A sequel to: I love women but sometimes…
Yes there had to be sequel and this is it… I can’t possibly jot down all my experiences with the opposite sex in the past year within one entry…
Given the postive response I got for part one, here I shall take off from where I left…
I was making a statement about how I’m not being sexist and this was for women and not against them… Yes, this is not a collection of my patriarchal instincts transcribed in words… These are true incidents that occurred and that I observed… I couldn’t afford to be chauvinistic for the fact that I’ve needed a lady’s warmth to comfort me during the lowest points in my life…
Just recently, I was going through a mentally and physically exhausting, rigorous period in my life… I was disoriented, lost, mentally unstable and yet had to give my best shot at the one and only opening I had to get myself back into the media industry after a 11 month hiatus… It was Ullae Veliyae, a play that was staged in August… Acting opposite oustanding artistes like Guna and Siva, made the task even more challenging… If not for a few good female friends who stood by me at that point, I may well have screwed things up majorly… The well-wishing messages, the long phone conversations and the constant checks on whether I’m alright, it all helped…
It was the eve of show day… I had just done my role as convincingly as William Hung would have done on his worst performance ever, during our full-dress rehearsals… I was totally despondent and couldn’t face the rest of the cast and crew after that… It was upon a female friend’s comforting embrace, that I got the ease to get back on track and at least make a feeble attempt at it… You see, my role was a very broody, crestfallen character and it having an uncanny resemblance to an episode in my personal life didn’t help much either…
Though I put up a pretty decent performance the next day on our first actual show, the character and other personal stuff got to me so much that I couldn’t be normal after the performance… I couldn’t smile… My heart was heavy and I was on the verge of tearing… Once again, my saviour was this very special girl in my life who was right there, spot-on-time for a warm, comforting hug… There were people around… But I couldn’t care less… A familiar embrace filled with love, concern and care… I didn’t bother to hide weakness as I rested my wringed forehead on the shoulders that are always there for me… The next few reassuring statements that came from those lips resonated in my ears through the night… " Vish, you are an artiste… You love what you do… Don’t let this affect you… This is your big chance to come back… Put everything aside… Focus on your character, ma… I know you don’t like to disappoint your audience… Put everything else aside and do your best… You can do it" Then came the killer blow as grimly said " If you who enacted the character feel this bad, how would I, who lived it for real, feel?" It was a slap in the face… Yet a much needed awakening slap… I was rejuvenated and good to go for a second show, the next night…
In similar fashion, after the second show, all my co-artistes stepped down to mingle with the audience and I was once again in my disconsolate mode… A number of people I knew came up to me… I know there were hugs… There were pats on my back… "Well done…" and "Excellent performance" that were being told to me but yet it seemed like fading voices from a distant platform… I put a fake smile, uttering "thank you"s in return but everything was passing by my mind in a flurry… My heart was once again looking for a comforting hug amidst the congratulatory hugs, having got used to it in the two days prior to that…
Once again, it had to be a female friend who appeared out of the blue like an angel… She’s a good friend and we happened to be kind of playing Aunt Agony to each other as we were on the same boat at that period of time… Perhaps that’s what made her sense that there was something wrong and ask the golden question "Are you ok?" Followed by the much needed hug… I felt at home again as I buried my face on her shoulder for a quick 2-3 seconds only, realising that both my friends and hers were around… A couple of foul mouths I know, would easily link us up and make stories with that one instance, so I cut it short…
Why I am saying all these? It’s amazing how a brief comforting embrace from a lady can make you feel so much better even at the darkest point in your life… The warmth and comfort you get in a lady’s genuine hug, you can get nowhere… I just realised how dependent Men sometimes can be on women… For those three days, each day I had a different l lady friend who was there lend me a shoulder of support… Never ever have I felt so weak and wimpy… I’ve never been like that before… I never knew how to seek for solace from someone cos I was never emotionally dependant on anyone… I could always fight my battle myself and never allowed anyone to enter my personal space… Or so I thought till this episode… Women play such an important part in our lives and vice versa…
A man often can’t find such solace in another man as opposed to a woman… As a buddy of mine mentioned in a text when we were confiding in each other with our personal problems, it ends up looking like " Like a bunch of gay men consolingeach other."
But sometimes, you just wonder why some, only some, girls do the things that they do… Hmm… That musing was what made me write this series of entries… "Why?" That’s the issue…
Will be continued in the next installment…
