The ties that bond




There is a French saying about how the more things change, the more they stay the same. That French dude sure was uncannily perceptive, non?


As evolved as we are from days when our ancestors were hunched and hairy, our basic need for companionship hasn’t wavered. And events on Sunday reaffirmed just that.


Yesterday, we were invited to a sumptuous vegetarian spread at Srilakshmi’s apartment where after a sip of her hot homemade chai, she asked if I'd wanted to try on a sari. My strong instinct for not wanting to look like a retard ethnic poser kicked in and it nearly thwarted my enthusiasm. Thankfully, the chai was so good, it humoured me into gamely saying a “yes!”


Sri pulled out a brown suitcase from her closet and upon unzipping it, 30 or more sparkling saris in various iridescent colours were revealed. And with each sari that she displayed, she added a short story about who gave it to her and on which occasion. It was nothing short of the Indian version of the famous play where an American pioneer lady had patch worked a quilt with blocks of material, each symbolizing a significant time in her life. I picked a gorgeous, light-weight aquamarine sari with beautiful beadwork at the edges. With Sri’s expert help and a couple of sturdy safety-pins, I was transformed -- with matching bangles and bindi to boot – into a Geetha, a Monisha or a regular fancy sari-wearing Indian. I was tickled with glee.


When the giggling died along with the picture taking, we returned to sit by her suitcase. I listened to her stories about her family and her concern for her parents’ well-being in their golden years as she pulled out more saris. She’d also shared how there were so few people here who were truly interested in another culture other than their own. It was then that my heart leapt out to hers. I knew that cultural differences aside and only having met her twice, I felt a connection between us because the shared sentiment was all too familiar.


Surely, back in our hunter and gatherer days, women bonded in very much the same way as we do today.

“Now, this one with the cotton-soft long white fur was what won me over when Grog thumped me over my head and dragged me by the hair into his cave. Totally worth the scars that never healed from those first scrapes and burns down my back!”


Not to be outdone, other competing stories would be thrown into the circle.


“This slightly raggedy one with the blood stains belonged to his toothless Ma. Bull-face had to wrench it out of her deadly clutches even if he did snap off her purple pinkie in the process. Boy, what a die-hard romantic he was back then!”


Our cave women folk would be both heartened by such stories of romance and yet would all be nodding in sympathy at the physical injuries sustained because they too (possibly) have their own hidden scars.


Thankfully, Sri and I were not comparing animal pelts nor scars on our backs, but we were pretty much bonding in a more resplendent way -- over an old suitcase full of glittery saris. And so were the men while they hunkered over their mugs of milky chai in the living room -- perhaps not quite thumping their chests nor grunting – but they too were doing their fair share of male bonding. However we look at it, we are genetically predisposed to bonding with another human being for companionship, safety and I believe, for sanity too because our species would have gone extinct if we didn’t.


Like in Bollywood, they know better than to change the quintessential dancing scene around coconut trees. Some things don’t change, and they shouldn’t need to.