Love: Myriads of Shades

To all those Love Lorn Souls
I am not a good reader. I prefer not to be. I was a voracious reader in my school days and teens but when I graduated into intellectual adult world I realized that it corrupts your thinking process and you start mouthing somebody else's thoughts. So I stopped, but not altogether. But you can not get away with somethings that you cherished as a youth. These words by Gulzar lingered so long that they etched a niche on my being.

             'I have seen [ smelt ] the fragrance of those eyes,

              Don't spoil it by alleging  relations,

              It's a realization to be felt only by your being

              Don't call it by any other name,

              Let love be love !'

Love, a many splendored thing. Or is it? It always defies the definition. What exactly it is! Is it profound feeling, an emotion felt for someone from within or just a passing phase of mind or age that vanishes in a fleeting second as the time matures. Does it really evolve over the years just by sharing the lives or the ones who are in,  plainly get habituated to each other! I don't know, I really don't know.

The word is so oft-repeated that I feel over the years it has lost its shine especially in today's youth. Nowadays they fall in love at the drop of hat but fall out of it, equally fast ! Breakups too are celebrated with full gusto! I won't call it lust but infatuation, definitely yes. Maybe play of Hormones taking the front seat, And naturally as they wane, the feeling fades too! In my generation it was for keeps, it was endeared, nurtured and it was vowed to walk into the sunset together. I have my own doubts about how many of them really walked with content and not because, it is ought to be done, so it is done!

Love at all other levels connotes totally different vibes. The Sense of longing along with belonging taking the upper crust! The human mind plays so many tricks that many a time it acts schizophrenic. It wants to belong but without getting assimilated totally! Paradoxical to say the least! That sense of self-preservation, [ego ?] transcends all the relations, including love. And so it boils down to, if you love yourself at the outset,  you may be in a position to share. Maybe!

The Indian concept of love always went through spiritualism. 'Oneness' in totality! Not two but one! Two different individuals, born differently, brought up differently, belonging to different genders, with different thinking base are expected to be or at least should try to be  'One', only because they are tied together under one pretext or the other, call it love, marriage, friendship or any near relation, say a mother and her children, siblings or even the artificially carved out concept called, the 'Nation', whatever! How it is possible, I dare not think, it's totally insane! In the end, it becomes so mushy that one feels 'Ugh'!

And Love does not come alone. It carries along with it, the baggage of similarly hollow prepositions! Sacrifice, taking the top seat. Should we call it vanity, just to pass the bar you are ready to forego with your ultimate, your being! Self! In today's times, it hardly seems possible even probable but we are fed with anecdotes after anecdotes of so-called 'Sacrifice for Love' till ad nauseum !

At one level there is every ground to think that the hyped connotation is coined by the bookworms! Our writers, mostly poets !! First Love for the first time! Sorry? Why not the first love for the third time or is there forth love the second time, for a change ?! The one who writes thus is always is in his 80s, who longs for the youth but the dentures do not allow even, to utter the word 'Love' properly! The boy or the girl who are in love, really in love for the first time, do not even realize that ' This is it !' Ask me !!
Be honest with yourself and ask, 'Have you found love, true love in any of your relationships'. No ifs and buts. And no par lances! We all run after that elusive foundation, Love throughout our life that is ultimately reduced into a futile chase to reach the other end of the rainbow !

Yes, it does give you positivity, both the word and the feeling, unfortunately, it does not last long. For perseverance in life, one requires so many other things to move on, So move on!