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The definition of love
Love originates from a Sanskrit word which means to desire. But love is more than just hope or wish or for that matter sheer desire; it is like a rose bouquet held close to your heart; the thorns piercing you and its aroma acting as a tranquilliser.
- By Vimal Yogi Tiwari, Special to Gulf News
- Published: 23:52 May 11, 2008
It is said that when poverty comes at the door, love flies out of the window. I have no reservation against these lines, if they talk of love that has wings.
But I would object, if the same has been referred to the word in general. Love has many shades and many forms. Its hue is more varied than that of a rainbow. If some love flutters away, there are many that stay firmly by you like a rock.
Love originates from a Sanskrit word which means to desire. But love is more than just hope or wish or for that matter sheer desire; it is like a rose bouquet held close to your heart; the thorns piercing you and its aroma acting as a tranquilliser.
Love has another shade too; it is also reflected in the act of your puppy licking your face, even though you left him alone the whole day.
No, love is not blind; it has its own way of seeing things. It is like an old man and an old woman who are still friends even after they have known each other so well for so long!
It can be a tongue in the cheek remark, but how very correct. The bond of love gets cemented with age; for there is nothing to conceal and nothing much to reveal; it is the love of silence.
One child had this to say, "I love my mamma, for she is the only one who kisses me when I go to sleep." This is the love of touch.
Touch that can give so much of warmth, affection and comfort. But love does not confine to this alone, it also reflects when a boy wears the same shirt every day, just because you complimented him once, long ago.
Frankly, it is impossible to define love. Defining it would amount to shackling it. But fortunately there is no padlock strong enough to restrict it. Love is like a free fawn, it gallops to where its heart desires. So should love be, unchained; but not recluse.
I have seen, both the bewitching and complaining side of love. The love of compassion. This love is greater than that of a mother for her child, for that is guided by instinct. This love is the love for the ignored, as practised by Mahatma Gandhi, whom Winston Churchill venomously called the "Naked Fakir".
Arthritis
Yet till date, I neither can compare nor have another example of love such unflinching love as between my grandparents. When my grandmother got arthritis she was no more able to paint her toe nails.
My grandfather could realise her enigma, and he used to paint it for her; even though he had arthritis in his hands. I have come across very few examples of such unwavering love.
There is parental love, there is the "eternal" love between you and your beloved, affection between brothers and sisters and there is love between friends, and surprisingly between foes too! Adversaries, because they "love" when you are in a soup. The hotter the broth the deeper the "love". Well that is adoration too! Though a bit morbid.
According to Sanford, four things cannot be kept close; love, cough, fire and sorrow. Fire can be quenched; coughs controlled, sorrow subjugated, but not love.
Either it engulfs you like a hurricane or blinds you like a sand storm. It knows no middle path. It is either left or right, but seldom upright.
"Where beauty under twenty locks keep fast, yet loves breaks through and gets him at last," says Shakespeare, and indeed a wise remark from the Bard.
Love acknowledges no locks. Love is said to laugh at blacksmiths, and incidentally at paternal authority. Because for love, shackles of a blacksmith are an operatic farce. Love blossoms under the blue sky, but perishes when enclosed. Do not sow it in a flower pot; let it just grow.
Vimal Yogi Tiwari is a journalist based in India.
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