How we love one another
There is no SI unit of love. As the cliché goes, it’s universal and beyond comprehension. Even the giant tentacles of science can only…
There is no SI unit of love. As the cliché goes, it’s universal and beyond comprehension. Even the giant tentacles of science can only make peace with its absolute hold on us. What one person feels for another being — living or otherwise — stays above the ground of inquiry. You can love anything and everything, which is obviously not the case with other species. They have pre-defined boundaries. We don’t. Our imagination runs wild, making us fall in love with the most abstract of objects like literature, philosophy and astronomy. Maybe our grasp in being affectionate sets us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom.
Maybe.
We are talking about love today because I came across an amazing story. And what makes it incredible is its sheer base in truth. My colleague’s grandparents got married when he was 19 and she was 17 during the pre-independence era. From day 1 onward, they got along very well. Their sense of humour helped them get through the early vertiginous days of marital youth. People in the West say “I love you” but thanks to the coy nature of Indian subcontinent, we seldom use the L-word so openly. Which could explain why grandpa used to tell grandma that he won’t survive 2 weeks without her. She often retorted with a condescending laugh or rolling eyes, especially when he said it out in the presence of their kids.
A little more than six decades later, she passed away after not keeping well for a long while. Throughout, he took utmost care of her — always by her side either reading her her favourite books or reminiscing funny incidents from their collective past. And then, as portended, one sunny morning, she passed away.
Now comes the part that is chillingly romantic about this particular story: He passed away exactly two weeks later. As promised. He went downhill from being a healthy old man who never missed his morning walks to somebody whose organs suddenly started giving up on him. His dear family members were barely convalescing from one funeral that they had to prepare for another soon. There was so much to mourn as there was to celebrate.
Although words don’t commit much of a difference when death is involved, what’s fascinating about the whole tragedy is words meant a lot here. They might not have followed the cinematic template but they continued to nurture their bond in life as well as thereafter. Besides, adorable words haven’t always been a forte of Indian society. Forget couples, even our mothers fail to express their innate love for us through their vocabulary. To compensate, they feed us more than we ask for. That’s their way of expressing their affection in the finest way they can.
In some ways, it’s nice to know that not everything humane can be effectively templatized. It’s best to let love create its own language for each one of us.