Jealousy Unveiled

It is said in some scriptures in effect that if a man can deal justly, let him have two wives, otherwise if he fears he cannot be fair to both, then let him have only one. Jealousy is a trait often associated with women fighting over one man, and women are often insinuated as possessing too much of the trait. But I have felt that in fact women suffer from jealousy because of a basic ineptness in men! The common man is by nature not only attracted to many women but is also basically unfair, uncaring or tactless. Women being perceptive and more emotionally developed beings (as most people would agree), are more sensitive to unfairness and end up in the vicious hold of jealousy. In fact, I have known that women can be the best of friends to each other, and generally, if they have an issue that breaks the friendship it more often than not is the result of an insensitive or unjust man who came in between them, making one jealous of the other. By the way, why men don’t suffer as much from jealousy is because they are either busy looking at other women, or have wise or caring wives who know how to avoid making her mate jealous. And then if a man suffers jealousy, it's , mostly, either because the woman intended to make him jealous or the man is getting unreasonably possessive perhaps because of his own insecurities.

Jealousy unveiled and confronted is jealousy conquered. Avoiding it can worsen the situation irretrievably. So here, I address women folk, and let's see how to cope with the greens... Well the first point is - Is it fair to expect something from Men that they are basically not capable of ? It is like asking a monkey to walk erect! How foolish can we women be! I read somewhere, "If you ever feel like making your man understand something then hit your head against a wall until that feeling goes away!" The long and short of it is: “It is we women who have to change (as always) to manage our green emotion." 

So here are some truths we need to swallow. Of course, all men are naturally drawn to beautiful women, but the one who cares for his woman (however ordinary) will never make her feel less, or hurt her self-esteem, because, any sensible man knows that to be appreciated by her man for what she is happens to be the very ground for the woman. All men surely can have affection for more than one woman in life, but the one who cares for his relationships will deal fairly in resolving conflicts, and while expressing his affections. The fact remains that 'caring men are a rare breed'!

Women are just as much (or maybe more) jealous of emotional attachments in a man as of physical attractions and that is difficult for men to understand. For women, the biggest need is affection and not sex, and often the reason they give sex is to get affection whereas a man is affectionate until he gets sex, from which point he can think only of sex. So when affection is dealt unfairly among the women in a man’s life, the wife, the sexual partner can get jealous, which the man, whose primary need is sex, fails to understand. That is why a long courting period before hitching is a must. Indeed, that does not guarantee anything. So I would like to give a probably 'wild' suggestion.  If you need only affection then don’t give sex to your love interest because the assumption that sex buys love is as naive as expecting the sun to continue shining during late evening.

One way of putting an end to the green emotion is of course to end the emotional tie up that is causing jealousy, but the fall back is, it does not help with the next emotional tie up. So women, there has to be a solution that helps avoid jealousy in relationship that man is programmed to arouse. Yes, I am sure you guessed right; the answer is ‘expect nothing’. Now can you expect rivers to flow in the desert? But if you go forward expecting a desert and find a river, how happy you would be. So girls, don’t blame your love interests, blame your thick heads for expecting flowers on pine trees. Look it up, pines bear only cones. Indeed you have caused your own miseries. However it is wise to expect all trees to be pine trees as you would be allowing yourself the chance to be pleasantly surprised...

But then what do you do for your inborn hunger for affection…hmm..well….pray to god to give you luck? Or become the source of such love. 'Embodied Love' does not need any external contribution. Women have a good chance of finding that well-spring within because their need is great and they are sensible to understand it is not to be found out there. Yes, we need to turn inwards. The sooner we do, the better life becomes.

The Real Playground

I had to pressure my girl a bit to explore the river and not just look at it and then walk away to the swimming pool. I was rewarded later for this persuation by her words, "Mom I never knew the river is so much fun". I realized that today's kids from the concrete jungles do need a little persuation to realise the fun in exploring nature. We have got so used to the buildings, the computers, the TV, the pool, that it has become our whole world; from where we watch nature from afar, not participating in its flow, not experiencing, exploring or understanding what it means to be part of it. We jump into the regularity of the pool but do not care to cautiously explore the mystery and variety of the river. It is because we in our safe world don't know the fun in mystery.

I have been lucky to have explored nature in my ancestral homes in Kerala. In the hilly terrains we had lot of fun jumping into mountain pools watching the waterspiders skitting about, fishing with meshed cloth towels, climbing up slippery rocks to have a look at that mysterious cave which foxes were said to inhabit.

I always used to think there are only artificial gardens(which don't excite me) and nothing natural to explore in big cities like Bangalore..until my husband introduced us to riverside resorts.

The river was a shallow stream near the resort we were staying in. It rushed at some spots and some places it was quite still. I walked in and explored the river bed and found that it was rocky and not even knee deep. I mentally marked a circle in which it would be safe for the kids. I knew this was important as I almost drowned once when I quite naively swam into a river which I did not know about, which we had just come by during a road trip. It was without water in a region where the sandy bed was visible, giving the wrong impression that it was reasonably shallow. I swam along the shore not far from the sloping bank but when I kept my feet down a second time, towards the visible exposed river bed, I panicked not finding the river bed under my feet. It was a sand mined river!! I managed to swim to the exposed river bed (just a few strokes away) but it did leave me jittery about waters for a while though eventually it was a worthwhile learning experience. Never swim into waters you have no idea about especially if it has a sandy bed, you just cant know what man must have done to it!

We walked on the rocks, avoiding the moss ridden ones. Explored the rush of the waters over the rocks, put our hand in and watched the water glide past and then I seated my kids in the still regions of the water where they could watch the water spiders and fishes. I went to a cradle shaped rock that I had noticed in the water where the water was at its fastest and holding two rocks I dipped myself in lodging myself into the cradle with water rushing over me.... and as I came up, I had smelled, tasted and been one with the river. This was what I loved, experiencing the oneness with nature.

The next morning we walked barefoot on the poolside grass, something we had not done in a long while, but oh it was chilly and then I thought of my slippers and why I wore it! I looked at the birds unmindful of the chill, making nests that couldn't keep the chill out. No wonder man made slippers and houses. But I had planned to be bare foot and so later in the day we played bare feet in a natural patch, the games of my childhood and then I stamped on a bramble. Eeek, where are my slippers!


We lay down and watched the birds. I wondered how all day birds and animals have no other purpose but to find their food and take intermittent naps! Lying there I could course the entire journey of man from the forest to houses, gathering to agriculture, leaves to clothes, walking barefoot to vehicles. It was all a natural movement.

Yet in our journey to better adapt to nature we had more and more spare time in our hands to not just create a safe region for us, but go ahead and push nature into a bystander, corrupt its natural features and flow. I was reminded of a quote I had used in my environmental science course book.

"If in a city we had six vacant lots available to the youngsters of a neighborhood for playing ball, it might be "development" to build houses on the first, and the second, and the third, and the fourth, and even the fifth, but when we build houses on the last one, we forget what houses are for.”- Aldo Leopold
Development was a natural progression but let it not become the reason to forget where we came from. Let us not forget to allow an equal space for our origins, leaving it in its pristine glory, mystery and also regularity. And finally lets not forget to play into the magical spell of our real playground.