It was then, when I heard that my parents (Bengali-Hindu mother and Nepali-Christian father) had a love marriage, i realized that there is something called LOVE. My parents love story was like the Hindi film Ek Duje Ke Liye. This movie was about the love between a Tamil man, Vasu (played by Kamal Hasan), and a North Indian woman, Sapna (Played by Rati Agnihotri), who are neighbours in Goa. They come from totally different backgrounds and can hardly speak the other's language. When Vasu and Sapna admit their love, there is chaos in their homes, and their parents reject the idea. Same sort of matter happened in my parent's family too. But all those odd they could overcome and now they live happily ever after. They could do that because their love for each other (till date) is so strong (or so deep). After more than two decades, when suddenly my sister decided to marry a Tamil man from Chennai, I could again see the strong connection of LOVE. Love between them brought two families (culturally and linguistically different) closer to understand the respective culture with huge amount of tolerance and acceptance. Hence I always felt that I will also experience such love in my life. From them, I learnt that Love is one of the most profound emotions that they experience as humans. It’s impact is huge in human life. Though we can invite it into our lives but we do not have the control over the how, when and where love starts to express itself. Maybe that’s why 72% of people believe in love at first sight. Sometimes, love truly does strike like a bolt of lightening to the chest, and you aren’t prepared for it. It happened for me once for someone, but alas! it was just from my side and I had exhaust myself to the extreme to decide my love to let go. But in case of my parents and my sister and her husband, love was at first sight from both end and that made their life beautiful. May be for them, definition of love was not difficult as they got their tune and lyrics in harmony. But for many people who could not find love or if love is one sided traffic, then the definition of love is different for both of them. And when the love is defined in two different ways then there is pain and suffering which is huge. This pain takes away the peace of mind and make you mad, vulnerable, sad, angry as well as depressed. Here I would like to state that the difference between lust and love. Lust is a temporary desire which is fired by an increased release of testosterone and estrogen–it lasts for a little bit, then you normalize and it’s gone. But, when you feel true love, the brain can release a whole set of chemicals, allowing you to experience it in different expressions. Love can be blind, misguided, tragic, unconditional, steadfast and inconsistent. It takes on many different variants, yet, at its best, love is a passionate commitment that we constantly work to develop and nurture. When you break down and analyze different relationships, one of the key factors is how compatible two partners are, so love is compatibility. When you share the same values, likes and dislikes, interests, political or philosophical views with someone you are much more likely to be compatible and thus, are more likely to fall in love. Sure, there can always be situations where "opposites attract" (it happened with me) but there will always need to be some common grounds for the relationship to grow roots on, or it might fall into one of the other categories of love. Love and compatibility work together to build a relationship, so at the end of the day, you want to find someone you know you know you are going to be compatible with.
But when I did not get love till the age of 40, like my parents and my sister and her husband, I started questioning myself as - What is Love? For me, at the end Tagore's Bengali song - Sokhi Bhavan kahare bole (what do you mean by 'thought', my dear - English translation below is by Anjan Ganguly) helped me survive without love till date. The songs narrates in the following way -
What do you mean by 'Thought', my dear.
What do you mean by 'Pain' either.
What is that you yell 'Love' for,
What the word 'Love' means,
Is it saturated with pain?
Is that synonymous with tears or sigh of sufferings?
It is surely a wonder, why it fascinates people.
To my eyes everything is pleasing.
All are youthful, all are free from filth.
Blue sky, green parks, elaborate moonlight, tender blossoms –
All alike myself.
They laugh and sing all the time,
Face certain death delightfully smiling.
They know not sobs, neither fascinated to pains.
Flowers fall apart giggling, moonlight vanish while smiling,
Stars in the sky go out of vision in the ocean of light.
Who is happier than me –
Come O Darling, sooth your ears
With the blissful songs of a happy person.
You should be able to smile for a while amid routine sufferings.
Let us all sing for a single day ignoring the melancholy.
What do you mean by 'Pain' either.
What is that you yell 'Love' for,
What the word 'Love' means,
Is it saturated with pain?
Is that synonymous with tears or sigh of sufferings?
It is surely a wonder, why it fascinates people.
To my eyes everything is pleasing.
All are youthful, all are free from filth.
Blue sky, green parks, elaborate moonlight, tender blossoms –
All alike myself.
They laugh and sing all the time,
Face certain death delightfully smiling.
They know not sobs, neither fascinated to pains.
Flowers fall apart giggling, moonlight vanish while smiling,
Stars in the sky go out of vision in the ocean of light.
Who is happier than me –
Come O Darling, sooth your ears
With the blissful songs of a happy person.
You should be able to smile for a while amid routine sufferings.
Let us all sing for a single day ignoring the melancholy.
I always dream (hope) to be loved by and to love 'someone' from my deepest corner of my heart but as the time passes by, I feel that the hope is becoming impossible and I am leading towards hopelessness in finding love. Staying alone is possible and I can stay alone. Its not a problem but living without a love is something really painful. Love for me is someone who will emotionally and physically (together and not separately) care me from the heart. One of the pressing questions I hear overtly and covertly from every near and dear ones of mines is "Who am I with?" My parents, sister and friends supported me fully in my life, except in this one aspect, my singleness. We all talk about singles, loneliness, but we don't talk about what it's like to live without partner while longing for one over years and then decades. Very few of my close friends know that how much I long to have a partner in my life just like the one my parents have found among them, my sister and her husband have found between them. Its the Bollywood, Hindi films that have created my perception about love and having partners in one's life. It is also our religion, our society that have inculcated the belief, deep into my heart, in romantic love. How many Hindi and Bengali film songs that I have heard (from childhood to till date) revolve around the long search and eventually discover the beloved through the process of love at first sight. The phrases at the end of all Hindi and Bengali movie (of 80s and 90s that I watched), "happily ever after" made us strongly believe that two lives are made better by virtue of their union. Hence from my teenage I am looking for that holy union to live my life "happily ever after".
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