The moment two people or entities come closer & interact with each other they get connected though exchange of their thoughts, opinions & feelings. The establishment of this connection sows the seeds of an association. Whether this association matures into a strong & trustworthy relationship depends on the efforts and care put in by both the entities to further develop this connection. If the relationship is nurtured with love, affection & care, it blossoms beautifully. Indifferent attitude towards this association would make the relationship insignificant & it could even get buried under the soil of ‘who cares’.
There are certain relationships, like the blood relationships, which one inherits by birth. One has loving involvements with parents, siblings and other relatives who are connected together due to family bonds. As one enters into wedlock, one acquires a new set of relationships. There are new relations & fresh associations ushered in by the spouse & spouse’s family. When one transcends the family frontiers & mingles with more and more people on personal & professional levels, one develops new kinds of friendly, professional and business relationships with a wider segment of people from both the sexes.
Different situations give rise to different kinds of relationships. Connections develop into friendly associations between classmates; tutor-pupil associations emerge between teachers & their students. Working relationships develop between employers & employees. Managers, subordinates & colleagues get immersed into team associations & supportive relationships occur between neighbors. Similarly, beneficial relationships fructify between business associates & on a larger level between nations too.
A casual meeting or a chance encounter with someone, like during journeys, can also develop into a healthy relationship over a period, if both the entities work for that. A healthy relationship rests on the foundations of honesty, sincerity, trust, open communication, compassion, caring, affection, concern for mutual well being & a genuine desire to see each other prosper & grow. With these ingredients, some relationships even gradually transform into very intimate emotional liaisons where all inhibitions, in discarding any visible or invisible veils, simply disappear.
Any type of relationship continues to blossom as long as it does not get afflicted with masked self-interest, hazy communication, deceit & a false concern for the well being of the other. Any such virus would infect even the strongest of relationships so severely that it would sure meet an early death in no time.
The present world of ‘virtual’ relationships, perhaps, has succeeded in influencing & altering the mindset of people to such an extent that even long standing real relationships get tossed into the dustbin at the slightest emergence of an unexpected response. No attempt seems to be made to rescue the relationship by going into the reasons for such an aberration. Mending the perceived flaws and practicing ‘forgive & forget’ appear more exhausting than dumping the relationship altogether.
Decades old relationships have been seen to crumble overnight due to tremors caused by an inappropriate expression or an unworthy deed. Partners have been known to simply walk away for selfish reasons, after years of satisfying marriage, as if there never existed any emotional bond between the two.
In many parts of the world, fathers have been reported to have battered their adolescent sons & daughters and their relationship to death in a fit of rage, for no fault of the children. Sons & daughters have been reported to have conspired with their accomplices to murder their parents for the lure of money or to remove the obstacles they were seen to be in their love affairs, thus chopping off the parental contentment of raising their children. Siblings have been reported to have attacked each other brutally, seriously injuring their life long relationship, while demanding a bigger share of the ancestral wealth.
Also, there have been reports of minor, insignificant quarrels between friends turning cruel & fatal. Colleagues have been known to turn into kidnappers & murderers, for the sake of extorting big chunks of money to satisfy their uncontrolled needs. Neighbors have been known to pull out weapons to sort out their car-parking & dog-barking disputes. Students have been reported to have killed their teachers to eliminate any resistance to their studious efforts of resorting to copying in examinations. Boys, vowing to die for their girl friends, have been reported to have smeared the faces of the girls and their love with life shattering acids.
Social media has its own share of defamation stories indulged into by erstwhile friends & colleagues.
Mistrust is also an element that has the potency of derailing one’s analytical ability & clouding one’s judgment about the emotions, words & deeds of the other, resulting into wilting of a well nurtured relationship.
Are we witness to an era of very fragile relationships, where the relationship switches from warmth to enmity at the blink of an eye, like a computer screen changing quickly with a simple click?
Perhaps, most of the present day relationships are just the make-believe stories, with sincerity & honesty having been thrown to the winds. Seemingly, it is not the compassion & mutual wellbeing which shape a relationship; it is merely an arrangement to satisfy personal, hidden objectives in the garb of a sweet & pleasant association. The sweetness of alliance is meticulously maintained as long as it serves the masked objective of the crafty partner, thereby making the other savor the sweet taste without raising any doubts. The moment the desired purpose is fulfilled or the association seems to be not heading towards the hidden goal, it gets blatantly dumped in the sea.
The victim, in every such case, happens to be the gullible, caring & trusting individual who kept on sincerely tending to the relationship, without ever doubting the sincerity of the other.
For the sake of building up & enjoying a happy relationship, it is better to ultimately turn out to be a victim rather than a tormentor, if at all the hitherto healthy association ever turns sour. Even while assuming that role, one need not close one’s eyes to the reality of the changing times. One also needs to exercise caution & one’s mental antenna should never ignore any disturbing signals coming its way. It is better to be prepared to escape unhurt or with minimum damage, in case of a worst scenario, rather than get hopelessly caught with one’s back to the wall.
In this much happening world, where life always traverses on a fast lane, maybe we need to add ‘caution’ also to the list of many components that go in to make a healthy, happy, sweet, pleasant & long lasting relationship.
Healthy & pleasant relationships thrive on the art of compromise, accommodation of each other’s views, mutual respect, due regard for independent opinions, intelligently debating the contentious issues rather than quarreling & imposing, giving space and above all on the will to happily carry forward the relationship in spite of all the distressing hurdles.
Obviously, that applies to both the partners in any relationship.
May the use of ‘caution’ as an ingredient in cultivating a relationship, remain more of an exception than a norm! ‘Caution’ is likely to take away the innocent charm from happily building up a sweet relationship.
