Almost after a month, I felt like returning to my blogspace. A space that makes me feel safe, (yeah...apart from my home) and where my words are not misjudged. Well, not to my face! So, it's a hurt-free place that I enjoy to my greatest comfort. Yet the biggest irony is that I almost forgot to visit this 'other' home of mine for nearly a month. I'm extremely sorry for that. But the honest and the only reason is I get short of ideas to talk or rather write about. My strong points are definitely neither about a certain Sachin Tendulkar whose retirement has taken a toll, well for justified reasons on the whole nation nor about the latest electronic gadget in town! Both of them look good from a distance, and are quite apalling, to me, when tried to be discussed in details.

 Hence, I simply could not come up with anything till day before yesterday when the latest episode of "How I Met Your Mother" just shook me up. It was bad. Yes indeed it was. Why the hell can't they finish it off, already? The mother (already revealed) is disgusting even with a lot of make up on and Ted clearly compromises his entire life with a woman who's a cross hybrid between Lily and Robin as if it's some kind of a big cosmic joke! The thing that really surprises me is the calibre of the makers, who repeatedly enjoy to bash Ted's expectations and play,literally and figuratively, both with his emotions and well, er, expressions. The same old, Ted Mosby has surrendered and lost,with his shoulders-drooped-down kind of face as Barney goes on and on and on.....Whose show is it anyways? Ted should have said, "How Uncle Barney Met Aunt Robin Whom I Loved So Much But Couldn't Get So Married Your Mother!!!" I mean...err, excuse me, Craig Thomas and Carter Bays, isn't the narrator of your 8 years long story supposed to be the hero? So why is he so helpless, hopless and loveless all throughout? Why would you project somebody who's nice but a constant failure in love? Is this what the show all about? 

Or, maybe that's where the show tries to establish in a very subtle way the reality of life and well the very cliched word, "LOVE"!!! Generally, in terms of television shows, very normal, almost good looking characters, born-romantic and highly committed...fail to achieve what the players get all throughout. For instance, Chandler Bing in "Friends" or "Charlotte York" in "SATC" or the super-duper rich handsome yet always single Walden in "Two and a Half Men" or maybe even Raj Koothrapalli in "TBBT". These characters, in-spite of their goodness and perfection fail repeatedly as their opposite ones jump to and fro in the ocean of Cupid's Kindness. Ted similarly has the same problem. He is giving, honest and a very sensible lover who has kept his heart time and again, at the feet of Robin to get smashed, pounded upon and trashed eventually. Yet, he simply couldn't win against the womaniser Barney Stinson who has slept with all the women in NYC and chose Robin, the heroine, as his best! Thus, the super-hyped, over-animated playboy walks with his bride like a piece of cake as Ted just stands there, well with Lily and Marshall with his puppy-dog facing hanging down to his shoes. I mean how long....???? How long do we see him like this...?

Once, I read somewhere on the internet that, "Good things happen to those who wait. But the best ones happen to those who go and make them happen." Same applies for Barney. He didn't just get The Girl by sitting and waiting. He almost dedicated his life to the biggest challenge that he ever encountered. That's the biggest reason why we won't EVER hate or despise him. He deserved Robin fair and square 'cause he didn't let her go. He made her fall in love...once all over again. And this time, he ensured to close the EXIT door forever. The thing that I'm going to say sucks big time, but the truth anyways is we have a mighty sized Ted ruling in us, whereas our Barney is somewhat less potent. Contrary to the television sit-com the Ted in us, is very powerful in comparison to the Barney (or even say Samantha or Charlie!) But what exactly is the Ted/Barney fight or existence are we talking about? For instance, you are a perfectly functional non-delusional creature madly in love with somebody who is a little beyond your reach. What would you do? Push your limits till your last breath OR wait till that person realises your worth and comes to you. The choice you make builds your life, henceforth. Now while reading this I'm pretty sure, you'll choose the former. Ofcourse, specially after all the ruthless Ted slapping you'll choose to fight for the one you love and be The Stinson Boy....yet when you are actually needed to be THE ONE, you'll haplessly fall on the Ted category. It's a common idea or notion that human subconsciousness is divided into the Good or Bad, Hate or Love...so on and so forth. But to be a bit less harsh, I believe we are all divided into the One who Waits,i.e.,Ted and The One who Does,i.e.Barney. Sadly, even if the hero of HIMYM looks weak and less capable all throughout, when it comes to us, the Ted living within is damn powerful! 

But why? Why is a weak thing in reel-life so dominant in the real? What exactly stops us from achieving things we have desired and maybe deserved in our lives? Do we fear rejection so badly? Or are we afraid to fall beneath our own expectations? Are we so negative from the beginning, that even before our story could begin...it ends due to our emotional failure? Why can't we stand up and simply run towards that one person who is so damn important and say everything that we feel? Why is it so convincing on fiction?  We are so damaged right from the starting point, that anything and everything touching the mere hemispheres of  our desires is crushed by our very actions and thoughts! If we find someone so weak and fragile on a sit-com, then how come we would allow the same kind of person within our very selves? I'm not saying Ted is bad. He is someone every girl would desire. But the question still is....where are they and why does he not get them? If you love someone...let them go, if they come back; they are yours else they were never. This is a very common belief or proverb. And if the very same is to be believed, we may never ever get the person we loved 'cause we simply let them go...and waited for their arrival as someone else barged in and won their hearts all over! Sometimes, I feel there's no letting go when it comes to survival. We don't let go of our necessity. So why do we easily get rid of that person who matters to us so much? Why do we wait for that other person to push the door while we just sit and watch. Isn't it fair enough to just go beyond our limits and prove our worthiness to that ONE person who's supposedly so important? Why is the Ted or the Raj so dominant in all of us...yet the Joeys and Barneys always hibernating?

A common survey says, Girls love Men fighting for them. Not literally, unless of course needed. But also for their sake....just to keep them in the latter's lives. Men on the other hand appreciate, girls who don't flinch away from putting an extra effort in their relationship. I can swear on any darn thing that if you, irrespective of your sex, make the first move and display your better half's importance out in the open....you're bound to land up with the man/woman of your dreams. It is that easy. Yet our mind complicates this very simple thing into a big vice! It's easy and has always been this way. The Ted that stays within us, actually doesn't push us away from our Love. He wants to get heard. He wants us to succeed as many times as he failed. The Ted within all of us are present only to remind how pathetic life is without THE ONE and how beautiful life can become with the same. The Ted, so dominant in our brains, is a reminder of how we should never EVER think twice for that person and how we can make, amend and fulfill everything that we ever desired since childhood.  And? The Barney? I think, he too is Ted. He's the Ted who wins. The Ted which you would want to be. The Ted who gives you the right meaning to live and NEVER EVER LET GO...

Rini Ghosh. 




P.S.- Now that Ted has won....my statement still remains valid. It was only because of Swarkles' divorce and Tracy's death that they are reunited for life. Otherwise no amount of Ted's helplessness would have helped him catch the bird in his net. Thank you!