Celebrating Love…

Love is in the air… You can always feel it around Valentine’s Day. There is so much excitement and preparations going around you… Everything you see in a store is red or heart shaped… Stores give discounts for couples. Rom-com movies are released. Flyers of prom nights and parties are all over the place… so what if you don’t have that special someone to celebrate this day with?

I always used to argue that Valentine’s Day is not just about enjoying with your soul mate (easily read as husband, boy friend or that cute guy I met last Sunday). It’s a day to celebrate with all your loved ones.

I used to make it a point to thank all my loved ones… Amma – If anyone says there’s no such thing as selfless love, I send them to her; Shankar – I wonder how he can even tolerate me after knowing me for such a long time and my friends – my pride.

This year most of them are away. Far far away… I can still thank them by sending presents. Can call them and wish. Yes, communication has been made much easier… but whatever technology does, I still can’t hug my friends, box with my brother or sleep on my mum’s lap whenever I want to.

Then I ask myself… Why? Though I am surrounded by people here why does my heart reach out and crave for only those handpicked bunch? Why do I want to celebrate LOVE with them? Is that what LOVE means?

They say LOVE is blind. I wonder if it’s true. This love, for a few people in the world, makes us indifferent towards most people and wants to even hate some others. Every human being has the capacity to love… and everyone loves some one or the other… but most usually spend all their lives loving this select bunch of people to their maximum capabilities and forget about the rest of the world.

The Mumbai local train ladies compartment is a nice example. Men usually make fun of the ladies compartment as it is most notorious for its fights though it’s less crowded than the men’s compartment. Men claim that even in the unmanageable crowd, men are at harmony with each other while women find it difficult to co-operate. Have you wondered why? Why women, who are compared with the earth for their tolerance level, become irritated so quickly and have such nasty fights while travelling?

Each woman in the ladies compartment has the same thought process going on in her brain: God! Take me home as quickly as possible. Hopefully that Shanta bai did come today. “Aage jagah nahi hai madam. Mujhe bhi Kurla hi uttarna hai. Abhi time hai.” What do I make for dinner? There was a little bit of bhendi left… will it be enough? Okay, will mix it with potatoes. “Arre baba, dhakka kaiko maarta hai? Bola na jagah nahi hai” Rahul has to submit that science project tomorrow! I still have to teach Radhika ‘O palanhare!’ for the competition next week. O god! How am I gonna manage? “Ek aur baar dhakka maara na ek kaan ke neeche baja ke doongi. Kya samajhti kya hai tu khudko haan? Sab log khade hi hai na……..”

When it comes to home, she doesn’t care if she has to slog like a slave, she will do it all. Coz she loves them. But when it comes to a stranger, she can’t bear being even touched. I am not being a feminist, but for the amount of sacrifice she does, she never gets what she deserves… All she gets is Wapas wahi bhindi banaya… Mum, that’s not what the teacher taught, you don’t know anything… I don’t like that song; I want to sing ‘mind blowing maahiya’

And we read about people who kill for love. The guy is insanely in love with this girl, but she loves someone else. He tries everything possible to win her back and finally ends up killing himself, or the other guy or even the girl he loved so much.

Why does love go so wrong then? Why is this beautiful thing for which we all long for go against us? If it works people say “Waah, Kya love story hai!”, if it doesn’t its tears and bitterness.

We misunderstand the whole purpose of love… We feel it, appreciate it, enjoy it, share it but we want to keep it to ourselves. We make the mistake of trying to capture it. We also share this beautiful thing with only a few hundreds or thousands from among the billions who are out there. We disturb the equilibrium. We cause an unbalance and then we swing like the pendulum. It takes us really high at first. It gives us all the happiness and comfort and we feel its reality and it’s all going right. Then the pendulum swings back. That’s when we get the jolt. We don’t understand what’s happening. How could things which seemed so real suddenly vanish? And we then realize that we have alienated ourselves from the rest of the world.

Love doesn’t teach that. It tries to teach a lesson to everyone who does that by swinging them back to reality but most never learn the lesson. They still like the ride upwards and become ready to pay the price of coming back down and getting hurt just for the kicks of going up.

On this Valentine’s Day, I want to make a resolution that I’ll try to love everyone impartially and equally and try to learn the meaning of this beautiful 4 letter word.

Love All, Serve All – Swami

Trying my best

Sangeetha