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‘We’ for Valentine: Patterns within our Kaleidoscope

February 14, 2022February 14, 2022
by Sameera Khan Rehmani

As February dances to its love tune for obvious reasons, have you ever wondered what color and shape is your heart taking this Valentine? Is it the heart that is crimson for you or is there space for other palettes and patterns to take over? Almost like a game of cards with different shapes speaking for themselves, can we allow ourselves to think differently? At its peak, Greek society painted its culture with the colors of comedy and tragedy. Catharsis or not, the impression has been deeply ingrained through generations of audiences from The Odeon to The Globe of Shakespeare to continuously evolving modern means of storytelling. People continue to fall in love overcoming barriers of ethnicity, color, race, religion, class, language, or gender. The structure of that love may have shifted over time, but the roots have remained firm. Across films, music, art, literature, or poetry, the sense of affection has floated with blurred boundaries, but the palettes and designs of love differ with time, but emotions have adamantly stood the test of time.

Humming to Sting’s Shape of my heart (where he compared these shapes with separate identifications), are we ready to put a name to those individual shapes that carry our emotions? What if Cinderella’s masquerade did not wait for the clock to strike at 12? Would she still have got her prince charming? Perhaps if Snow White had not eaten the round red apple, her heart would not have experienced that eternal kiss of life! When we connect romance with the heart, we forget that its hypothetical shape is a mere figment of our imagination. Sorry to burst the bubble! Despite the knowledge, the innumerable amount of content that we see, hear or read, relates to that picture-perfect ‘heart’ shape. There are so many of us who believe in love in different forms. The existence of this one shape of the heart seems to be uniform to all of us. Most of us wear a mask that incessantly identifies with our existing view, constantly suppressing the inner voice questioning its weird, cliched existence. Perhaps we fear the potential loss of human emotions that may end up unfolding the reality.

This Valentine when you think of experiencing or reconfirming your thoughts about emotions, don’t ignore the ones that run wild. All shapes and forms of love in and around us need our focused thoughts. Let them act as lightning bolts, spread like wildfire, and enable us to think out of the box! The game that humans play with each other whether romantically, personally, emotionally is as risky as that game of cards. A spade is not just a spade it acts as a sharp weapon for soldiers unwittingly trapped in the battle of hearts. This Valentine, we can experience ‘clubs’ or we can buy ‘diamonds’, the cards on their own don’t have a value. While it has been associated with decadence, we should not undermine the kind of effect monetary independence brings. As we progress in this claimed month for love and tenderness, friendships, and happiness, connect and progress, we must try to understand the importance of understanding that shape. The size of our emotions does not matter. What matters is that we play the game with patience and fairness for the stakes are always high!

While it is now being argued that the mind is flat, there is still scope for acceptance of some ideas of thinking developed through studies of the mind over the past century. The geometry that surrounds different shapes reveals their intended inferences. For instance, shapes like squares and rectangles bring a sense of stability, balance, structure while circular shapes tend to bring about the concept of wholeness, self, timeliness, and completion. Then there is a triangle that even inputs its emotions to emerge with ideas of enlightenment, revelation, brightness surrounding ourselves. It’s heartening to see that the world is moving towards an acknowledgment of the individuality and uniqueness around us. The enforcement of uniform color, shape, and type is not justified when we start attaching emotions with them. These angles of possibility can be surrounded by stereotypical ideas and ideals, yet the result of any relationship can be completely new. What’s more, they can evolve into unthinkable complications, pretty much like these shapes and their mysterious psychological patterns.

The physically fixed-shaped heart has done its fair share of somersaults from films, music, to logic. Wh

en we take literature as well into account, we will find that its journey has been quite adventurous. The characters in books have been brought to life quite often with the awakening of love in their ongoing existence. From early on, this shape has gotten accustomed to the development of the plot, characters, and dialogues. Books bring with them elements of surprise and many times play with the readers’ emotions. A classic or contemporary literary piece of work has its romance. Different angles of this love have played their mystery games in quite many of them.

This Valentine as we think about the shapes and colors our hearts are ready to acquire, are we ready to dance on our own, or do we need our kings and queens to pop the champagne? Perhaps it’s time that we have the same love first for ourselves. With all due respect to our partners, there should not be any illusion as I am not trying to lessen the value of this day but am merely adding a corner of self-love to it! Just like any romantic film’s protagonist, we can very well play the part of characters having mutual affection. However, it is equally important to know that we do not crave a singular dimension. The endgame is perhaps the acknowledgment from ourselves that we matter. We unconsciously long for this confirmation from others rather than ourselves. This ever-trickling loss of self-worth keeps gaining momentum without a counterbalance. It latches itself onto our desires for freedom of thought and expression, self-love, mutual respect, unconditional devotion for our relationship with our surroundings. Instead, we can make it a day for loving ourselves too while respecting each other. Perhaps we may find the real shape of our heart that we can color to our heart’s desire!

Mowgli of This Jungle Book

January 21, 2022January 21, 2022
by Sameera Khan Rehmani

While looking out of my French Window in the City of London, it occurred to me that the struggle to make it in life has become so intense that this part of my whole has engulfed me with a strength that cannot be easily captured in images. But then I turn around and realise. However, the view outside made me see nothing but buildings, roads, and people on roads going towards buildings again. It was a jungle for me and for anyone struggling to carve a road ahead. The concrete jungle is all but a reality now not only in its physicality but also in its emotional, mental, and existential occurrence. Rudyard Kipling’s ‘Jungle Book’ in 1894 has been an interesting piece of work for me. But it resonates deeper now when I am in my 40s and realise, I am free to interpret the title and characters according to my whims and fancies in my life’s reality. Now I understand that I am not the only one in this muddle. There are so many of you standing in this line with me. Sometimes you may not even be realising yourself, but I find myself in the same race with most of you. I may sound narcissist to many; it may sound false to quite a few but the truth is, the levels may differ, the intensity may vary, but the core remains the same. We are all searching for that piece of peace that seems to erode with the harsh winds of human fatigue and rationality. For me, and for most of us, the Jungle Book is a story that follows the journey of a wild child named Mowgli. A pack of wolves found him as a baby and was raised among them. However, he had his struggles to fit in and survive. The story follows how he was raised among wolves and survived through it all without any human connection. However, I am not here to find a perspective and take on white colonialism or characters representing the involved symbolism. What I want to concentrate on is my journey or anybody else’s as well, who is sailing in a similar boat. This life around all of us and outside our vision is a Story like Rudyard Kipling’s above mentioned Jungle Book, where like its main character, we too are that wild child, who is left alone to fare for his survival. In this life, we find our journey, our story, our jungle book!

Every morning when we wake up, you and I find ourselves in a forest of ambiguity. We try to clear our morning blur because for some it is just a puddle, for others, it is a marshy land. For few, it is a bridge to cross over, but for most, it is a journey across wonderland far and wide; crossing through deep rivers, dragging over deserts with their parched throats. All of us are in a desperate search of a mere glass of cold water to smoothen out our parched souls. As we grow in life, we move ahead on the paths that we have dug for ourselves and with age comes the understanding that in dreams begins our responsibilities! But the Mowgli in all of us is still that frightened little boy who is trying to make it every single day by keeping a brave face. Every day brings a new hurdle and by the end of each evening, he finds a solution to overcome that. He must survive because that is what he was made to learn. His pack taught him what needs to be done. But they have not held his hand and drilled in him how to reach the finish line. Just like Mowgli, all of us are afraid to cross over. The end of the tunnel is dark. None of us knows what dangers lie ahead. There may be many ‘Sher Khan(s)’ along the way, with accompanying conniving hyenas, to lure us to our tragic end. But if we will ponder more, we will never be able to take that leap of faith. There is always that hope that on the brighter side we may along the way, meet a couple of Bagheera(s). These will be our guides to bring us out of our troubles and may pull us by our neck to carry us safely across the barbed wires. The Baloo, Sher Khan, Kaa, King Louie and even the Hyenas inside each one of us need to agree with what the Mowgli said in Kipling’s story; ‘we be of one blood, ye and I’, The moment we realise that we come from one and shall go back to one, we might be able to cut through the thorns of this jungle safely. We can dream to roam free when our actions will speak louder than our words. A little push there, a subtle pull in several positive directions, is enough to emotionally gratify and physically satisfy our individual Mowgli(s) within.

The story of Rudyard Kipling may have a different focus while bringing Jungle Book to life; still, we as individuals can write our own stories. We may make errors along the way but if we are ready to be an editor for each other and proofread the written content in our lives, our Jungle Book will also have a happy ending. We are sure to gain the same freedom and respect that Mowgli felt in his craving to roam about freely, with a sense of belonging to the roots known to him. The concrete jungle outside our homes, visible through our windows is equal in enormity with the jungle within us. We need to get past our racial, religious, gender, social and economic differences to bridge the divide that is our own doing. The differences that we have created for our own and the gap that is wide enough for ourselves to stumble and fall in this never-ending pit. It needs to be pushed close with a consistent effort. We desperately need to recognise the entryway but even more, what is needed is to hold each other’s hands to take us through the dark forest to see that light at the exit. Our story – your and my Jungle book needs to reach its end as well. Our Mowgli(s) need to meet each other and live in this magnificent Jungle of our own making in harmony. We can bring out the Rudyard Kipling in each of us to write many more such wonderfully wild tales!

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‘We’ for Valentine: Patterns within our Kaleidoscope

Mowgli of This Jungle Book