Monday, February 19, 2007

True Love

DISCLAIMER:
The author is not attempting to give a definition to this indefinable word, but a mere narration of an incident or two in her life.

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Love is in the air. “What is new about that?” you may ask. Well, there is nothing wrong in stating a fact. All the more justified, this being the Valentine month. Malls sporting the multi-colored heart-shaped balloons; ice-cream parlors offering V-Day specials; to top it all, infy juice centre’s “Drink for 2, For your Valentine & You” offer do stir up some emotions. It suddenly seems like it’s a sin, not having your better half around :-(

I was also victimized by this “love-fever”, to say the least. No-no-no, you know me. So, don’t let your imagination wander too far J Bring it back. All I meant was that my mailbox was getting “trashed” with roses (of colors I never knew existed...) and in the midst of trashing these rosy mails, I came across one that read “FW: Vivekananda’s thoughts on true love”. Oh, I was torn between hitting the blinking ‘yes’ button (that’d spare me the torture of yet another forward on “love”) and finding out what this mahapurush had to say on this topic. Curiosity got the better of me. I started reading... It was then that I remembered an incident that happened in school.

It was in an English class (12th grade, I guess). We were about to start a new story. It was about this guy (Najab), who’s head over heels in love with a hoor (Fatima), living across the desert. One day he decides that he’s done with the waiting. He sets out to cross the ocean of sand, overcoming all obstacles, and seek his love.

Enough of intro, coming back to my story…before asking us to read it out (as was the norm), our English ma’am drew 3 stick figures on the board.


Fig 1: Both holding hands, standing together.
Fig 2: One leading the other.
Fig 3: One completely bent down while the other was standing.

She turned to us and said “Before we begin, I want you to tell me which one of these, according to you, depicts true love?” The obvious choice was the first figure, as it meant equality… & blah & blah. Despite seeing the majority decision, a few took a chance with the second one. She waited a while before letting us know that we were all wrong. The third fig is love??? Doesn’t make sense, does it? Didn’t to us…We asked for an explanation.

Before that, I had posed the same question to my near & dear ones. Here’s the result.
Fig 1: 9
Fig2: 4
Fig3: 1
“It’s a trick question” / “My image of true love not here” : 1/1
Didn’t bother to answer: oh! I’ve lost count!

Ok…Now, explanation time…

She said, love is not about equality…..neither is it about leading or following. Its all about unconditional submission. Hence, the third fig. “When in love, give yourself up completely. No bars what-so-ever!!! That is true love.” she said. Pretty deep, huh? Until then, I had never thought about love, let alone in such depth. But give it a thought and somewhere it just might be making sense. For me, it was a lesson well taught and well learnt.

Just wanted to share this with you…no particular reason…

7 comments:

Pramy said...

this was really nice....
and these are the words that are to be watched “When in love, give yourself up completely".
how meaningfull....
Overall....a nice share of thoughts...for everyone...

Unknown said...

"My image of true love not here” - This was me, I dint really think one fellow bowing to another was justified so dint select that.

True love according to me is Give , Give, Give and take (only when given). So I guess i wud have gone with the stick figure that had the two bowing to each other. :)

Unknown said...

i guess krithika is in love :P lol ....even if she does not accept it , i wont believe her as i can easily guess .. anyway i wish her dreams come true ..
My blessings for her :

padinaarum petru peru vaazhvu vaazhga!

vinai said...

i guess i need a lady performin in the opera house in sydney to even think tht there needs to be a figure in the first place...
pls keep writin...dont be like the blog of the dude who inspired u ;)
enjoyed

raj said...

kritikaa.. dat is a grt amazing thght cumin from sumone who i have seen as a totally difrnt person, wid completley opposite attitude to match.. dat was really appreciable and wud surely come to u for lot of these kinda advices ...Miss.Luv-guru ;)
The third figure - jus givin urself in love is bendin to an xtent widout any xpectations... but i wud rather go wid the second one..
It shows , either of them can lead one-another.. and thus sharing tht beautiful ideology of love.its nt abt all givin, its mstly abt sharing wid the intentions to keep learning,accepting and supporting each other such that makin a wonderful blend of a successful Love-life.. This is one cumin frm my end..
but rather i wud say, there are no reasons for fallin in love..
Its all abt feelings and all related to ur heart whch skips a beat at the moment of their presence.. ;)
Far more philosophies frm my end..
but one thng i wnt to say..
jus keep up this good wrk and continue this Gyan-seva.. forevr :)
U nevr know, whn i wud standin outside ur doors for those tips.. :))

Unknown said...

Remember the "Love is..." series that you sent long back. I've seen my dad cut them out from newspapers for my mom when I was a little girl.

:)

I think True love may be all that and more. So I would say all 3 figures could be right. Why not!

XTYNKT said...

Pretty good read. Love can't be categorized into an image, a few lines, or anything else at all. The closest thing that depicted true love was fig 2. IMO. The image looked more like people walking down a slope, not like one leading the other.The way I saw it was that the one you love should stand by you even during the downside of life.