The Bedtime Series | Season 1, Ep 8: The Good Men
I saw this very cool Ted Talk by John Gray, the author of Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus. (You can watch it here). I found it deeply entertaining and enlightening at the same time. We spend so much of our time dwelling on how we’re feeling, imploring our biologically driven consciousness to ‘mean’ something more than it is — a hormone driven, chemically induced state of being. (Okay okay, I know human ‘beings’ are creations of God and all that, don’t fret). The point is, so much of our emotions & feelings can be explained biologically — a play of our hormones. The first time I understood this some years ago, it gave me a lot of control over myself, just knowing that most of what was happening did not necessarily have to be fraught with deep meanings about life, growth or the mind. For example, anger can actually subside in less than 90 seconds because all the chemicals that get induced by (or that induce) anger, flush out of our system in less than 90 seconds. So the next time you feel that rush of blood boiling inside you, wait for 90 seconds before you react. I tried it yesterday when I randomly got really angry with a motorist behind me (for honking too much) and I just said to myself that I’ll react after 2 minutes of deep breathing. In 30 seconds the feelings had vanished. Not magic, just plain biology.
Coming back to the point about ‘Men’. So John Gray’s talk was about how women and men are wired very differently, and how each expects the other to be, to react, to share and care. I wouldn’t want to give out too many spoilers and would want you to go check it out but the larger point of what moves men, and what motivates men really stuck out. Yes, men come in all shapes and sizes. Yes, most of us (or some of us, I’m not sure) are irritating, weird, not worthy of being part of humanity and sometimes do & say things that the rest of us are ashamed of. I’ll spend some time though, talking about the ‘normal’ and ‘human’ men. We’re not very complicated human beings actually. Very simple. We actually never grow up, that’s all. We love having fun, we love going for long drives, being there for our loved ones, standing up for what’s right and doing everything perfectly (even washing utensils). We do falter. A lot. But we don’t deliberately do a lot of these dumb things. For example, sometimes, we are not able to control our emotions, and we do say the wrong things, but unlike the more superior sex, we do not always mean things we might say when we are not in the right frame of mind. We feel sorry, but we forget because it was not important to us. I am not justifying this. But yes, we are a bit funny that way.
Understanding us is not tough, simply because we don’t want anyone to understand a lot about us. Just know that sometimes when we are sitting quietly, doing our own thing, we are happy. Even if our usual bubbly self does not present itself and we look forlorn- gazing out into the distance, chilling on a bench, in a park- we are not depressed. We are just being us. We might not even want anyone asking us ‘how we are feeling’. Actually, that’s a very stressful question to ask any man. We have no clue because most of the time we are not feeling anything. We are just blank inside. So don’t ask us that ladies. :)
Also, men do get other men, even though we don’t show it at all. We mostly know what’s going on. Our intuitions are very very strong. Only thing is, we don’t dwell on those thoughts and just carry on with our own stuff. (Caveat — There are gossip monger men too, who love chatting on & on about everything under the sun. I’m not counting them). We know when another man needs time, another man needs to get out of a situation, or wants us to call them. We’re just tad bit too chilled out / cool to do this day in and day out. Also, we know that men really do not want other men to look after them or have their back or any of that school/college friendship band nonsense. So when we say we’ll call our best friend later, even if he’s going through something like a breakup (or divorce since I’m older now), it’s not because we are selfish. We know that he’d want to manage his own shit right now and then go out for a movie/beer/drive in a month or two. And we’ll do it then.
So yes, I don’t know why or how I started writing this. Actually I do know. It’s about my grandfather — how he lived, how he went through the pandemic and how he peacefully passed on pretty quickly, earlier in 2021 (That was his style too — do everything meticulously & without much hullabaloo). So he loved travelling, and being in different places during different times of the year — he was always planning his itinerary, next stop, next flight/train/road trip. He even made sure his three daughters stayed in different cities (one is in a different country too) so he had three different places (+ Kerala) to spend his year with enjoyment. The lockdown, hence, was tough for him. He was stuck in Bengaluru since Feb 2020.
In September 2020, I was finally able to drive from Pune to Bengaluru to meet my mom, my brother and him, after 9 months. We spoke about how he was doing. He said he was tired of being stuck in a place. I could imagine (read my blog on FLOW to know more). So I promised I’d be back soon and take him to Chennai (his headquarters, so to say). There were still some crazy travel restrictions in Tamil Nadu hence could not take him then. But I got back to Delhi, in October and started planning my next sojourn, which car rental agency to finalize, how to take him safely to Chennai. It just felt like this responsibility on me. We spoke almost every week. It seemed like my impending visit had sparked an excitement in him, he could again start planning, packing his luggage, thinking about a major change in ‘spatial context’. He was deteriorating a bit then but nothing too serious, he was just losing his voice and I thought time in Chennai with his Doctor Daughter will be good. Some of the elders were against the idea and thought it’s risky to travel. But the man inside me had connected with my grandfather. We knew this was more than just a road trip. It was LIFE for him. So finally I fixed a date, booked everything, got to Bengaluru, and we did this fun road trip (my mom, brother, and Appacha).
The trip was great, we reached Chennai without any issues. He sat down in his recliner, and heaved a sigh of relief. That was the best. I smiled a quiet smile, not knowing that this would be the last time I’d be seeing him, speaking to him in person. We made plans for a road trip from Chennai to Kerala in February (Yes, I know, we made the plans right then and there). Others thought we were crazy. But it was man to man — It was as if I was saying — I got your back and he would have said shut up, I know you love driving. Just come on time. :)
Anyway, so that was that. He passed away on Jan 9 2021, having finally made peace with whatever was pending in his mind,& heart. He ensured that the man in him did not make life a bother for his daughters with surgery and all the other complications that doctors were starting to plan for managing life with the tumour in his throat. (Yes, we eventually learned the reason behind him losing his voice). He stood for what he believed in as a man, made sure life was led with his head held high as a good man and he made sure I got a final adventure, with the Chennai to Kerala road trip. Sweet dude he was.
We men are funny beings, not too complicated, very dumb, very cute (at times) and mostly just trying to do the best we can, with the smaller brain we have. :)
