Sunday, February 11, 2007

Love in (and after) the time of Innocence

I remember one my friend telling about the love of his early college days, when he was sixteen or seventeen. Passionately in love with a girl in his class (and unable to convey his feelings) he would sing "Main duniyaa bhulaa dungaa.. / Teri chaahat mein.." (Aashiqui was hot then.)

When the girl started seeing someone else, the track changed to "Ab tere bin / Jee lenge hum.. / Zeher zindagii ka / Pee lenge hum.."

* * *

I'm sure most of you would agree it is diffucult to love like we do at that age -- as we become, well, mature. (We are becoming marichor -- the dead, not mature, as another friend puts it).

It does make sense to me when someone says she is not immature enough to love, nor mature enough for it. So is the case with me, as with many others.

We can not hope to go back to the innocence, or rather naiveness, of our pre-degree days. Yet we can not deny the role of those naive days in what becomes of us in the later years of life. We realize many of the assumptions on which we based what we called love were wrong. We grow up to a better understanding of the world and our own self. More often than not with a bitterness somewhere inside -- a fear of the other, fear of oneself. It does not matter whether you "won" the love or lost it.

So what is it to be able to love without fear?

I love these (oft-quoted) words of Gibran, and envy those who can love.



["Elevation of the self": painting by Gibran]

* * *

Picture ki heroine jhoot bol rahi hai
Kismat se tum humko mile hain
Andar ki andar woh bol rahi hogi
Sach to ye hai
Kismat se hum tumko mile hai

[Thanks to Manaswini who once goofed the lyrics]

12 comments:

gi. said...

i dont see it this way at all..

for me, love's been very very restraining in pre-degree times.
and the restrain was the only was you understood it...

i remeber being in love with someone,
innocently as you say,
but it was mutually agreed upon that we wont be close to anyone else,
we wont even use the word love for anyone else.

right now, i see it better, i guess.
i believe in spaces, different but unique.
and every ove perfect/imperfect in its own way.

i like it now.
it gives me enough space to love myself too.
and never to get completely worn out in a heartbreak..

Sudeep said...

i agree, it gives us much more space to love ourselves. but most of the times, we are doing just that, loving ourselves.

i agree there is a problem with the word innocence here, thats why i used the word naiveness. not that it is anything great. but being able to love without fears, after getting out of that naiveness, is what i would envy.

about never getting completely worn out in a heartbreak, i don't really know whether it is "good" in itself. yes it is more realistic. but i am already so much realistic that i am bored of it.

Surface said...

"for me, love's been very very restraining in pre-degree times"
before?
and in between this agreement and free spaces?
was there ather spaces...may be sudeep is talking about such "unknown" spaces?

Surface said...

a clarification to the question to gargi:
the phase where you fall into need for agreements
the phase where you are free from fears of lack of agreements

Anonymous said...

wow... ashiqui songs. man, you hit my nerve too. i guess i was in 11th (or pre-degree 1st year); and it started with 'dil ka alam mein kya bataon tuje'.. and ended similarly like your friend.. 'ab tere bin'.

but do we ever mature in love? and doesn't naive love gets called as infatuation? maybe during teenage the hormones also create some of those highs...

and is there a worser thing than to institutionalize love through marriage? ... happy v day anyway.

Karthik Sivakkani said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Karthik Sivakkani said...

I asked one of my friend about his past love he had,'how and what he felt about it now?'

at that time,he was despondent,it was oneside love he told like he will carry her name through out his life with his surroundings on her name.pity,we felt.

he answered me,he didn't feel it as his innocence and immature act ,may be he don't want to accept his innocence.now he is more career oriented.

Its difficult to its innocence or immature act because everything depends on our mindset at that time and our surroundings.

as u said,its naiveness not innocence or immature.

fortunately, i had crossed my past without this naiveness,loving a girl.

Beena said...

i feel, ther is nothing called LOVE.. its just a phrase u use wen the other person does what u expect him/her to do.. if you can still love a person without any expectation then it is LOVE..
(i am lucky to have found the true love.. rare one .. and that keeps me going)

Anonymous said...

I just came upon this page while searching for lyrics of "Dil ka alam" ... but the discussion here was worth commenting ...I believe love is is a combination of what you feel towards the other person and how you show it ... whatever you may feel but if you dont express it in healthy way then you love seems to be restraining... you start burning yourself ... think negative and put the same picture on the other person as well ... if you call this naiveness I may not agreee this is he case of pshycology ... and this can happen at any stage ... married or just going out ...

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