What is love?
The moment I hear the question what is love? My answer always is this. Love is.
Those two words hold the entire meaning of love for me. When I was asked to write about my own version of love, my mind instantly ran to the nearest rescue I could find – music. For me, love is music, a song that your heart dances to and a rhythm that has the capacity to capture your soul. Love is the language of the universe, the one in which one soul converses with the other.
Recently a young friend of mine wrote to me seeking relationship advice. Her umpteenth email in the last few months that she has joined college. One line that struck me in her email was: I love A – A loves B – B loves C and C isn’t even aware B exists. I am stuck. Help! I smiled looking at how the definition of love had changed over a period of time. When I wrote back to her stating it isn’t love for sure and that she should try rewriting the above statement by using like / lust instead of love she came back to me with an explanation saying it is casual, that’s how we all want it nowadays. We are too young to be tied down with commitments. It took me a series of emails to explain to her the real meaning of being casual and how it was going way beyond casual, leave alone love!
That night as I mentally went through my day, I concluded the meaning of love never changed. It’s we who have changed as individuals, our priorities changed and so did our wants and desires making us look at love from a different perspective. But at the end of the day, we still are love-hungry souls. We seek love and acceptance in various forms. Because that’s what my young friend also wanted- to be loved.
In my segment Metro Diaries on the blog (which is now a book too!) I talk about love and relationships. My stories revolve around the complexities we have added to something as simple as love. The characters are very common and not-so-perfect. After all who is! Well, I am not. So the hero of my stories are not tall dark and handsome, neither is the heroine drop-dead gorgeous who waits for her knight in shining armor to come to her rescue every time. Both of them come along with their own insecurities, failures, and fears. And it is through this that they make the story complete and real.
Through my stories, I bring out the harsh realities of life that we often ignore. Something as simple as making the first move, saying sorry, letting a loved one go for that’s where their happiness lies, holding onto someone because they mean the world to you, telling someone how important they are in your life – we all are so scared to show our vulnerable side that most of the times we hide these feelings tagging them as “understood”. But we all know how good it feels to hear them. On the other hand even the contrary cannot be denied. Just because you don’t keep saying I love you frequently doesn’t mean you don’t love someone. It is all about how you make that person feel, like they say sometimes actions speak louder than words.
And to all those scared souls I have one question to ask – When you make love to someone, you are completely naked. Aren’t you vulnerable then? You are sharing your body with someone at that moment. Then what is stopping you to share your heart and soul? I don’t know how many of you are aware of the term emotional cheating which happens when you are not comfortable sharing things with your partner and in turn share them with someone else. So your friend/colleague begins to know you more than your partner. You might say this is not cheating in any form but anything that is hidden from your partner for any reason which they ought to know does qualify as cheating.
Give love a chance, if nothing else you will at least know you tried.
Every time I meet someone whose the only complaint from their partner is that they have changed I invariably ask, “Haven’t you?” taking them by surprise. Over a period of time we all do, we are not what we used to be say 5 years ago, it is all a matter of acceptance as I said above. To be accepted for what you are loved for all that you are, and respected for it! – That my friend is a relationship that befits the forever tag. After all, change is the only thing constant in this world.
I remember watching DDLJ with rosy eyes as a pre-teen. As I sighed on the balcony scene, where SRK jumps walls to meet Kajol, my aunt quipped “All this happens only in movies. In real life, no one jumps walls for you!” I had just smiled and winked at her then before replying, “They do...if the love is true.” She mumbled something about stupid teenage notions about love before leaving the room. But the fact is I still believe in it till date. The only difference is the walls are not real, they are imaginary walls we build around ourselves due to hurt or past experiences with wrong people.
The right people in our life always make an effort to reach the real you no matter how thick or high walls you might have built around you. Just believe and have faith.
The other most commonly fatal line is – I want someone to complete me. Here I would want to invite my favourite subject in school Algebra to address this concern with its golden rule: Opposites always make negative, equals that make a positive. So if you are incomplete, how do you think the relationship will be a complete one? It is only you who can complete yourself and expect someone to compliment you in a manner that you make a complete relationship one where you are celebrating the differences rather than pondering over them.
As I have written in one of my stories- Fall in love with someone who doesn’t make fun of your weaknesses but rather turns them into your strength. One who doesn’t see the broken you, but sees those cracks as places where s/he can pour all her/his love and make you complete, never to be broken again. One who is proud enough to hold your hand and claim to the world, “S/he is mine!”
Remember life is a quest and love its fuel, one that is needed to reach your destination.
