I'm trying to get healthy again and like listening to the radio when I walk. The other day, this rather old song came on. Neele Neele Ambar. Beautiful song, but the lyrics are all about how the singer yearns for someone... basically about sex then. And through time, I've listened to lyrics of Hindi songs and they tend to be about sex. Seems like we don't want to talk about it, but we are very happy to sing about it.
What we won't talk about, sing about, or accept in public, is anything to do with affection. Any public display of affection somehow is treated as being 'against Indian culture'. So are we then an affection-less culture? Or is affection only meant to be shown behind closed doors? Also, doesn't this separate sex from affection?
I have to now tell myself that my parents showed affection by fighting with each other. They squabbled (and continue to squabble) incessantly and it was very wearying for me. I was a sensitive child and raised voices grated. I also did not notice signs of support or affection between them. There were no spontaneous hugs and I didn't understand the dynamic i.e. that my mother could go work in another city or study further was a show of support. I suppose I didn't see how it could be any other way.
Maybe it was just me, but growing up, the bonds of affection with my parents were not formed, or were broken during adolescence. Now, my father feels bad that he does not have an affection based relationship with his children, but from the point of his children, he didn't actually show us much affection. Is it that parental affection usually takes the form of buying stuff for children?
Why am I looping on this? Because SO and I probably have different ideas of how affection is expressed. I like a little physical expression every now and again, for SO, it's good that I cook and clean. I'm being very basic about this, but this is probably the correct articulation. For cooking and cleaning, you can hire someone, I expect more from a long-term loving relationship. But for him, maybe this is what being cared for feels like. Maybe he never saw the 'adult' version of being cared for or had no notion from books and stuff of what it was supposed to feel like. And maybe I'm wrong about what it is supposed to feel like too...
What we won't talk about, sing about, or accept in public, is anything to do with affection. Any public display of affection somehow is treated as being 'against Indian culture'. So are we then an affection-less culture? Or is affection only meant to be shown behind closed doors? Also, doesn't this separate sex from affection?
I have to now tell myself that my parents showed affection by fighting with each other. They squabbled (and continue to squabble) incessantly and it was very wearying for me. I was a sensitive child and raised voices grated. I also did not notice signs of support or affection between them. There were no spontaneous hugs and I didn't understand the dynamic i.e. that my mother could go work in another city or study further was a show of support. I suppose I didn't see how it could be any other way.
Maybe it was just me, but growing up, the bonds of affection with my parents were not formed, or were broken during adolescence. Now, my father feels bad that he does not have an affection based relationship with his children, but from the point of his children, he didn't actually show us much affection. Is it that parental affection usually takes the form of buying stuff for children?
Why am I looping on this? Because SO and I probably have different ideas of how affection is expressed. I like a little physical expression every now and again, for SO, it's good that I cook and clean. I'm being very basic about this, but this is probably the correct articulation. For cooking and cleaning, you can hire someone, I expect more from a long-term loving relationship. But for him, maybe this is what being cared for feels like. Maybe he never saw the 'adult' version of being cared for or had no notion from books and stuff of what it was supposed to feel like. And maybe I'm wrong about what it is supposed to feel like too...
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