Of Human Bondage

In the recent years, I have realized that blood relations need not be the best relations for a person; I don’t know exactly how others would value and esteem blood-relations, but at least in my case they come only secondary to the so-called non-blood relations. It is possible when we are young, we feel the need to depend on our siblings for the fulfillment of our basic necessities, but as we grow in age and dependence, the fabric which keeps us together slowly gives way, and suddenly we may realize that we are not as closely knit with our siblings as we were years before.

Sometimes I feel that the bond of love and understanding that existed between we brothers and sister in the family is no more palpable; there is a feeling that things are falling apart, ever since the other siblings got married, began to set up their own families, manage their own affairs. It is natural that they begin to stand by themselves without depending too much on the other members of the family. But in the process, we could notice something was missing. We all are aware of it, but something is blocking us from really taking a good look at it.

Probably a man, who has not married, will not be able to realize the responsibilities levied on the part of the partners in a marital relationship. There are restrictions for them from all sides, from friends, neighbors, in-laws. If the attention of my brothers is turned towards their wives and children and not to my parents, or least of all to me, they are not to be blamed for it. Sometimes my parents grumble that the sons do not care for them, as they were doing before their marriage, and it may take them some years to realize that they are now on their own, and that has to be respected.

Human relations is an art, and not many people master it; there are some who are able to keep a healthy balance between their private life (together with their wives and children) and their wider family life. I understand the situation of handling human relations vary from place to place and culture to culture. Probably families are closely knit in the rural setup, because there is need for greater dependence on one another there than in a urban setup. Having grown up for some years in a joint family, I realize what we gained and what we lost.

Among several other things, what gives meaning to our human existence is the web of relations we weave day after day; while some links in the web get snapped, others are woven, sometimes even without our being conscious of them. And luckily the web of relations does not depend on the centre, which has given birth to the web. Wider this web, happier are we in life. There may be people who help us widen this net, and some others who wish to destroy this net. Possessiveness and excessive dependence in relationships try to curtail the widening of this web, and attempt to bring the web to a close, which can only sound the death-knell of human relations.