Quotes. It doesn’t really matter where they came from. They could have been uttered by famous and influential people, picked up from charming characters in movies, even shows like Family Guy. More often than not, they do make sense. A couple stuck in my head and are very much applicable to my day to day dwellings.
I once had a rather uncomfortable conversation with a friend’s father. He said, “Taufiq, when there are problems or conflicts surfacing within a family or any intimate, if not romantic, relationships, the man is ALWAYS to blame. Never put the blame on the woman… NEVER” How we ended up talking about it, only god knows. However I couldn’t agree more with that wise old man. He had the hands on experience. In the beginning he did not anticipate how much damage his misdemeanour would cause and the eventuality of things blowing out of proportion (shit hitting the fan) as it should. When they did, hell broke loose. He had almost lost all he had. It has gotten better for him since but left an ugly scar in his marriage. While he was lost in the world of infidelity he always had in mind, justification to his deceitful behaviour. There was always someone to blame and point fingers at. However once the real demon unearthed, the fingers were all pointing back at him. It was he who distanced himself. It was he who succumbed to the seduction of that hideous stray bitch and it was he who brought himself to believe that what he was doing wasn’t wrong. Little did he know, his whole family, the people who loved him unconditionally, had been, all that while, suffering. The wife had nobody to turn to, and the kids, longing for a fatherly guidance were lost “seperti kapal kehilangat nakhoda”. Despite the absence of him, the family, with whatever they have left, each other, pulled through. They patiently waited for the man of the house to come to his senses and rejoin a what-used-to-be a perfect family. And, unlike many of the similar instances, fortunately, he repented, and salvaged whatever that was left of his family and more importantly, marriage. It was however, never the same. The trust lost is never regained. Nobody could put humpty dumpty together again. It, he said, is like driving a car that has been fixed from a nasty crash. Not as good as new and far from being better. Never the same.
One fine summer evening during the last days of my student life I was hanging out with my two best friends in the back yard of our rented home in - effortlessly chugging a crate of Stella Artois (each) – when one of them said something quite surprisingly wise. It was more of an open ended question. He asked, “Guys, if there was someone who has, all these while, provided you with everything you ever needed that you feel forever indebted, and one day that very same person murders your mother, would you still be indebted to that person?” I sat there and thought, ‘wow, that is probably the best way to define the love a boy has for his mother’. That is one line that NOBODY, under any circumstances, should ever cross. No external factor, not even divine intervention, can ever disrupt that sacred bond between a son and his mother. The nature made it that way and that’s just the way it is and that how it should be. When I said NOBODY, I literally meant NOBODY without any exceptions. Those who hurt my mother, in any possible way for any possible reason, deliberate or accidental, are pieces of shit and do not and will not ever deserve my respect for what it’s worth regardless all the good things they have given me. Give me all the money in the world and beg for forgiveness, you will still be a piece of shit. And a piece of shit will always be a piece of shit.
-Tau
p/s: don't mess with my mother
