Character dheela hai

Last night while rehearsing for my upcoming play, our director said ’get into your character’. He meant the characters we are playing. But more often than not character has come to be judged in terms of morality. Being amoral am dim moral has become the benchmark of judging a person. Salman Khan sang character dheela hai in this context only.

The Cambridge dictionary describes character as:

The particular combination of things about a person or place, esp. things you cannot see, that make that person or place different from others:

Character is often used in a positive way to mean qualities that are interesting and unusual:

Character is also a person played by somebody in a movie, play or story.

Psychology describes character as a set of traits that are unique to a person and are influenced by various factors such as your childhood experiences, your family values and many more things. Why am I getting in to technicalities? Because it pains me no end to see people being misjudged on the basis of morality termed as character. A person may be totally moral but still could be a nuisance to others.

We generalize character when we want to criticize somebody. If a person doesn’t fit into our perceived notion, we say he/she is characterless. If a woman has an extra marital affair, she is branded as characterless. But does having an affair take away her traits, her experiences, and her core beliefs? Does that wash away her emotions?

 Our character is made up much more than just morality. It is a part of character but not the sole trait. A loving father can be amoral, embezzling from his company and an abusive husband can me moral.

As Helen Fisher, a noted psychologist says,” Your character traits stem from your experiences. Your childhood games; your family’s interests and values; how people in your community express love and hate; what relatives and friends regard as courteous or perilous; how those around you worship; what they sing; when they laugh; how they make a living and relax: innumerable cultural forces build your unique set of character traits.” We all are an end result of all this.

If we keep this in mind, we will be more careful in branding somebody as characterless.

May be we will be more compassionate, more tolerant of others’ shortcomings and will be able to communicate with our heart.

How about giving it a try from today?

So be it!!!