When did love die? When, exactly did the last few glowing embers get stamped out? It was burning, albeit a slow flickering flame till about a few years ago.I can vouch for that. I look around me now, and I don’t see it anywhere. I don’t feel it anywhere.
You will brand me as a harsh cynic. I’m not. I’m actually being lenient here. All I see around me is convenience and practicality. If I had met anyone just starting college 8 years ago, I would have told that person “ Who knows, you might find your true love here… wait for it ”. Now Ill probably tell him, “ Make the most of your time in college . Sure, if you do find love, don’t let it go, but please don’t sit around waiting for it. ”
They say times have changed. Now kids have mobile phones. Generous pocket money. Uncensored internet access. Facebook accounts. Do I belong to this generation? Hey, I’m only 26. But I can confidently say that I grew up differently.
The period from 14-20 is considered to be the most volatile period for a man’s hormones. And in those 6 years, I grew up with a landline, very little pocket money, no internet and cable TV just in its fledgling stages. Thank God for that.
They say when you meet the person you love, you experience a lot of things. Your heart rate increases dangerously. So does your respiratory rate. If you are really in for it, your fingers might start trembling slightly. You start feeling the saliva accumulate in your mouth, and just when you feel it might spill out, you try to swallow it. But this confuses your vocal cords , and so you feel a huge lump in your throat that refuses to go away. A tingle runs down your spine. And more importantly, in your mind , you just know. Like how at that precise moment, Neo knew he was the one.
Do you know anyone, to whom the above has happened recently? Or has it happened to you in the recent past? Most probably, the answer to both these questions is no. You or your friends though, may have felt certain other feelings, which I choose not to describe here. Was love a finite element, which simply got used up and spent? Because love, as you will agree, is being used since the world began. Who is to confidently say, that he-dinosaurs did not go ga-ga over dainty little she-dinosaurs?
The way love is depicted in movies has changed. And that is why, I consider Kabhi Alvida na Kehna, to be ahead of its times. There was no melodramatic lovey-dovey slow-mo shots, a la DDLJ, a la KKHH, a la hundreds of other movies. They needed each other, they were they for each other. Simple.
Infidelity has increased at the same rate as the way love has decreased. Are they inversely proportional? A friend of mine, had this as the startup phone screen message for years “ ALL MEN ARE BASTARDS”. I used to vehemently deny that. Now I don’t. And it holds true for women as well. Someone I knew, someone whose relationship I had been following since its inception, recently fell prey to temptation. That person was the last bastion of resistance. No more.
I have written this piece after giving much thought to the matter. It has not been written hastily, but after months, years of observation and experimentation. Both with self and with others.
Nothing sums up my sentiments, like this line from KANK :
“ Mohabbat ke zamaane gujar gaye janab,
Mohabbat ke zamaane gujar gaye janab,
Ab chote-mote pyar se hi kaam chala li jiye aap…”
8 comments:
wow..that gives me alot to write about.there can't possibly be a technical definition of love and its experience...its entirely a matter of individual perception.What my observation has taught me though is relationships are increasingly becoming so much a matter of just give and take..something which i have never believed and will never probably be entirely convinced about.And as far as what makes love and relationships last is a balance between passion, honesty and most of all FAITH...the single most powerful word in english language. With the constant rat race of doing well and meeting up with the pressures of modern life..passion surely someday takes a back seat and fizzles out..but if the faith is strong enough it lives by..it is the faith that empowers the strength to stand by in times of laughter and pain.Passsion works like a spark and faith like a flame.It's important to keep beleiving in the goodness of love and life..and probably then it will not seem like a query. But like everyhting good or bad.. love and its implications are a part of one's destiny and above all Gods will:-)
Wonderful !! Brilliantly thought provoking....This is good stuff Mamya!!It kind of steps on my creative thought...nah..kidding...although I was actually thinking on the same lines...If I do write something...then I will cite your article as a reference...coz you did write it first eh ??...But I think this is one of the best you have written !! Honest...I guess bitter old men like us (2o somethings) without love in their life...nor lust (I am assuming same is true for you at present, pardon my folly if I am wrong)....ponder and wonder and dream...its nice to have your feet on the ground and be "real"....makes it harder to get up and go now doesn't it?Keep up the great work !!
Cheers bro,
Ranjeet
@ Dr. Punyani:
You should start a blog of your own..Even if you write responses to my posts, it would be good enough !!!
Hey Ranjeet,
Thanks for the comment yaar, I read your blog regularly too, I feel you are truly blogging, im just neither here or there.
And bitter old men ??? Depressing !!! :-)
Since I know when and how you became a cynic, I won't comment on the inevitability of the end result that is you right now...though I am from the same generation, and I grew up in much the same way..Back then, we managed fine without cellphones, playstations and the internet, and coffee bars and multiplexes weren't even in existence....but how strange, that life was so much better!!
I don't agree though that Love such as it is, has died. Stay single for a while, and look around you at kids in that volatile age of 16-20..sure they move much faster now, and that too, is inevitable...but you can still see that initial spark..it'll never fade.
Much of what we feel changes with age. So to expect, at 26, to feel the same as you did when you were 18, is to anticipate no growth where there should be. All of us, save for a lucky few, go through heartache, relationships that fail, and the insecurities they bring. But take sometime out, to look at a couple of kids, who've just started dating, and a young couple who've just got married, grocery shopping...and tell me you don't see a similarity.
It's like a song, that's by a group called wet wet wet...needless to say you haven't heard of the song or the singer...but to counter your cynincism, here are the lyrics:
I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes,
Love is all around me and so the feeling grows..
It's written in the wind, it's everywhere I go,
So if you really love me, come on and let it SHOW!!
Apt doc, wouldn't you say??
p.s. I loved the comment about the dinosaurs and she-dinosaurs...only a true romantic could come up with that;)))
the only thing i can write is i love this blog
People love more conviniently today..but they still do..ya there is give n take involved..bt that doesn't mean ppl have stopped loving..every1 has had a first love..n u superdoc..when u think of ur first love today..I'm assuming u had one..doesn't ur heart skip a beat..if it does..u still feel the love...coz it's der..
People love more conviniently today..but they still do..ya there is give n take involved..bt that doesn't mean ppl have stopped loving..every1 has had a first love..n u superdoc..when u think of ur first love today..I'm assuming u had one..doesn't ur heart skip a beat..if it does..u still feel the love...coz it's der..
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