Instant Filter: Coffee - Contradiction Galore

There is this guy whom I personally don't know, but know about him through his appearances in the infamous delhi chat room 22. I know a few things about this guy like where he is from and what he does etc, from a few social networking sites he has created his 'real' profile on. There used to be a time orkut was not that inflesxible for snooping guys like me. Most of the people who visit this room will identify him ( No, I am not mentioning about the guy who gives his travel route every evening so that somebody can 'pick' him up). This guy is a doctor and perhaps pursuing his post grad course ( These medicos! they keep studying all their lives). Now, what initially caught my fancy in this guy was his hoarse cries in the chat room asking for any one 'educated'. Confident of being an educated sophisticated guy, I pinged him. To my surprise, He asked me," Are you a doctor?" I replied, "No. I am not". End of conversation. Not that it was a bad day for him or me. This scene has repeated quite a few time. He often comes online and asks " Any doctor/ engineer in this room?"

Did I feel insulated/ offended by his repsone. No, I was not. I was amused. I was amused at the thought process of some people. Now, I am fully aware that how our matrimonial pages are filled with adverts for 'Medico bride wanted', but isn't this a same kind of parochial thinking reflected here. There will be people who may think that being from the same profession will let the'couple' understand each others issues/ concerns/ life style in addition to regular dining table conversation some of which may go like "That hysterectomy case became serious after Hypokalemia causing rhabdomyolysis. I had to rule out Bartters syndrome and Gitelmans syndrome with rhabdomyolysis due to severe hypokalemia." I don't know many who will jump with delight on hearing such interesting chain of thought to go along with their morning Tea.

This case must be an extreme. And to those people who disbelieve me, I suggest spend some time in the chat room to witness this doctor's call. However, there is a deeper point here. As human beings we all have tendencies to make snap judgments, which some researchers have found are more often than not correct ( Read 'Tipping Point' for the detailed view on this theory). But if I remember clearly, as with every other fad theory the writer in this book has also advised caution to excercise this a little too frequently without discretion. We all try and make judgments, filter people and categorize them to put them in different boxes for convenience of our brain. If somebody is sikh, he has to be loud, loose with his verbal volleys, has a thing for butter chicken and daru and will dance to his guts everytime a bhangara song is played out. Not that I am above such categorization, I think we choose the easy way because we are too lazy to make an effort know someone. We are too eager to fill in the blanks after we know someone superficially, some times without even knowing them. Just by having a look at them ( I do it most when I see a very goodlooking guy/ gal dismissing them to be dumb. But in my heart, I so wanna be proved wrong about this. And I have been proved wrong in a few cases involving member of opposite sex, though)

How easy it is to filter. How easy it is so call someone 'not my type' because he/ she doesn't listen to songs I like, doesn't like the movies I like, nor do they look and speak the new lingua franca of India 'english' like me. I know I am stretching the stereotype a little too far here. But don't we get judged and judge others in return. I have been asked this a number of time whether I am a product of much famous 'elite' school of my home town. People presume that I think in a certain way, so I should be in this profession. I mean if I can tell apart a ritu kumar and JJ vallaya just by looking at the ensemble, it doesn't make me a fashion guy ( A gay guy perhaps ;) )

I have never travelled to west. But what I have gathered from pop culture, it tells me that most of the people give two hoots about a lot factors given consideration here in India. Factors such as where you live ( any think less than south delhi is blasphemy ), how fluent you are in english ( most of the guy here will not blink an eye before they agree to sleep with Christiano Ronaldo), what care you drive and how much money you make ( the previous question is used to make an estimate of your net worth because asking salary package is not considered polite - unless you meeting prospective in laws). Miranda from Sex and the City is an example- may be fictionalized, but what about Matt Damon and George Clooney? Well, not that everybody has to agree with me, but for dating one only needs an 'interesting' person. Interesting may be a very broad term but it's still better than making someone a series of stats. Looks are important and cannot be denied in real world, but there is always more to a person than his/her looks ( I hate to be stereotyped as gay blogger coz being gay is just one of the things that make me a person. And I find there are far more interesting thing in me than my sexual orientation)

I am an avid follower of Grey' Anatomy. In the first few episodes of third season, when doctor Burke is shot in hand and he is unable to gain full control of his hand after his surgery, we get to see a moral dilemma in Christina. Who does she love? Preston Burke the guy who love her or Doctor Burke who is the best heart surgeon in the entire west coast? The question is essentially what defines the person you love, and whether you love what defines him/ her or the person in question. Love is always selfless. You can't love or pretend to love an attribute of a person. What if that attribute is gone? ( I have not taken any kind of physical deformity to illustrate my point deliebrately) Will I stop loving my mom because she was not what she used to be -beautiful and able to care for me? I did not and I will not.

What am I trying to suggest here?? That you go out with all sort of people without any discrimination. No, That will be absurd. It's just that we need to be a little more open minded and flexible, and most importantly a bit patient. Patient to know the person before of us. Because sometime we ourselves start believing in the facades we create and lies we tell ourselves.