Let the floodgates open!
Crying is as natural as laughing, but unlike laughing it has low acceptance rate in our society. I have always wondered why. The earliest memory of me exercising this fundamental need of mine was when I was 6 years old. I was playing my first table tennis state championship in Kerala and lost in the third round. Of course, I had probably cried many times before that, but nothing is as vivid as this one. I remember the tears welling up in my eyes, my vision blurring and finally the shutters of my eyes closing to let it flow down. This wasn’t as much about losing the game as it was about missing my home. Being in an alien land, among a bunch of strangers I missed my safe place- home.
Fast forward to my teenage years, the disappointment and pain from losing matches overshadowed a sense of public embarrassment. Losing the quarterfinals of a state championship and that too to my team’s arch nemesis, with the entire school in attendance, triggered the opening of floodgates once again. All it mattered at that point was to let out the anguish in me.
To see other people cry was even more painful. My earliest memory of seeing someone else cry, was in my kindergarten. This cute munchkin sitting next to me was my favorite person in the class. He hurt his pinkie while playing and it was a bit swollen. The boy in the row behind us told him, “Boys don’t cry” and with a little nudge from him, my friend wiped his tears with the back of his little palm and forced a slight smile. But I was curious, so I asked our neighbor “why?” And he said, “Mama has told me that boys don’t cry”. I was confused and I thought “Why didn’t my mother tell me something like this when I cried”, “Is it because boys are special?”.
In senior school I witnessed a senior wailing over losing the love of his life, with people around consoling him using the same adage “Guys don’t cry!”
In July the same year, when the rains were still pouring down heavily, I lost my grandmother, a who was the most influential person in her children’s life. And all her kids, now fully grown “tough guys”, stood like rocks during the entire funeral ritual. But all it took was the lifting of the casket on to their shoulders for their masks to slip one by one and there was a downpour of emotions. Indeed “Mamma’s boys!”. And my heart went out to these poor men, who had to hold it together all that while unlike the “delicate” women tribe who could give free vent to their feelings.
The other day I saw a friend crying in anguish, breaking my heart in the process. Years of bottled-up emotions flowing like floodwaters. It was a guy-someone going through a tough phase like anyone else. And he kept apologizing after the whole episode, as though it was a sin to cry! I wish he knew there was nothing to be sorry about!
For starters, crying is just another emotional expression. Unless you are practicing stoicism or are in the run to become the next Godman or the next “OO7” in making, I suggest you open that safety valve for emotional release often. Despite the social narrative we are all fed, crying doesn’t undermine anyone’s masculinity nor does it enhance anyone’s delicacy. And for your reference, even Daniel Craig- the most celebrated masculine symbol got “all emotional” in public.
It is okay to uncork that bottle and it is always going to be. Don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise!
