What Is Love?

 

Intense emotion for someone/thing. I guess. I’m not sure how to exactly describe love – I guess you know love when you see starry skies or monsoon nights. As you sink your teeth into that oh-so-perfect blueberry muffin. or your toes into oh-so-squishy sand.
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Love is owl-spotting and tree climbing. Tribal beats beneath the black black skies and inky seas. Boats dotting dark horizons like some stars fell out of the sky. Posters popping colours as wave after wave of trancers trip on Spongle by the sea. Soft green grass under my toes and purple skies on my mind. and that sunshine. That eye popping yellow sunshine. I love when you get my vibe and go for that random drive in the dark. I love when you know I need a hug but I’m too proud to ask.

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I love how your childish heart mourns for romantic love. You’re young yet, and you will one day learn that there is no romantic love. At least not the kind TV teaches you. What love lets you demand answers and place boundaries? What love is based on the mindless accumulation of consumer goods as ‘proof’ or evidence of that ferris-wheel type gut twisting making my tummy go wonky when the universe grants me yet another soul mate?

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What is safe to assume about romantic love? A ‘love’ where social norms dictate who you love, how you love, how many you can love, when you love, and what love is? The notions of romantic love have been diseased and corrupted into a vile system of power play and consumerism. A system which allows love to be expressed by the spending power of two individuals who will ultimately marry to appease the orthodox, conventional heterosexual set-up strongly endorsed and encouraged by families, relatives, friends, social customs, governments and traditions. A world which is based on the assumption that this is, and only this, the ‘right’ way to live life.

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Even the way love is peddled to the consumers is scoff-worthy. The images of the typically coy women and the semi-sexy, mostly sleazy men or the crass sexist jokes or tacky fascination for other people’s nudity or imagination of it have been branded into my brain for far too long. I’ve written over and over again about the stereotypes I fully fail to fit into. We’ve been taught to believe a big, expensive bouquet of flowers flown in from Denmark and dyed some ridiculous unnatural color is far more worthy than the purple-and-orange sunset I watch as I lie  on lush green grass with my rag-tag bunch of loved ones. All shapes, sizes and species. We’ve been taught that Justin Bieber’s stupid ignorant lifestyle and Honey Singh’s stupid ignorant lyrics bring us pleasure ! We’ve been taught that the friends we ought to have are the ones who lurch drunkenly onto us and whine incessantly that they love us.

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I prefer being around the one with the constant cat-like confusion and yet the  calm logic and an  uncanny ability to cut through the clouds of confusion during my hysterical, paranoid phases. I’d rather snort and sneeze laughing than long, bored silences over ‘let’s catch up over some coffee na, babes!’ sessions in lush hotel lobbies interspersed with furious typing on colourful and expensive smart-phones.

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Every alternate story or lifestyle is crushed, brushed aside with a great wave of the capitalist hand which cannot afford to indulge in a world where dreams of freedom exist. Freedom of thought, expression and freedom to love. Which is why I agree with my aunt’s advice to make it clear that one is attracted to intelligence. Only intelligence brings that discernment between love and sex. Only intelligence will allow them to differentiate between the purity of dancing for the love of music or the gross gyrations promoted by Bollywood as a means to feed the secret fetish for flesh our society is unfortunately afflicted with. Yes, this clarity of choice will mean that partners will be few and far between. Far more preferrable to an endless stream of boring buffoons who imagine the size of their muscles can hide the fact that they’ve never generated an intelligent coherent thought of their own.

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I’m not sure whether meaningful coupling can exist in a life of serial monogamy. Perhaps it’s a possibility. A life of serial monogamy is also a possibility. Perhaps they can co-exist. But only if you chart your own choices. Don’t allow yourself to be trapped into a finite rendition of love as churned out by the corporates. There’s too many people selling love, not enough sharing it.

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We’re trapped in a world where love means looking fair, fit, beautiful and sexy, for someone else. Usually it’s your heterosexual partner of the same caste and religion as you. This world advertises voyeuristic delight. We constantly seek to peek into other’s lives and laugh at their misfortunes. This world will not allow you meaningful coupling. nor serial monogamy. A world which propagates promiscuity in the guise of sexuality cannot offer you anything meaningful. We live in a world which celebrates the death of celebrity marriages and jeers at a lonely person’s failed attempt to find some love. This world sells you all kinds of cheat codes to cooking and forgets to teach you to know and understand what you eat. I wonder if you would eat chicken if you had to behead and gut it yourself. Stories which tell of a love for nature are labelled children’s fantasies.

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It’s alright. Everyone is just a little bit confused right now. That’s but normal in the current chaos we exist in. And so this world is still trying to make sense of compassion. The ‘miraculous’ mama cat who adopted squirrel babies or the dog who sat beside it’s crushed companion on the bustling highway. Compassion is too elevated an emotion for crass humankind to comprehend. The masses are yet to figure out whether or not sex equates love. Few and far between are able to articulate clarity when it comes to love. The writers of ‘Dedh Ishiqya‘ nailed it with Muniya’s wry response to Babban’s claim of being in love with her the morning after.

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One thing I’ve learnt in all these years is the impermanence of everything…what if we were to indulge in our fantasies of freedom for a bit? What if we re-imagined love?

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