LOVE IS BLIND

Time and again we have been told that Love is blind. Movie empires have been built on that notion. We have also experienced and encountered in our own lives events situations which appear to validate this. Examples of this usually involve pretty girls falling for plug-ugly men with no prospects, and occasionally the other way round.

Sometimes this maxim is invoked to explain one or the other party overlooking or being oblivious to the  faults of the other party which are only too evident to all. This might be a case of what Margaret Heffernan calls Willful Blindness.  She argues that  we choose, sometimes consciously but mostly not, to remain unseeing in situations where “we could know, and should know, but don’t know because it makes us feel better not to know.”  Don't women close their eyes while kissing while the man in the kiss has his eyes wide open and is scoping out his next victim(s)? Women just don't want to know what the guy is up to lest their worst fears are confirmed...

Dan Ariely of Duke University performed some experiments involving the brightest and the best at MIT, some arithmetic, and a few smutty magazines. Guys - yes, they were all men - who could ace SAT, GRE and GMAT all at the same time with half their brains removed, had difficulty getting basic arithmetic right after a few minutes with the lissome lasses of those glossies. Suffice it to say that boys have a difficult time coping with anything after some mental stimulation of the prurient kind.

We are told that women are not like that. Aren't they?  

For a start they kiss with their eyes closed, symbolic of their ostrich syndrome.

They buy into the most implausible of stories from their boyfriends / fiances / husbands, stories whose link with truth is tenuous at best. They are blind to even simple economics when it comes to their men as the following story will attest.

Our maid is a very unfortunate young 26 year old. She lost her parents early and was brought up by a kindly aunt whom she calls "mother". She met and married a young man at 14, against the advice of her "mother", and had three boys by him by the time she was 18.  After the birth of the boys, her husband predictably began losing interest in her.

By the time she came to work for us two years ago the loss of interest was total and complete. His loss of interest in her did not extend to her earnings. He took to a life of ease in front of a TV purchased with loans she was made to sign for. His notion of working conditions are much more generous than even what the French have. In short he was willing to offer his lack of skills for the wages of a hedge fund manager.

The poor maid pays for his every whim by working in a number of households. The whims include a TV, a VCR, movie rentals everyday, copious amounts of alcohol and other women. The last category has at various times included a college-girl and a fifty year old cougar.

The college girl appears to have been smitten by him, however fleetingly, blinding herself to the realities of a wife, three kids, no work and lots of drinking. And then again she may have been experimenting, being a college girl and all. She even used to gallivant around town, giving him rides on the back of her scooter, in a clear case of role reversal. It appears that the poor wife even paid for his treating his college-girl paramour in various eateries around town, even as she herself starved many days. She would not confirm if she paid for the petrol as well.

It appears that when the college girl had learnt whatever he had to teach her, she got tired and dumped him. This brought on many a lachrymose bender all paid for by the hapless, dutiful, wife.

Thereafter the Michelangelo-in-waiting - for this lothario is a painter of buildings and walls - figured, in a Stephen Vizinczey-esque moment, that older women were possibly a better bet. The cougar's reasons for taking up with him are for the present obscure. The presence of an obliging wife to pick up the bills must be a great attraction, almost as powerful as receiving the attentions of the much younger man. 

The poor wife confronting him proved to be of no avail. The painter would threaten suicide when asked to end his affair with other women. From the wife he wanted a roof and food, not to mention TV, VCR, and movies, all paid for by her, and the freedom to pursue women of his choice. This is what most men dream of but are unable to achieve. Life indeed is strange, for it denies the seekers and rewards those who thumb their noses at it.

Then one day, tiring of mere threats, he cut his wrist. What he intended as a life threatening severing of veins and arteries turned out to be just a superficial cut inflicted with the blunt edge of a kitchen knife. Neither life nor much blood was lost, but the incident had the desired effect - the wife was distraught, borrowed even more money for the treatment and recovery  and promised him all that he desired. The cougar wisely ducked and stayed out of sight for a while. Wise woman, that one, who may yet disprove all my theories - and those of Heffernan - about women, love, and blindness.

After recuperating on a diet of good food and many movies, all paid for by wife's borrowings, our indefatigable Lothario was on the move again. For reasons I am unable to fathom, he took up with the same cougar. Perhaps the supply of willing, credulous or willingly credulous college girls with scooters had dried up suddenly. The cougar's lack of wisdom, however, is more baffling. Is she merely willfully blind or is she playing a game beyond ordinary comprehension?

Many more threats followed, all of which turned out to be empty. Our hero couldn't  even nick himself with a safety razor let alone terminally injure himself .

Then one day the putative painter decided to trade his paintbrush for a sickle.

The sickle, in other parts of the world, is an agricultural implement. Here in Tamilnadu it is the weapon of choice, if you believe the Tamil tabloid press, of cuckolded husbands and irate fathers of wronged girls. It is the symbol of manhood for any red-blooded Tamilian and is an essential part of student attire at a few Chennai college. They may come to college without pens, paper, pencils and books, but to be seen without a sickle dangling from the collar is a sign that screams "Wimp". Tamil movies and TV soaps do their bit to reinforce this image.

Armed with a sickle and fortified with his favourite brew, the intrepid painter went out onto the street to proclaim his intent to decapitate someone, anyone. While he was thus raving and ranting without harming anyone, the police arrived. These gentlemen of the law normally passively spectated when the painter beat up his hapless wife  advising instead that as the wife, she must practice "give" while the husband took. That day perhaps they had had too much of sickle-waving booze-induced bravado.

The painter was arrested and charged with creating public disorder, threatening with a dangerous weapon etc etc. Public drunkenness is NOT a crime here; on the contrary it is required of all Tamil men. He was booked under a number of offenses and carted off to a prison.

After a week or so the cougar brought news that the bail has been set at ten thousand rupees, a near-impossible sum for the wife to raise. She advised the wife to raise yet another loan and bail him out.

The wife did.