That heady feeling called love.

Pardon me if the subject of the post sounds cliched but I am a die hard romantic and this is the season of love.

The air is fragrant, mornings chilly, days bright and evenings sensual. Just the right time to fall in love and make love. It is the time for Garba, Navaratri, Durga Pooja and according to statistics, also the time when most number of abortions are undertaken, which are but a result of overflowing love. Pun, totally intended.

The dictionary gives me five meanings of love. It talks about endearment, affection, tenderness, passion and desire. Love has always fascinated me, in its various forms - agony, envy, obsession, betrayal, possessiveness, lust, and longing - all negative, all dark - all pervasive. I once believed that love brings with it more negatives than positives, but if it does, can it be love?

Some months ago, I chanced upon an interview on TV, one of the many brilliant Brahma Kumaris was talking about love. It changed my perception forever. She talked about how love is giving and not seeking. It is not about you but the person you love. Love means surrendering yourself and not vanquishing the other. If you really love someone, you will not want him to give in to your desires instead you will offer all that you have. So simple, so true, yet so few of us understand it.

 

As far as I recall, I have always been in love, with someone or something. I have always had some intense passion in life, in phases that I did not, life was hard. It was not romantic love but love none the less - with my friends, with my kinetic, with a new dress, some song, a new pen, a pair of shoes... all random things but worthy of love.

Then, I grew up and like all girls, my idea of love changed. Love now meant boys and romance. To my disappointment, I never had any romantic alliance, not once. I had a couple of crushes though, so huge that I drove my friends up the wall talking about them, but nothing more than that.

Eventually, the idea of falling in love became all consuming. That is when I fell in love for the first time, or so I thought. Although I truly believed I was in love yet it was the darkest phase of my life. I waited to be acknowledged, to be talked to, to be loved. It made me feel small, insignificant, unhappy and uncared for. I soon realised that such a feeling can not be love.

If anything, love gives you wings. It makes you sing, dance, smile, blush, talk -- it makes you happy and I totally believe in it. Yet, somehow, the recurring theme in my blog seems to be unfulfilled love, whenever I finish writing something very passionately, it turns out to be about unfulfilled love. It is interesting to see that such posts get maximum reactions too. I guess it is close to every one's heart.

As human beings, we do not love anything more than ourselves. Saying that I love so and so is just a way of saying that I want to be with so and so - to feel good - about myself. Unfortunately, the so and so has some other so and so and the cycle continues. Therefore, the one who we eventually end up with is usually not the one we love, but the one who helps us love ourselves. Out goes the happily ever after and in comes the compromise.

Of course there is fulfilled love too, I will be sent to hell if I ignore the many lovers who have found a way to be together - hopefully forever. Most of the people around me are happily living with the person they fell in love with, me too. 

But there are those who find love many times over yet choose to live with someone they never loved. Whatever happened to love? or was there love at all? To be honest, I am quite old fashioned and my small town, middle class upbringing often makes me wonder why do people get into a relationship at all if there is no love.

I borrow the answer from The Ganga Mail. Mr Ghosh, hope you don't mind.

Mistaken Identity

A piece of paper
torn into two
One carried away by the gust of wind
the other is you.
And thus: the lifelong search
for the other half.
The search fails, but you pretend:
"Wow, I found my other half!"
What a lie!
Your other half is
stuck in the branches of a mango tree
so who is this man
you are flaunting?

and also a fitting response to this - wish I knew who wrote this one

And she asked God

"Whom shall I blame?

Father..Thou? the wind?

or the paper that was too fragile

to be torn?

God smiled at her

"Stop the search, my child.

Some come for a season

And some for a reason

But trust me, my child

He's the one I've chosen."