In Search of Heer

by Manjul Bajaj

To crack jokes at one’s own expense is not entirely without dangers.

Self deprecating

The world hates those who do not conform. It is easier to forgive liars and cheaters, thieves and murderers than to tolerate someone who does not aspire to the same things as others. To be loved and respected by his brothers a man must want what his brothers want—ample land to his name, rich food on his table and a comely wife in his bed. To be indifferent to these is to cast a slur on their lives.

Conformist

Men only fight to become heroes in their women’s eyes. They only seek the trophies of land and gold to proffer them as offerings to their women. And women, what do they want? If only we knew that all of our lives would be simpler.

What women want

Gossip is what keeps those wheels spinning well into the night.

Gossip

He who shuts his eyes to his own beauty becomes blind to the rest of the world’s magnificence too.

Beauty

It was fear. Raw, naked, frightened out of its silly skin fear. That everything they were striving for was perhaps worth nothing. That they had got it all wrong and happiness wasn’t fine clothes and many servants and pots of gold but notes of music teased out of the air and blown adrift again into the passing breeze. And thus gripped by this fear, they struck.

Happiness

A homely woman is more dangerous than an outright beauty.

Gossip is society’s watchman, wall and whip all at once. Tale by malicious tale, rumour by rumour, the wall of society’s narrow morality is erected. Inside it is the cosy warmth of belonging. Outside, it is brutally cold and lonely.

GOssip

Travelling gave me brighter eyes and keener ears, jolting my senses to a fine alert.

Travel

Deprive a peasant of his harvest with a flash of the sword once and it is called robbery. Do it at random intervals and it’s described as banditry. Do it systematically, year after year, backed by swordsmen in uniforms, and it is called governance.

Governance

Cooked food has corrupted the soul of man. Isn’t it the desire for unending supplies of cooked food that makes him chain his own other half to a life of servitude and drudgery?

Cookinv