On Love

Someday when humans are extinct, and our successors are studying us, a long time after we are gone, they will find a rich life behind them. If they are solid researchers and dig deep, I am pretty sure, wonder will grip them like roots grip the soil. They will find technological masterpieces, infrastructural marvels, culinary delights, and lovely artifacts. They will find stories that stir the soul, men and women who seem unbelievable and a reality which will not only confuse but bewilder them. What is the one thing that will arouse their curiosity the most, one aspect of humans which has been omnipresent since ages and will last till the end, the one thing which they would label the cradle of our existence? It will not be a difficult choice. I think it will be love.

When love happens to you, you are taken in by surprise. It’s not like an exam which you can prepare for and there is no option of giving a re-exam if you fail. It just happens as if life is a small mosquito that has bitten you and flew away unnoticed. There is no Good Knight or All Out which can put off this mosquito. It’s a messenger from God with the message that your life is going to change. And change it does.

Your body starts changing. Your wishes start changing. You, an animal, become one. The focus is to impress your love. Doing things that can get the person to love you back. For your love to be acknowledged. These expectations bring fear, anxiety with them. When and how to express it? What if your love is not reciprocated?  And in my country, what if others find out? And so on.

 It’s a very sweet feeling. As if sweet honey is dripping from your heart. As if a dry land has been drenched with rain. As if someone in the dark all his life has seen the light. Nothing else in the world has so much power over people. You wallow in it day and night. You want to be close to the object of your love as much as possible. Other things in life lose meaning. Your life has found a fork on the road and can go either way.

Only a few people make it the right way. They are the most blessed of humans, our successors will find out. Whatever turn their lives may take, their hearts are in the right place with the right people in their lives. God has been kind to them. They live in peace, the one’s whose love is reciprocated.

It is the other way, which life takes most people of the world through, that is the creator of all the trouble in this world. It is like an invitation to hell. Disappointment gives in to grief, trauma, sadness, anger, and all the other sister emotions you can conjure. Your life looks meaningless as if the honey has been sucked out. Nothing feels right. At least for a brief time, you feel worthless. You are a deflated balloon and it would take much effort to inflate you again.

 Our successors would find that none of the social structures we have built take love into account. At least not in my country. Maybe in the developed world, where going out with partners is all right after a particular age and exploring love is considered essential. In my country, there is only once where you are allowed to explore love which is sanctioned and promoted by the social structure. That is when you have to marry. Just once. You can take time to find your love as if it was a professional well-planned meeting. Our ancestors who made these structures tried to take the position of God as love makers and had no idea what they were snatching away from their children. In matters of love, god does play with dice. And your turn may come early in life or much later. (More on this if I get few comments on this blogpost).