What is a Relationship?
This is a question I have tried to answer and to understand for quite a few years now. Whatever conclusion I drew from the manipulation of my thoughts, from time to time, was never completely convincing. For one, I find it hard to believe that a relationship is merely a social contract drawn primarily on the basis of DNA or on the basis of familiarity or even on the basis of attraction. It is definitely more than that. Even if all those factors are brought together. Something much larger. Both inclusive and exclusive, at the same time, in connection to them. I think that any relationship is an amalgamation of two very contrasting ideas. The primal sense of community, in sharing one another’s stories and thoughts. And the feeling of being an individual, and evaluating them from the personal point of view. Both are important for building a relationship. Especially, one that can act as an entity, in itself, without depending on other material aspects. The ratio in which they are intertwined works differently for different people.
I, with my logical approach towards living one’s life, could never understand the deeper tenets of a relationship. And neither did I ever question. Until my father had a stroke. A couple of years back. In the middle of the pandemic. I had recently fallen in love with a woman. Something I did not think could ever happen again. Not because, I thought that the feeling and the emotions inside of me could not be replicated, all over again, but for the very reason that we, as a generation, are too distracted.
I communicated with my father much more, in the last two years, than in the first thirty-six years of my life. I saw a man just grow old. Quite suddenly. And all in a flash. A man that I have known very little of. To the point that he became a personal heroic figure, while I was growing up, in a different city. His stories felt more majestic than they actually were. So, when he had that stroke, for the first time in my life, I had the feeling of losing someone. A feeling that was induced with fear, grief and regret. I started talking with him. Not like the daily transactional mode of communication kind of talking. But more like, bouncing ideas of what is life and what is its meaning and purpose, kind of talking. I started listening to his stories. Of Chattogram. Of Naxalbari. Of living in Calcutta, as a stowaway. Of his ideas of business and of family and of other worldly emotions.
Through this exercise, I have realised that any relationship is a two-way transaction. It is reliant on a communication between the two subjects and the acceptance and the validation of that communication, from both sides. To put it in simple words – anything that can be considered a relationship cannot exist solely on communications done for mere survival, or for the passing of time, or for the needs and the wants. It is crucial to have conversations that are unrequired and seemingly unimportant. To hear out each other’s rants and narrations and the various daily complaints that one has, against the world and the variety of characters. Characters whom we do not even know. It is my personal feeling that a relationship slowly dies, when these stories, these rants and these sharing of experiences are slowly avoided because the person on the opposite side does not want to hear them anymore. Because now it is considered as unimportant information that can well be ignored.
~ Durjoy Choudhury
June 01. 2023