True Love

It’s night. I am alone in the house, with Sancho sleeping beside me, as usual all fours up in the air. I listen to songs, Hindi, English. ‘Have I told you lately that I love you?’ by Englebert Humperdinck is an old favourite of mine. I switch to Hemant Da. I had taken a CD to my office and while at work, listened to Hemant Da’s Chupa lo yun dil a dozen times, softly coming out the speakers on my table. Lata sings with him – ‘Thumhari charanon ki phool hoon mein - ‘Here, my beloved, I stand before thee, head bow’d. Let me lay myself at thy feet, like flowers…’

It is a cliché, especially in the Indian movies decades ago, the abject, total surrender of women to their men. As a liberal, I have scoffed at this depiction of women as slaves of love, the all-suffering, all-forgiving womanhood, to which the prodigal man finally returns, repentant.

Yet, I wonder. Isn’t love a total surrender? Isn’t it the complete discarding of one’s ego for the sake of the other? We have read of Meera and her like, surrendering to God. As a non-believer in God, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Yet, there have been times in my life, troubled times, when I had desperately hoped for a miracle, a power beyond me, who could help me out. Prayers failed to come from my mouth. Even as a child I had wondered, looking at others in temples, praying to God for this and that. I had wondered, if God is the all-knowing one, do you have to tell Him/Her anything?

A friend then SMS-ed me. Love, it said, is selfish. I was surprised; for one, the person had no reason to send me that – I could not understand the context; second, I had been thinking about the selfish/ surrender duality of love.

Who knows what true love is? Can there be just ‘love’ and ‘true love’? If it isn’t true, how can it be love?

I light a cigarette. I have loved, been loved, I still love, and hopefully, am loved. Every day I see love in Sancho’s eyes; in K’s voice when he says – “ Nothing, I just called you”, in the concern in P’s voice – “Are you OK there?”

Louis Armstrong grates on– ’What a wonderful world!’