Love

 

Love Then and Now

Credit to Getty Images.

Love is a chemical element. The submission date for the college magazine was fast approaching, and I was under pressure to create a decent and fun piece before it passed.

I was in my second year in college for the pre-degree course. Year one went by lazily. By the time my teachers got to correctly pronounce my name and search for me among the girls and not boys for my 'yes sir' to mark me present in the class, year one came to a close. I had nothing outstanding besides academics to add to my belt.

So, year two started with an itching to achieve more and something outstanding. With great enthusiasm, I made time to set up bucket lists and promises to myself. I was in the maths group. The group system distinctively divided learners into science and the arts.

Those in science were considered non-performing in the field of arts and creativity. People always discover something to suit their flair for discrimination in intelligence, caste, etc. I knew it was just a perception, but perception mattered.

In my immature mind, I should claim fame in numbers and words to achieve something outstanding or all-rounder. I have had a passion for words since childhood.

That was how I decided to feature a piece in the college magazine. The Teenage Ambition to Reach the Stars.

I started to hunt for a topic and outline it. Days passed. I sat in my room, spending hours in meditation. Borrowed time from my academic schedule to shape it and string sample scripts.

My scrapbook was getting used up, and my homework and class assignments were receiving dents. I still needed to succeed in hooking up on a pleasing topic.

There came a time when I feared I would fail in academics. I noticed that my parents began to watch me. I wished they had sought my explanation for getting broody and unrest. The time was different when people never resolved issues through open conversation.

My frustration peaked when I put a bridle on my all-rounder ambition. Then, after a period of calm, a bulb flashed in my head: Write about something closer to a teen's heart. You're a teen, and so is the college community. I cried, 'Eureka.' And what else could it be other than love?

I started again flying on the wings of ambition. Then came the question. What is love? How much do you know about it?

The society then.

During those days, there was no Google or the Internet to ask a question about anything you wanted to know. The only information superhighway was gossip. And those who managed the entire department were the superhuman aunties.

They were dangerous. There were incidents of young girls ending their lives for approaching them to clear some silly doubts about things.

Ask them about love; sure, you will never see the inside of a college. A day is enough for them to spread the news in the neighbourhood that you are love-sick and are after boys. The parents, however confident about their girls, would buckle down under pressure and decide harshly, not in their favour.

The young girls- hey, my pity for them is still fresh inside me. They were not allowed to know the facts of sensitive matters affecting their lives- love foremost among them.

There were movies dubbed love stories. Few girls in the rural setting got to watch them, while they might have been more exposed in the cities. I was a rural girl.

There were weeklies featuring love stories in sequels. A few households had subscribed to them. On Sundays, they would arrive, featuring a sizeable portion of a heart-wrenching love story. The young girls would sneak it into their mates' networks and read it.

Those stories were themed on a single thing; love is forbidden. The narratives detailed how the girls who refused to heed what society and family forbid were doomed to loss and tragedy.

A few heroines or victims of love lived in my village. One is a Hindu girl. In the prime of her youth, she eloped with a Muslim man, and they lived in exile before returning to his home after years. Was she doomed to loss? Was she regretting her action? What definition would she give to love that motivated her to do what she did?

She lived closer to my home. I used to see her from a distance, busy doing outdoor chores while I walked past the village road in front of her home. I wished I met her and asked the above questions, but I knew that would never happen. I call her Ponnu.

Poonu was a living reminder of everything love represented in the social mind. Love is forbidden, dangerous, and a destroyer of your future and family. It lurches in the dark to lance you with venom. Once bitten, you can find the antidote nowhere. Poonu's uncle dropped dead the moment he heard about her disappearance.

Love the reality.

But love is a reality. You feel it. The moment a girl sees a man, she melts down into a longing to be with him, to look into his eyes and listen to his sweet words that spark a flow of pleasure in you. She hangs around to catch another glimpse of him even when she is sure he will never again see him.

Still, that wait gives you hope and raises your skin with goosebumps. After all that digging, I realised that love is a complex topic. It is unpopular. I knew little about it; putting that little on paper would get me in trouble. Instead of fame, I became a target.

I decided to take a different approach and make it a fictional discovery using the medium of science.

Love- a chemical element.

I got settled with the topic. The setting was a classroom. The protagonist, a teenage girl learner, sat in the last line of her classroom while the teacher presented a lesson on chemistry.

In the backstory, she was bitten by love and was walking on a tightrope between her emotional upheavals and the societal taboos.

She faced a barrage of inner questions regarding whether she should take love seriously or drop it. In the classroom, the chemicals in the test tube changed colours, burned, and caused fumes to fill the air.

She saw a comparison between her state of mind and the chemistry experiment. Losing the sense of reality, she entered the dream world and shouted that love is a chemical element.

The story continued detailing the properties of her discovery: love. She infuses into its properties all her doubts about love and dissatisfaction in the world that discredits it.

She declares love is an unstable element, sublime. Its original colour is red, though it takes the colour of any substance it reacts with. Nobody can predict the products obtained when they react with another chemical. The list was long, and I lost the memory of all of those.

When the magazine came out, my story was a hit. The readers appreciated it more as a fun piece. I meant it to be both entertaining and profound, showing the complexity of love and questioning our double-faced attitude towards it.

The world now.

Photo by Raphel Renter Unsplash.

We now see a new world where love has achieved new status and values along the liberal lines.

Societies worldwide embrace a willingness to accept love as a genuine emotion. Old reservations are slowly melting away, especially among the younger population, though not on a uniform level. The status quo varies according to how society has progressed along progressive attitudes and eliminated the dark values of restrictive cultures.

I live in a world where young and old, including the old-age inmates, move hand-in-hand, facing no raised eyebrows.

My native regions, too, are embracing changes. Ponnu turned out to be a harbinger of love in the minds of the sons and daughters of those who ostracised her. However, she couldn't escape the cruelty of her caste men, who slaughtered her man years later in revenge for their act in the name of love.

I remember how a few subbed a post I wrote on Valentine's Day years ago. Last week, I read calls on Indian media celebrating Valentine's for one week, starting on February 7, Rose Day.

The market potential as a warming-up force drives it, and it should caution us. You should love your wallet in equal or more measure of your love for a Valentine's gift. Splurging money is a personal habit; no blame for Valentine's celebration.

Valentine's Day

The story and celebration of Valentine's Day are complex. They point to many things, including how love was not considered a noble emotion in several cultures. Its story is a narration of human progress from primitive rituals dictating women as a means for lust and procreation to finding values in love.

Conclusion.

Love. In my lifetime, I see it emerging from a forbidden, accursed word in the hands of doomsayers to a wonderous emotion to anchor your life to the ground of peace, stability and happiness.

Love is freedom, and it unleashes the natural potential of all people. However, it is an emotion ruled by body chemistry and requires discipline.

Do you agree with it? How have you experienced its emergence in your lifetime?

I wish you all a happy and uplifting Valentine's Day 2024.

This post was created for the Blogaberry Creative (Monthly) Challenge.

This post is also part of the blog challenge 'Blogaberry Dazzle' hosted by Cindy D'Silva and 'Noor Anand Chawla' in collaboration with Bohemian Bibliophile. 

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