Validating Love And Other Misconceptions.

Validating Love And Other Misconceptions.

Ever since the concept of Valentine’s Day, a day dedicated solely to love, started gaining prominence in our conservative society there has been a lot of hue and cry made over love. There have been anti-love groups, the so called Romeo squads roaming around the cities trying to catch people who are making love to each other in public spaces and in quid pro quo, the mushrooming  pro-love groups who have been trying to reclaim the public spaces for private acts, in this case kissing in public to cock-a-snook at the guardians of public morality who feel threatened by these lewd acts in public to which children might get accidentally exposed and heaven forbid, grow up believing that snogging in public is not anathema in our day to day life. Much as I sympathize with those who have no immediate access to a private space to conduct private business (I wouldn’t call the marina beach entirely private, although it does offer some space) I am forced to agree with the guardians of our morality and say “get a room guys” for some things are just too icky to be done in public- wet slobbering kisses hidden under dupattas for instance.

Which brings me to the primary point of this post- who was the bright spark who decided that love has to be celebrated with kissing? I would understand if valentine’s day was a day declared as a kissing day and then people celebrated it by kissing each other (and random strangers, if permitted) in public like they supposedly do in Central Park, New York (disclaimer: the farthest I have been to is Nanganallur, so I don’t actually have any evidence they do this in New York, just hearsay from click bait news sites). But for a day dedicated to celebrating love, why do you have to validate love by making kissing as a proof of concept? This and other misconceptions on love are what I am going to discuss in my next few thousand words, so if you are already feeling bored, go take a nap and come back for the climax.

In my humble opinion (there- I said it, even though I believe that my opinion is anything but humble) the crux of this entire problem lies in equating love with marriage.  With marriage and its attendant burdens like chastity, fidelity, honesty etc. Love, independent love, is fettered with chains by insisting on it being directed solely with the purpose of gaining or retaining a mate. No longer does our society permit us to love inanimate things (say a Bugatti Veyron) or cross-species love (your favorite pet dog) or even love for nature- when you are captivated by a beautiful sunset and just can’t turn away from the glorious sight of the sun sinking slowly into the sea. But no, those are not claimed as love nowadays, love means solely between man and woman geared towards marriage or sex. 

So let me reiterate my point again –love is different, marriage is different and sex is different. There is absolutely no natural link between these three- each can exist quite well independently. Unfortunately our brains have been so brain washed by society that pure love should end in a wedding that the very definition of love has been split into “pure love” and “impure love”. The one which ends up in shackling two people together in lifelong matrimony is exclusively called pure love while others are termed illegal love. You are supposed to fall in love only once in your lifetime. You are supposed to end up marrying the person you fell in love with. And once when you are in love with someone, you are forbidden to fall in or out of love with anyone else, even accidentally. All these restrictions and rules have been framed to make sure that “love stays pure”. Any deviation from these set rules is immediately classified as crime against society.

All this constant moral harassment by society has made large swathes of our population believe that this is indeed love. Love means writing love letters, sending smiley’s on instant messengers, talking nonsense for hours together, hugging each other, kissing each other, having sex with each other and finally marrying each other. That’s the be-all and end-all of love. And this design includes a happy ending- a love marriage.  All the above related activities- hugging, kissing, sex are considered the perks of love and hence more and more people believe that this is what love is all about. And that’s why they frown on any deviation from the set template –like loving more than one person at the same time or loving one person while having sex with another person etc. all of which are labeled as not pure love. Those who believe in such drivel -that kissing or sex is equal to love will never ever realize what love is all about.

True love, false love, pure love, impure love, legal love, illegal love- so many labels for what is just a simple emotion- an expression of happiness that someone else brings into our lives. In fact, you don’t even need the presence of anyone else to experience love- just your thoughts and memories will suffice- a smile on your face when you can recall that beautiful stranger you bumped into yesterday at the supermarket is also love if you broaden the definition of love. Its love when your dog rushes up to lick your face when you come home at the end of the day. Its love even when you express your love to someone else and they turn you down flat- that single second of suspense when your heart soars high in anticipation- that too is love.  Love is just that- an emotion. Don’t make it into something it is not. Don’t hang too many things on it. Don’t make it mandatory to end up in a wedding for it to be love. Just let it be as it is and leave it to two people to decide how they want it to be.

Finally I would ask you to look up into the sky and tell me what you see- some will see the long dark night sky with its infinite darkness. Some will see the stars twinkling bright- scattered here and there. And some will see the full moon – dominating the dark. Love is like that- for some it’s the darkness, for someone else it’s the stars and for the lucky few it’s the bright silvery moon. Judge not what each person sees- it’s their space so just leave them be. Thanks for a patient reading- that’s if you got up to this point.

When Opinions Are Like________ And Everyone Has One

When Opinions Are Like________ And Everyone Has One

A few years ago, when social media was not yet as ripe as it is today, whenever I finished a book or a movie I liked I couldn’t wait to head to school/college the next day and discuss it with my friends. Sometimes the discussion would be with my area friends and I would head out to their house, call them out, mostly by ringing their door bell and informing their dad/mom whoever happened to open the door that a gang of us friends were waiting in the street for their son and rushing back out to the street before they could stop us and ask us about our marks in the latest exam. 

And after such hectic efforts to  collect a minimum quorum necessary to argue incessantly we would all adjourn to the nearby tea shop or potti kadai (pavement shop) or even the street corner- preferably a brightly lighted on underneath a street lamp –to make out facial expressions when arguing and then finally I would lay out my opinions regarding that book or movie which made me walk all the way up to their homes and then my friends would proceed to offer their candid comments on my taste of movies or books and lay threadbare my other foibles just to pass their time. After such a refreshing talk with alternate viewpoint’s we would all disperse to our respective streets/homes after promising to meet again soon under the same street lamp. And those were simpler times and not that long ago too- and definitely not from the Jurassic or Triassic era if that’s what you are thinking.

Now switch over to the current scenario. Suppose I read a book or saw a movie I liked- say a new author I have recently discovered or a classic film I just happened to download and watch on a boring day. I just have to post that information online on my Facebook and Twitter feed (or instagram a picture while actually doing it) and voila, the opinions fly in even without asking, even before I have finished posting. Friends, strangers, friends turned strangers and strangers turned friends are all actively commenting on my choice of the book/movie, offering me critical analysis of the novelist/director, recommending other unheard works from his/her oeuvre and generally being too helpful in educating me. And that’s just on facebook.

On twitter the situation is even more drastic. Critics and trolls will crawl out of the woodwork where they would have been long in hiding (just following my tweets silently) and treat my posting my opinion on the book/movie as an open invitation to offer their opinion of me, my behavior in my personal life, my opinon of narendra modi and my lifestyle choices. The open forum of twitter where you don’t have the option of “accepting friends” aka facebook makes it even easier to get trolled by anonymous (and some not so anonymous) trolls. The only option would be to either block them (and miss out on all the fun of being called an imperialist/british loving/macaulayputra running dog for preferring English over Hindi as a national language for united India) or in shifting to a protected tweets only mode which is simply like hollering alone in a locked room while the dogs bark outside. Neither of which appeals to my sense of humour. But sadly despite all that vim and vitriol real opinion on real issues never seem to happen on twitter. Everyone seems desperate to show off and impress others with their felicity over the 140-character format. Brevity in words is unfortunately taken to mean paucity of thoughts, original thoughts I mean.

And when all this pseudo-intellectual shit gets heavy on me, I post my opinions on Insta, where people (from world-over) instantly grant me likes and heart me- even if their ‘net connections are so poor that they can’t even see my post which has not yet loaded on their mobile apps and still take the time to comment “good”, “great”, “wonderful”, “fill in any other generic compliment you can think of” just so I would remember and repeat the compliments the next time they post something. An intellectual conversation is never on the cards on insta- unless it’s a post on feminists when you are sure to get more comments than likes as everyone and their aunt have an opinion on feminism.

Anyway the point of this post is that unlike the simpler older times when the discussion was instant (give or take 24 hours) and mostly on topic,  the use of social media to solicit opinions on our recent reads/watches mostly leads us off to unexpected areas where we are forced to either update our knowledge after accepting our ignorance of the topic we first posted upon (say on the comparative acting talents of Humphrey Bogart/Grace Kelley/Sidney Poitier) or we are forced to defend our opinions incessantly (like why we like chetan bhagats books despite the man being a mountebank). 

This ceaseless arguing, for weeks on together (whenever any idiotic stalker goes and likes our old post’s to bring it back up on the TL for further comments and discussions again and again) saps all the thrill and excitement of discovering something new and trying to share it with everyone or at least with our own close circle of like-minded friends. So much so, that nowadays I desist from announcing my excitement at my discoveries online. I prefer to hoard the emotions, gloat over them in private and if filled to overflowing I try to turn down the excitement a notch by writing a blogpost on it, of course with comments disabled for my peace of mind. So, far from social media being a great tool to harness contrary opinions and diverse views, the reality is that it’s the same shit all over again. And this way you don’t even have the pleasure of punching someone in the face when they disagree with you.

So tell me dear readers, do you like to post your opinions on social media when something new excites you? Or do you just want to pick up a phone, call a friend and talk it out with them? Which is your choice of poison?