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.