते, किस का अरमां है

The angst of not being able to pinpoint to one person as epitome of desire .

जिंदगी जैसे खोई खोई है, हैरां हैरां है, ये ज़मीन चुप है, आसमां चुप है

फिर ये धड़कन सी चार सू क्या है
Chaar su means all around ....how is it that I only hear my heartbeat pulsating and nothing else ...
ऐ दिल-ए-नादान, ऐसी राहों में कितने काँटे हैं, आरजूओं ने हर किसी दिल को दर्द बाँटे हैं
Why is this path so treacherous , desire are the reason .....

कितने घायल हैं, कितने बिस्मिल हैं, इस खुदाई में ......एक तू क्या है

Who are you man ...the whole bloody world is "screwed " :) :) :) - Pun Intended