So i walk into a room. My Host had been having
a party of sorts and halts the ongoing discussion in order to introduce me. Oh,
by the way, I am a single Lady of 30; desperately searching for that tall(or
not so tall anyway), dark other that would decorate my fourth finger with a precious stone(or steel; at this point, i don’t really mind). Anyway, this host of mine
does the “meet X”s and i do the proportional “…Nice meeting you, X”s, at the
same time mentally putting all the fine males in the room through my
eligibility/suitability test. My hungry eyes rest on one of them. From all
outward indications, he fits my ideal husband image like the tight pink dress i
bought at SED mall last Saturday fitted me. My host notices my ‘inspector duties’ and
quickly bursts my very colourful hope balloon.
“Forget it. He is married. Happily”
“Forget it. He is married. Happily”
That should be a deterrent i guess. But, what
happens is that i realize my subject now has added radiance. A glow i didn’t notice
on first appraisal appears, and, i get more interested….
Rewind my life a little. That time i was
sixteen and alcohol was proclaimed taboo at our family home; it suddenly became
irresistible. I subsequently derived greater guilty pleasure from the single
act of smuggling it in successfully.
Rewind further. I am ten years old and dad is
preaching to mum on the importance of his girl children always wearing trousers
and turtle necks and never skirts because ”It covers them properly” I am thinking and
inwardly shedding tears of sorrow ”Why
Daddy? Skirts are so beauuu…ti ful!
”
”
In short, i crave the outlawed things. And i
do not know why. –Ladi Xyz (Fiction)
Dear Ladi Xyz, i totally understand.
Hi reader, do you?
Let’s talk about it a little. Before
proceeding, i must add that i practically have no answers to offer; perhaps
only more questions and simple observations. If you are fine with that, i am too.
So, is it just me or is there a
quality of attractiveness automatically present in anything generally seen as
forbidden? Is there an inherent beauty in something considered off bound?
I was thinking. A while ago, nudity
was nothing to write home about. At least so i heard. Back in time, we wore
fewer clothes. Way before that, before someone discovered the loom and thread, I’d
guess we practically didn’t do clothes. Somehow, things changed, clothes became
the norm and nudity became taboo. Right? right. But then, something began to happen.
Just when nakedness was made sacred, something the eyes were banned from viewing
indiscriminately, it began to take on extra beauty. Even the slightest show of bare
skin began to have allure. Now, we are at the stage where uninhibited display
of bodily wares is closely associated with ‘beautiful’ in fashion. Is the human
skin (colour) indeed more beautiful than the combination of various colours and
patterns on a garment? Or, is this perceived beauty because uninhibited display
of bodily wares is still largely considered forbidden?
I think that for the average person,
anything that is associated with boundaries becomes unusually tantalizing to
the mind. It becomes something enchanting. But, this should be a trick of the
mind. The elegance we all perceive, i mean. Just like a trick of the light that
creates a grotesque monster on the wall; a monster that in actuality, is only a
community of shadows.
Why the mind often does this, i
have no idea. But, in my not-that-many number of
years on earth, i have come to
see that some of the things that looked so enticing to me, when critically
looked at, had no intrinsic special value in themselves. All along, the value
was in my head. Like the time i had no access to jewelry as a kid and they
became all i desired. They were shiny, fine and pleasant to me. Fast forward to
now, and i hardly care about it. Considering, how indifferent i am now,it’s a
little hard for me to understand why i ever thought them fascinating.
In conclusion, when next i see that
banned thing, beckoning in all its grandeur, looking yummy and sumptuous all at
once, I should realize that the glorified seductive quality it possesses, is a
magician’s trick; that maybe, it is just my mind doing stunts … Will i?
Very interesting realization!
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