Unequals

The blue of my jeans and the red of my shirt do not talk to each other. Forced to temporarily inhabit the residence that is my body I see that they squirm and tease each other all the time. They lay claims to inheriting my liking of colors as I am sure they did somewhere hear me saying “I love the red of the roses and the blue of the skies”. Made to share space, I see them caught in a relationship that is characterized to say the least by rivalry, by dissent and by mutual distrust- as if siblings in a moment of feud. Only at the belt area do they meet occasionally and peripherally. Never seen them sharing a hug or a lighter moment. Whatever one says of the therapies of touch and massage, the fact remains that touching also is one of the most irritable things to do.

The black of my hair and the brown of my shoes do talk to each other. Just that one cannot hear much of the other. Placed distantly they look up to and look down on the other. The color from the hump of some camel feels proud of its origin and the one from the shackles of a long incarcerated convict’s cell reeks of pity, disgust and suffocation. The two come close when I kneel to tie the laces. It is then a stream of my locks falls to the shoe and caresses it momentarily. However romantic that moment, the fact remains that the ones residing above can hardly be in love with the ones who are dragged endlessly on dusty muddy floors.

The brown of my right hand talks to the brown of my left. They meet, shake hands and share their day-to-day happenings like good friends, like neighbors who rarely quarrel. Why and how is such a relationship possible? I think it is because of their even handedness, because they belong to the same domain of the residence. One does not have a point to prove to the other. They know what they do and where they come from. I do believe that all working relationships where partners from uneven platforms are involved seem to work only because one of them is either unusually appreciative and understanding of the esteem or of the plight of the other. It often does not make sense to see relationships as a game of give and take. At times things just are. I however do not believe that relationships aren’t possible between two unequal, or between two ‘different’ individuals. They are. But when they come into being, the compassion and the pity, the tolerance and the accommodating nature of one over the weaker, poorer other cannot be left unmentioned leave alone highlighted. C’est La Vie? What do you think about it?