THE LONE RANGER (Dawn, Tuesday Review, January 25-31, 1994)


Dawn, Tuesday Review, January 25-31, 1994

                                   
THE LONE RANGER

By Adil Ahmad

To me bachelorhood implies a state of mind. Free, independent, and totally gungho! Being single, naturally, has everything to do with it. The element of privacy. The option to exercise one's options without let or hindrance. Bachelorhood, for some obscure reason, has come to symbolise a finite period of self-expression which, at some point during the male's mortality, should come to an end. This being the point at which the female (dreaded?!) enters his scheme of things.

But why should a female enter the male's scheme of things so comprehensively that he surrenders the very distinction which attracted her to him in the first place. His freedom of self-expression. His option to exercise his options without let or hindrance. The very quality within man which sets him apart from the rest of Allah's creation.

Why should man be required by woman to surrender his free, independent, totally gungho frame of mind in return for her companionship? Why should woman seek to quash and extinguish completely man's creative genius, and turn him into little more than a beast of burden?

Marriages are made in heaven and solemnized on earth, with a piece of paper bearing the witness of a self-appointed pontiff. Society, and its cultural inheritance, decides how two people, male and female, drawn together by a set of common factors, shall conduct themselves in public.

A relationship where both participants stimulate each other, intellectually and otherwise, is the most enduring. It can continue indefinitely, with chances of both being kept together in the Hereafter, irrespective of their legal status on earth!

The institution of marriage attains importance when the couple begins contemplating procreation. The bringing into the world, with the Will of Allah, of yet another living soul. This little, teeny-weeny living soul needs a structured environment to grow and mature in. A support structure which will sustain him physically and emotionally. The decision having been made, man settles down into a routine which enables him to do his duty by his family.

In the eyes of traditional society, specially from the viewpoint of his in-laws, doing his duty by his family implies a state of mental castration. The abandoning of his 'bachelorhood' and everything else the term ever stood for.

It’s about perceptions, really. In nine cases out of ten those afflicted by the "married man syndrome" have wives who would have done much better in the army as NCOs. These women are those with massive chips on their shoulders and a compulsive need to dominate both physically and emotionally. Beauty is skin deep, and lust even shallower. In such cases the romance goes out of the window very soon after the deed is done. Thereafter the contract, the piece of paper, takes over lock, stock and barrel, assuming the proportions of a cement  block around the poor male's neck. The in-laws behave like hardened out-laws, plundering and looting at will not just the poor man's pay cheque but his peace and tranquility as well. That is when he yearns for his lost bachelorhood.

The one case out of ten that is not afflicted by the "marred man syndrome" is where the married man has a compatible, inspired mate who subscribes to the doctrine of space, and finds satisfaction in letting her male set his own pace in his own chosen direction. Such conditions can justifiably be defined as ideal, and the piece of paper, the contract, loses much of its clout since it ceases to be the reason for their existence together.

In circumstances like these, bachelorhood is not sacrificed at the altar of love. It is merely added to. Two bachelors uniting together for a greater purpose in life, forming a team. Harmonising on the field, and scoring goals on cue. Making the sort of music that stirs the soul. A combination that makes for poetry in motion.

Chinese wisdom has it that a great man is one who has not lost his child's heart. To be possessed with the spirit of discovery and the zest for life. Oh woman! Would you deny me that?

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