Life, Laughter and Everything Else

It had been just four days since the self enforced no-music rule. As intended, the lyrics blaring out from the loudspeakers made me stop in my tracks and soak in the melody that I had been deprived off, that I had taken for granted. It sounded like the most beautiful thing I had heard in a while. Played with the magnificent Singapore landscape in the backdrop and the winds from the Indian Ocean blowing briskly but gently, I was comforted.  Nobody said it was easy It's such a shame for us to part Nobody said it was easy No one ever said it would be so hard Oh take me back to the start. So apt, so poignant, almost as if they could read my mind and put into words what I was struggling to piece together.

Put two guys together and at some point, the topic will be about women. This time, the conversation took a more mature and philosophical turn while discussing failed relationships, in particular how in a budding romance, the questions that lingered about who was giving and investing more in the relationship, the expectations that arose out of it and how the failure to meet those expectations would see the castles built in the air crumble and fall. Then he pointed out something about his mother, how she probably influenced his idea of a relationship. To quote his precise words, "I don't understand mothers. How they will complain and complain about giving, and yet they will give and give. And you do something small for them, just something really small, and that makes them so happy". Why?

"You know he feels somewhat not so appreciated. That he is doing so much at work, sacrificing so much for his family, but nobody seems to acknowledge that. Maybe that is why I feel he is withdrawing into himself more and more". It was possible, but it never occurred to me that this thought would predominate his day to day life. When you care about or love someone, sometimes it might seem like that would suffice, though truth be told, it might not. I once remember hearing  story, when a frustrated husband, late into his marriage, complained to his wife that she never told him that she loved him. "I have washed you clothes, cooked your food and reared your children. Is that not enough?' A man asking for more would make the perfect fodder for today's feminists. However, we humans are fickle, irrational and ever so emotional. We want our efforts to be acknowledged by our bosses, our status to be seen by the society, our love to be validated by our partners and...