The Julia in your head matters…

A line from “Julie & Julia” got me., although it was in no way the main subject matter of the film. It referred to some interesting discussions, about having someone in your head as a blown up amplified version of its real self, and loving it and being inspired from it.

This was when our modern day “Julie” who is obsessed with “Julia” from 1950 and everything about her. It is when she gets a taste of “Julia” in reality and is understandably crushed. Of course, she expected Julia to be what she had imagined. To ease the shock, her husband comforted her with this line that “the Julia, the one in your head matters to you”. The easy thing in her case was that she had never met her, so when she did not like the reality, she chose not to meet her, so as to conserve the strength, that her imagination of Julia had always given her.

Its probably easy to be obsessed like that with someone in a role of a teacher, a mentor, or a someone who is distant in relation to you. When it is possible to be distant. When actually a culmination is not required. When it is possible to be far so as to realize,

“Duur baittha ghubaar e mir uss say…
Ishq bin yeh adab nahi aata…”

In general though, when one is obsessed with someone who is close by. Fantasy collides with reality quite easily. Shouldn’t then a person be able to shake themselves out of falsehood? The disguise that they have constructed to worship. Its amazing how one puts all the features that one likes in the object of his/her love and keeps doing it blatantly, unstoppably.

I mean listen to “Aafreen Aafreen” by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. The mehboob in that feels like some one from some other universe. Definitely not a inhabitant of this planet… Although, I would allow such exaggerated praise of one’s love, but with a condition. An important condition.

The condition is that of “possession”. If you possess someone you love, it is actually not allowed rather incumbent upon you to worship your possession. That is when it should be done, and only to that it should be done. When one is possessed and is possessing. That is when they are allowed rather encouraged to sink deep into this ocean of “parastish” aka worship.

What right do you have to be obsessed with something that is not yours. And if it was supposed to be yours, why did you not attempt to attain it. If your attempt failed, that is then another story.

Thanks to “Julie & Julia”, it resolved a little something for me. The obsession without culmination is probably possible in a distant role… where one can be nice and strong enough to understand the reality of their object of love and do not drag them through the facade of their imagination.

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