Love lexicon

When lack of clarity is not necessarily bad

I had in my younger adolescent years come up with a very neat way of differentiating between a crush, an infatuation and all out love. Sadly I can no longer remember that definition in detail. It had to do with how I had a crush on my Biology teacher, was infatuated with Late Princess Diana and loved the girl on that street opposite a library that I often visited. But you could rearrange that as you wish and it wouldn’t be entirely false. I loved Princess Diana.

I have though in recent years questioned love many times. I don’t mean the love I share for cars. That remains unquestionable. But love for the female kind has perplexed me multiple times and the new found clarity in this matter is making me weirdly nervous.

The constant trouble with love is when you keep finding the wrong one instead of loving the right one. I am convinced that love based on pure lust is not easily sustainable (at least until we achieve singularity). Letting physical attraction guide us doesn’t necessarily mean trouble but it does more often than not lead us down pain alley. And generating love without any animalistic tendencies is futile. Love doesn’t mean that she should be Jennifer Aniston but rather one whose waist you can grab tightly and not reconsider the grip.

The other obstacle was the effect adolescent exposure and media on me. A combination of young sari clad teachers, impossible Bollywood melodramas and only slightly possible (lack of songs) Hollywood romantic comedies had resulted in a benchmark love story that could not be realistically met. But luckily benchmarks are easily adapted and don’t always need 500 days of summer. My real love stories have been all Oscar worthy despite the lack of the trophy to show it.  Lauren Conrad might have not found love in the Hills but then again the hills weren’t the Austrian Alps or the Port Vineyards on which love is abundantly found.

The mornings after is where one sees what one’s got. In those groggy eyes, disheveled hair and morning breath lays little material with which poems can be sourced. Yet, I am certain Nandita Das never needed any help in this department. Love really isn’t about that perfect nose or those intense eyes. It is about finding the one that needs no no-make-up make-up to catch an early train on time.

Between mornings and moonless nights lie conversations. In those long train journeys, on those picnic benches, in between those tree lined alleys and in lamp lit bier gardens, silences aren’t always welcome. When one yearns to speak and to listen, he quickly realizes that his lips aren’t meant for every ear. And while Tina Fey’s wits could come in handy here, love could just as well spring from that one who not only listens but truly understands. (Then goes on to a write a book without much ado)

Kate Middleton is now a princess. But her sweet disposition and her smile was royal long before her title changed. There is warmth in her face and eyes and a sense of assurance that her Prince desperately seeks. Not everyone is blessed with dimples or for that matter American teeth, but one you love brings with her a face that quells troubled seas and smooths frowns. That she alone is the shelter from the storm and the one who justifies all Bob Dylan songs.

I could at this point attempt to summarize this post and conclude on a definition of love. However, doing that would mean that all that growing up was indeed futile. It is only now that I realize that love is like Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle or Schrödinger’s cat; that defining love would be sure shot way of changing the very nature of it. I much rather stick the vagaries and the patterns I see in the chaos around me.

And to not define what already means everything to me.