Tuesday, May 16, 2017

True love - valentine day

Valentines Day.
The social media and other mesaging modalities were full of valentines day messages, professing about love. It made it appear that everyone around  was keen to declare, celebrate, proclaim their love. What connotation does this word "Love" have for me ?  Is it gloating about ones posession? Is it about basking in the attention of the person who claims to love you? Is it about acceptance of oneself by another? Does the word merit all the hype that surrounds it? In recent times, not having and demonstrating ones object of affection is  considered almost heretic. Such a person is doomed to a desecrated miserable existence.
What is Love. An emotion? A mood? A whim? A fancy? An addiction? An indulgence? An instinct? A figment of imagination? A deception? A delusion? An ego trip?
            History, folklore,celluloid and fiction had lent an almost ethereal, surreal texture to this phenomenon.
Did i really grasp the full import of this entity?
 What was the moistening of the eyes of the mother as she disconnected her fingers clutched by her young one as he was wheeled into the operating room?  What was the sound of my ailing mother hurriedly cooking a meal when i got back after a particularly hard day at work? What was the realisation that my father postponed his decision to buy formal shoes for himself to provide for my extra classes? What was the excruciating back breaking labourious work done in the raging hot sun by a father to provide a rudimentary meal to his extended family? Did this love ever need to be demonstrated or declared on any platform? Love in these situations was more  in the obscurity, anonymity and unobtrusiveness of the act.  It was probably best experienced. Some  emotions get trivialised by parading them for public consumption. Love is a very personal experience  intangible, inexpressible and indemonstrable. Like the fantastic composition of Gulzar.
Haath se chuke ise rishton ka ilzaam na do.
Don't touch it, or trivialise it by reducing it to a noun, adjective, adverb.
It is the sound of an unnoticed tear falling from a remote corner of the heart. It is the fragrance of one self as one immerses in the thought of the loved one. It is the sight of one's own reflection when looking into the eyes of the loved one.
I recalled the look in my father's eyes when I  strode into his home. It was a celebration. It was unadulterated joy. It was exhilaration. It was ecstacy. He never uttered that word. Probably it was not  love after all. Because he never articulated it or expressed it as  was the norm. Though i still feel the fragrance when he descends into my thoughts.
Rahen na Rahen hum
Meheka karenge

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