Soft Magic

SOFT MAGIC

 Do you remember the feeling?

 A baby’s skin on your cheeks (oooh)

 The touch of dew fresh flowers ( hmmm)

 Cuddling a pillow in bed (ummm)

 A silk dress sliding down your body (wow)

 Ruffling the fur of a pet (coochie coochie)

 Bare feet on morning grass ( oooh)

 Sinking into a leather recliner (aaah)

 A chocolate melting in your mouth (mmmm)

 Gentle hands caressing your skin (aaah)

 And your head in your mother’s lap (heaven)

What is about a simple soft touch that melts the senses? What emotions does it evoke? Is there more to it than a fleeting feeling of goodness?

As it turns out, Yes. 

While studying various experiments on nature of bonding and attachment, I was thoroughly fascinated by this one conducted by Harry Harlow way back in 1950s.

Strange as it may sound, till the 50s, psychologists quite clinically believed that basic bodily needs of hunger, thirst, safety, sex, elimination of pain and discomfort were the only driving motives behind all behaviour. Love and bonding were only secondary factors.

Harlow’s experiments hypothesised against all existing norms to show the true nature of love and that ‘love is blind’.

Let me attempt a simple description of these experiments-

1. The animal chosen was the baby rhesus monkey as it is closest in nature and behaviour to humans.

2. Some baby monkeys, right after birth were placed in cages and were given all means of survival, but the mothers. Most babies did not survive beyond 5 weeks.

3. Some cages were lined with soft cotton gauge too and the babies in these cages survived happily.Infact they threw terrible temper tantrums if the cloth was removed for cleaning. It seemed that ‘contact comfort ‘outweighed hunger and thirst in survival.

4. Now Harlow, introduced variations of a ‘surrogate mother’ in the cage one by one. One made of wire, one made of wire and covered with soft cotton cloth and the third with all this and painted face and big smiling eyes.

The babies clung desperately to the ‘soft mothers’, avoiding the hard wired mother and not bothering to look at the face of the mother. They left the mothers very reluctantly even for feeding and finally improvised ways of feeding themselves while clinging to the soft mother.

Such babies not only survived but grew healthy and happy. Further experiments showed that they also formed healthy social relationships, had more reproductive success and turned out to be more caring parents themselves.

So what do we learn?

That ‘Soft magic’ is not just a fleeting feeling of goodness, it is essential for forming attachment, secure relationships and good parenting.

That little babies ( and adults too) need more than feeding to be happy

That soft toys are made that way for a purpose

That a ‘jadoo ki jhappi’ can actually melt hearts

That ad lines like ‘feels like heaven, doesn’t it?’ and ‘have you felt silk lately’ were not written whimsically

And that the soft magic is probably the most innate need we develop while blissfully floating in our mother’s womb!