Love is a beautiful and
awesome, confusing and mystical emotion gifted to us by God. However, in our
fleshly desires we have carved out our own adulterated forms of love , which
has not left any stone un turned to pollute the most beautiful emotion called
Love. However , so far so good, even as
I am on a quest to explore this quality of living creatures, the findings
are profound. As I was growing up
graduating from one level to other I had a very narrow minded understanding of
love until I stumbled upon the verse quoted in the Bible in the book of
Corinthians which defines Love in a very lucid manner as far as I know -“Love is patient, love is kind.It does not
envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self
seeking, it is not easily angered , it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not
delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts
, always hopes , always perseveres. Love never fails.”
Indeed such an
eyeopener description of Love is prone to be
stereotyped as ideal with a fair chance of dismissal by us only to keep
it for purpose of quotation worth pleasing our ears and far from practicing it
in our daily lives. The love between a boy and a girl is the most popular
relationship depicting love and quite often I have experienced we like to relate
love and its aforesaid attributes to a relationship between a boy and girl. So
many love stories that are in circulation among us through movies, colleges ,
office , neighborhood et al, Yet I have failed to admire the importance of
love often by taking it for granted.
Now I have realized that there is so much to learn about Love.
I thinks most easily
ignored relationship of love is between us and our parents. The word of God
says Honour your father and mother , the seriousness being presented as a commandment from God rather
than a choice. I have taken my parents granted for so many things that I never
tried to dig into the love parents have for their child , and to utter surprise
I have found close resemblance of attributes to parental love as mentioned
earlier in bold letters. Its kind of funny that the love which I am trying to
understand is most easily understood by the love of parents for their child and
in my ignorance or lack of information I was trying replicate the love between
a boy and girl with aforementioned definition of love , which is very rare to
find. But also I must admit the no. of songs written for the love of boy
and girl are way more than any songs
written for any other relationship , so its
kind of obvious that we easily mistake
the love between a boy and girl as the definition of love and tend to follow that.
Another love have found which is rarely emphasized is love
for people ,the best example of our time : Mother
Teresa. Though there a lot of admirers of her , but hardly any takers for
her actions including me. In the Bible , I have come across a very
indispensable attribute for living a
life according of word of God :- willingness.
This attribute according to me differentiates Mother Teresa from others. Her willingness to serve people would not
have been easier until she was willing to serve God from a true heart . So
another treasure I unearthed from the Pandora box is that willingness is an important element
of love. Love can not be forced on someone or obtained by meditating or
following any rules / mantra. It’s
originates from heart , so we must be very careful about our heart and keep it
clean perpetually till the time its beating. Its surprising that God in the
Bible has put special emphasis on the heart and has given instructions
,warnings to preserve it from evil thoughts
and the one I like says “ The heart is deceitful for all kind evils originates from it”. So even as I have succeeded in understanding
to some extent what Love means and what it is to Love someone , I must
also confess that I must guard my heart from all kind of pollutants to restore willingness. As God also
says that you must serve me with a willing heart.
I would restrict the types of relationship depicting love to i) a boy and a girl,
ii) parents and child
iii)
love for people (humanitarian) and most
importantly iv) Love for God (& God’s love for us).
Love
between a boy and a girl
As a kid growing up in
a generic environment comprising of school, colony, friends, neighborhoods ,
on introspection I have deduced that the feelings for a girl is
almost natural by default. Its almost
a tender feeling
that find expression right from we the time we initiate learn the English alphabets at our kindergarten till we become adult.
I am almost taken aback with the fact that the
love for a girl is not something we
learn at our homes when we step out into the world to learn but rather its
something that emanates from within automatically, the source unknown.As I was growing
up , when I began having friends both and girls in my school,it was always
different when its came to friendship with girls. Then of course there is TV
which embellishes one’s feelings for girls in various ways during childhood.
Today’s kids are so much exposed to TV that its sometimes surprising to hear
the usual chit chat they have among themselves and parents easily dismiss them
considering it being normal. This reminds me of an ad of McDonald featuring a
boy and girl aged 5/6 years sitting on bench in a park happen a see a teen
couple pass by holding hands and suddenly
this girl asks the boy if they are
girlfriend and boyfriend .Then the boy blurts out his philosophical answer
leading to McDonald being a cheaper escape to costly things to please a girl
with.
Teen love, as it is popularly known starts
with Pehla nasha , pehla khuma and as
a kid who is somewhat average in studies , who still needs to mom to pack
tiffin for school and comb hair to look presentable is ready to conquer world
for a special girl he finds lately in the class and do everything to please her
. Sometimes this kid gestures his feeling to that special girl or keeps it
hidden fearing adverse consequences and if that special girl who comes to know
that she is special to someone, she learns to blush whenever confronted with
her admirer indicating partial approval or simple demonstrates ignoring or
disgusted looks indicating her complete
disapproval. And this boy tries to steal some time from his usual time from studies, sports after school for thinking and dreaming about the special
girl who is first person he is going to look for when he goes to school next
day. It happens like this , if that special girl is absent next day the whole
day is a waste and he puts on a long face while his friends keep on wondering
whats wrong with him.
If that special girl is in a different class, the boy would be eager for
morning prayer where he would find a glimpse of her . The boy would be
excited for common events involving all the classes like Physical Training education or organizing event for Teacher’s Day or any special
event where he would find ways to be
around that girl without talking to her. He would be silent when he is around
her either by chance or willingly but
the girl would sense his presence so strongly that she would be excited
nervously with the feeling of being adored by the boy. When the girl gathers
strength to reply to the emotions being surrounded with due to the presence of
the boy for whom she is special she blushingly lifts her eyelids and throws an irresistible glance to the boy and the boy’s heart deciphers the signals and the
heart beat increases at once. The boy is now terribly confused with nervous excitement on how to react and what to feel and suddenly feels that world
around him looks so cheerful and quickly pictures a dreamland where he and his
special girl are alone adventuring and are so happy for each other.
We call this
love in form of first crush which some of us happen to experience in
school while we are learning to take on the world after graduating from
school.Indeed , its surprising to experience that strange feeling for the first
time might be pleasant or unpleasant. The other side of this feeling of love
between a boy and girl is a secretive
love that a boy possesses for his special girl and fails to gather courage to express for X
Y Z reasons bringing own set of insecurities and complicated emotions. He would
also envy those if he mistakes the one to whom his special one is attracted to
or laughs,jokes or eat and share lunch with and he would try to ignore her when
confronted with her with a sense of dejection . He would try to work out ways
to get out that feelings often dismissing with a self-realization that he is simply good
enough for her and just stop thinking about her. Among all of these, he almost
feels suicidal when he learns that even like him there are others admirers for
her and he is way out of league to
compete with them .
So with first experience of love we go on to
garner the beautiful feelings of love thereon. We carry this feeling though our
college , professional life to the point of marriage and thereafter. Even we become more experienced
in our lives loaded with responsibilities we never cease to having this feeling
of love for a girl . Its always on either in a explicit and implicit way
looking for a special girl for whom the boy would still conquer the world. Of
course this boy comes across with varied instances where he finds the special one and stops after some time and
considers it failure and carry on to another or
takes a pledge not to indulge into this ever again. Then this boy also recovers from his
unpleasant experiences and tries to become more responsible thereafter finally
concluding with marriage either with a girl whom he loves or with a entirely new girl whom his parents have
hunted for him.
