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Boxy and I have done a collaboration. Happy New Year!
Daniel Goleman has written very eloquently on social intelligence and emotional stability.We perceive Nandini as a very intelligent person, but how do we qualify or quantify the intelligence. Social intelligence allows us to navigate complex social relationships in stressful environments. It encompasses social awareness(empathy,accuracy,cognition) and social facility (synchrony,self presentation,influence). This interplay between social intelligence and emotional stability is forged during adolescence when maladjustment and maturity are tested most acutely.
Nandini has always been this quiet, gentle being who prefers to be left to her own devices. Then, out of nowhere, this boy storms into her life. He angers her like no one ever has, brings forth in her this violent urge to hurt him, and thereafter he just completely sweeps her away into his own world, almost forcefully. He makes her cry all the time, and he leaves scars, sometimes on her body, but most often on her mind. And the only way she can pick herself back up is by fighting him, hurting him. And that's exactly what she does.
But, in the middle of all this turmoil, a small bubble begins to form. He saves her life, protects what she holds dear, and makes her feel happy and secure. Within this monster she discovers someone so vulnerable that she wants to protect and always be there for him in any way she can.
Nandini is someone who is not used to torrid emotions, she does not process them well, either breaks down in tears or snaps in anger. We don't know much about how she recovered from her parents' death, but we do know that she turned to science and logic as her preferred way of seeking answers to the questions life threw at her. Her Ams gave her a secure, happy childhood, and she flourished in an environment which did not tax her too much emotionally, even though her parents' death and her brother's medical condition fostered a dee of responsibility and maturity within her. In that sense Nandini had never really been in this kind of a stressful environment which assaulted her social intelligence and emotional stability, something which she had to confront as soon as she landed in SPACE.
Very often we just tend to remember how Manik and Nandini connected, how they fell for each other, but forget what happened before it- the bullying, the punch, the absolute lows Manik brought her to during the 'Spot' period. On Musicana night, his cruel words ripped all those old wounds open. If this was the guy who had caught fireflies for her, he was also the one who had made her clean his shoes. She believed his lies. Then she discovered the truth, which hurt even more because now she could no longer cling to her facade of hatred for him. She had trusted him, and he had not. He had broken all his promises and she couldn't trust him anymore. Then the amputation drama happened- the way she saw it, he had told her that he would go to the doctor if she forgave him, but she decided to be stubborn and didn't, so it was all her fault. Added to it there was her failure to be there for her brother at the same time. She ought to have been more sensible, but lost herself in her anger at Manik, and he almost lost his music.
Hence the need for Nandu to qualify this as a "toxic" relationship in order to ensure her sanity. The push and pull,the extreme vulnerability,the overwhelming emotions are not part of her social intelligence fabric. THAT is what made her think they are 'toxic'. As she saw it, both of them almost lost their most precious thing in life due to the reaction they brought out in each other. She did not deny her love or his, she got scared of what this love makes them both become- poisonous to the other's life. In this context there is a very complex interplay of social intelligence with emotional stability. Darwin based his initial theory of survival in primates on decision making process. Decision making process depends on emotional signals which are defined as bioregulatory responses aimed at maintaining homeostasis and survival. Here in times of stress our social intelligence aims at emotional stability by making the best survival decision. But the human brain is so wonderful that once the threat is removed it reverts back to making socially aware intelligent responses. Now that the impending amputation and her own guilt have receded, she is back to laying her claim on what is hers.
Shiv Shakti
