This story is the concluding part of The Great Equalizer – 1. Please do not read further in case you haven’t read the first part. Please read the first part and return…
The Deads have successfully conceived The Great Equalizer. They were optimistic, delighted and content, the Passionates on the other hand were occupied with their work. During the same period (late 1860s), an outfit of Scientists was engrossed with colossal calculations, research papers and rock minerals. These scientists were computing the age of earth and they were close to making some breakthrough revelations which will attract response from everyone, including the Church.
The Origin of Species (1859) was published during the papacy of Pope Pius IX, who defined dogmatically papal infallibility during the First Vatican Council in 1869-70. The council and the Churches in Europe were furious with the Passionates as their research and calculations (on age of the Earth) were intrusive to their faith. The Gods-men were furious with Passionates and this proved to be a divine sanction for the Deads. Deads could not have asked for a better arena … The Great Equalizer was now endorsed by the Vatican. A brand endorsed by an upset Pope, promoted by furious clergy and followed by desperate Deads could have never failed.
The most crucial meeting before the massive propagation of The Great Equalizer was held in Dublin in 1870s. All the records, notes and logs of the meeting were to be burnt after it was over. The meeting was attended by Pope, representatives from various churches in Europe, Planning and organizing committee of The Great Equalizer and a few eminent men from clergy. During the course of this meeting some strategic decisions will be taken and they will change the future of mankind …forever. The Great Equalizer was to be positioned as an ‘institution’ and ‘necessary evil’. The Great Equalizer should be fundamental to every one’s life and it should eventually determine one’s society worthiness. For the first time in the history of mankind so many men were agreeing to a doctrine unanimously. The meeting that lasted for over nine hours saw forty-nine drafts being sanctioned with no objections whatsoever. Every soul present sensed victory, the atmosphere was jubilant and the air smelt of celebrations that evening. Every one returned home, burnt the logs and notes from meeting and raised a toast to Marriage. Yes, Marriage was the name given to The Great Equalizer that evening, and it still remains unchanged in its essence, values and positioning.
Today, more than hundred years later The Great Equalizer has delivered what was expected from it. Many a passionate men get converted into a regular married guy once they enter this ‘institution’. The ideas of travel, adventure, instinctive decisions get transformed into EMIs, planning, organizing and savings for future. Married men sure become homogeneous; they have the same ideas, the same fears, the same aspirations, the same joys and even the same body language. They spend their time reading magazines on how to prolong excitement, how to fight hair loss, how to keep the spark alive in a relationship, how to tackle demanding wives, how to maintain a work-life balance, how to stay fit without going to gym, how to surprise your partner with a romantic getaway, how to manage your household expenditure without compromising on quality of life and so on. These magazines have become their literature, their wives have become their world, their 2 BHK flat in suburbs is their biggest dream and a visit to the nearby mall is nothing less than a romantic getaway.
Mediocrity breeding more mediocrity, and the vicious cycle continues
ReplyDeleteintricately woven facts make it all true...the best part of this series...but I am biased and conform with your views in last paragraph :)
ReplyDelete@ DD : yeh kaafi suna-suna hai :)
ReplyDelete@ Moss : Thanks bro :) We have seen many a great men fall (around us). Though I have been lucky to see a few exceptions as well ... but this is the bigger picture according to me :)
As I had said this is breakthrough research in the history of Human race.. :)
ReplyDeleteBut I wonder: What if a passionate man and a passionate woman get into this institution of marriage together?? Will that be the defeat of great equalizer???
Aristotel once said earth was 'Round'.
ReplyDeleteAryabhata said well I have discovered something new to the number system which I would perhaps call 'Zero'. On paper it was 'Round' too.
A proud status for ‘Zero’ and ‘Round’ & passionate men indeed!
If ‘Zero’ and ‘Round’ couldn’t maintain their sanity, I can understand what an equalizer would do to a man.
Good to see this Ubu; discovering a corner of the dark cave with a lot many hidden secrets! Watch out for Vampire Bats!! ;)
Hahahaha...
ReplyDeleteI am sorry for laughing, but this is so true!
And perhaps for this reason alone that the passionate see that the pillars of this institution are so fake. That there is nothing that holds it together but the intent and free-will of the people involved. But then again, that itself, is the reason for its failure. :D
Sorry, if this sounds too convoluted!
Damn you Uba! I had expected such great things when I read the first part! :|
ReplyDelete@ Ashish : It was always about 'the great equalizer' dude. It was never about 'such great things' :)
ReplyDeleteSorry this is also in two parts
ReplyDeletePart 1
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Hi Dude, nice work. But I am afraid I would have to disagree with you on this.
Your research is beyond doubt commendable, but like most research projects, this one also seems to suffer from what statisticians like to call ‘hindsight bias’. And your analysis has another glitch, which is much worse, that politically correct people would like to call ‘gender bias’. (Though you know I am no feminist either).
You seem to have put together some research to support your conclusion as opposed to deriving logical results from an unbiased study. And carrying, probably the only thought that can attract such unusual unanimity in today’s world, i.e. institution of marriage is the cause of our mediocrity and many failures, often of the institution itself, you looked back in recent history and all things happen to add up to support your hypothesis.
Well, my first question to you, how long back is long enough? I mean how far would you go back to see when was this great equalizer invented? Well, in my opinion, the great equalizer wasn’t the institution of marriage, (more on this later) purportedly set up by a religious enterprise, but it was the religion itself. The very fact that an enterprise comes out with a decree and whole world feels obligated to follow it, proves my point. And this ofcourse dates back much beyond we can research into with reasonable confidence. I wont say much on this lest it becomes a discussion about god’s existence or non-existence, evolution or creation etc.
But I think religion is the institution that was created solely to govern people, to give them a code of conduct, give them a reason to connect with each other, and most importantly give them hope. But ofcourse as we all would agree, it just became a mechanism to manipulate and often control people. Well, in my opinion religion was the first equalizer in our history, which made us homogeneous to an extent.
Part 2
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Secondly, I would again put the onus on us. Man inherently is an insecure living being, always craving for acceptance, for which we sometimes adapt, sometimes evolve, but often kill what you like to call ‘uniqueness’ in ourselves. Humans, just as many other animals also have a tendency to herd. And I have rarely seen non-homogeneous herds. But don’t get me wrong here, we do also strive to distinguish ourselves, yet we seek acknowledgement of the fact that we’ve distinguished ourselves, from the same herd we feel affiliated to.
Finally on marriage, you spoke of evolution, but you just confined your research to biological evolution. But we have evolved, biologically, intellectually, spiritually (though I doubt that) and most importantly emotionally.
We all know how our race has evolved, from reptiles to apes and then humans with several other steps in between. And all this time our only purpose on this planet was procreation. And this purpose still defines our very basic inherent characteristic, which very often gets the better of us. But as humans started growing more and more complex, just bringing an offspring into this world wasn’t enough. Human offspring needed much more than food and shelter to develop, to grow and to mature. And that’s when humans started feeling, yet another used and abused term, ‘Love’. And we started forming bonds, relationships, unions, so we could give our offsprings an environment, which was needed to nurture such a complex animal. And no wonder this relationship was institutionalised in form marriage, just as many other relationships, like father and son, teacher and his pupil, king and his kingdom etc, institutions with their own code, obligations and responsibilities.
I may be making it very complicated (and committing a very gross crime) by writing about religion and evolution in the same piece, but I think the answer to your question is very simple. I honestly don’t think everyone has something special in him or her. If we were all unique, it would be too much work for god.
Life to me is like a math problem with a set of constraints and an optimal solution. We just all keep trying to find that. Marriage is just another one of those constraints. You choose to ignore the constraints, every solution is optimal, or perhaps there is no optimality.
I think more than marriage, it is the desire to please, or to get attention (may be of a woman in the form of wife )that we go down to the level of eroding ourselves and trying to be that someone who "they" want us to be..Again what "they" want us to be is our perception of what "they" think of us.And our perception is based on so many incomprehensible things.
ReplyDeleteWhen we wre trying to please and make others happy we forget that we can never give what we dont have...that's how we fall .I think its our own fear and insecurity which leads to this fall.