Joseph Lewis D’Silva
Life is a relationship. From the days of Adam and Eve, a simple relationship of a man and woman started growing into a family, tribe, society and nation; yes, without relationship there is no life.
As life has its ups and downs, some connections develop in duos; other tie up in trios with whom we share familiarity and exchange confidences;
many others link up in groups and cheer up with gossip which gives us a hilarious opportunity for a lively tittle-tattle; but a few remain as distant contacts and maintain a friendly and civil relationship.
There are different types of relationships in this world: which are bonded, by blood (such as parents, brothers and sisters); or marriage (such as non-blood aunts and uncles or step-parents); or friends and acquaintances linked with contact, and communication. We also have banker-customer, student-teacher, live-in-relationships and so on. As the permissible limit of space in this ‘other voices’ column does not allow me to talk about all types of relationships, I shall brush up with a few of them here.
Jealous relationship start with the feeling of wanting to have what someone else has. Jealous hearts are people we trust, respect, care about and feel that we can confide in them sharing our charms, unveiled our difficulty but they do not keep honest contact with us; but only a passing relationship with us. These jealous people catch and mismatch individuals; and force them in wedlock which finally breaks the padlock. Also, marriages made in heaven — they try to unmake on earth by bully in-laws with sugar-coated shady tales.
Some interact with us with masks; as though maintaining a true relationship, like for example: “folks who visit people in the hospital as if they were nice caring relatives when one is hospitalised. On arrived, they begin their own narration of how they shook with shock and felt the ground shake on hearing the news of admission in the hospital.” But, with a small disagreement, some misunderstanding; such masked relationship ends.
Unfortunately, we often come across dominating relationship who controls us by setting rules which we follow without understanding how ridiculous and dominating the rules are: like for example, “you shall not go for sightseeing or picnics with friends without me. You shall not talk to them for they are not good people.” Everyone sees the trap of dominating relationship, except those who believe in such dominating bullies.
Emerson said, “A man is a bundle of relations, a knot of roots.” Blood relationships never die a natural death. They are always murdered; goes a saying. They are murdered by harmful emotions like anger, hatred, jealousy, greed, etc.
Nowadays, relationships soon develop cracks when we fail to reciprocate the other person’s gestures, moves and actions; when we disagree with each other. The day to day relationship has to survive the wear and tear of daily life. Therefore, humble and simple folks should build fences, like a line of control to guard their own individuality and live a peaceful life the way it is meant to be lived; free from interference, disturbances from bullies or wrong doers; and be away from the stunts of attention-grabber, which play games or use tricks to sour any type of relationship with hatred. But when we build fences it is also necessary to build bridges. Barriers are to be built without creating hostility, but tactfully, build boundaries for one’s own survival; because there are always transgressors in the modern world.
