When was the last time you cried? I do remember the last time I did it but something happened yesterday that reminded me of it.

I dont know if it was a grain of dust or an insect but on the way home something hit my eye. Well its not a surprise considering I travel a major part of my journey thru Mysore Road and Outer Ring Road. The interesting thing is that at that moment I was listening to a song that I loved. It is amazing how we relate songs to experiences in our life and this was one of those songs… The song had got me a little down (little would not cover it actually) and this thing hit me. All of a sudden tears started flowing and there were like 4 to 5 rounds of them.

At every signal I checked to see if there was something in my eye but there wasnt. Slowly I began to wonder if the tears were more emotional than a way of my body rejecting something foreign.

I remember the last time I cried(genuinely that is) it was for something emotional, the details of which I will not go into now. But I have been hurt many times, bled many times(I used to play soccer sometime back and only another soccer lover will now how much prone to injury u can be) but I have never cried about it. Not that this has something to do with masculinity or testosterone but I always wondered why do we cry when we feel emotionally down.

Come to think of it all of us cried the first few years of our lives. That was the only way to communicate and say “Im hungry” or “Im scared” or “Im in pain”. Yet, as adults we hardly ever do it… Im certain there are ppl that have not cried in years.

I read somewhere that since we associate pain and hunger in our infancy to crying it continues to be the sign of pain and suffering as we grow old, But what then about happiness. Many ppl cry when they are totally happy and I have had tears in my eyes many times thanks to some funny movies.

In another article its speculated that among adults that cry in relationships there remained one commonality it was a signal for either receiving/providing help. Its one of the theories that does make sense but there is one that challenges the way our body responds to situations like “Why do we cry? Why doesn’t our hair fall off when we are angry?”

I believe its something got to do with evolution. We have slowly been tuned to respond in a certain way. Many species of animals have evolved to have radical methods of protecting oneself from physical danger. Maybe this is the way we protect our selves from emotional trauma. Its a fact that once we cry we feel much better(how much ever bad the situation is) so maybe our tear glands are associated in someway with the part of the brain that cooks up worries.

My eyes were sore by the time I reached home and I just responded to queries with a “something fell in my eye” and for the record I was feeling much better.

PS: If anyone asks me what was that song and why I was emotionally down all I will say is “Why do you want to know?” with a smile (which roughly translated means “Mind your own business!”… just kidding :) )