the open buk test of life...

What is love? What is love?Baby don’t hurt me… don’t hurt me… no more… and like Jim Carrey you have to jerk your head sideways – quite vigorously!

From the great Indian Laughter Challenge to Russell Peters… from the mushy Indy-cinema to the glistening glory of Hollywood stars… from the New Mom’s shopping outlets to Archies cards… love is in the air!

Its an all weather phenomena that sometimes makes a mockery of all the geographical, religious and sexual divide that we have managed to discern. Its not a set piece movement out of the soccer games or a practiced move from a hockey-ed Indy-movie that has managed to score some new records @ the box-office.It just happens and they say that Cupid, the blind archer, is responsible!

LOVE – hmmm… Legacy Of Volatile Emotions.

Or you can replace volatile with vandalized.

The flowchart starts of with attraction graduates into infatuation and then you have the ‘sudden –death’ where the match is won or lost. There are other kinds of love as well… the parental, national, animal, floral, culinary, cultures, literature, I-know-all-bookworms, sports, music, travel-related, creativity (the various arts- modern art which makes sense even if u turn the painting upside down!!)… and lots more. Cant forget crime, terror, power, money, status… love has managed to gate crash into all the parties of life!But the others are definite forms wherein its interest, passion and then love and mastery… The unconditional parental love… siblings, family, friends – love, having the dimensional aspect. You might not choose such threads of your life’s parachute but then mostly they hold you through…And in this surety, love is generalized!

Like Newton’s third law, demanding an equal and opposite reaction…

The paperback novels, the celluloid and anecdotes from the hemispheres around…lo! The flight of fantasy is borne!School, college, university, corporate campus – the battlefield is everywhere. Fashion, style, fads and even politics… the movers & shakers aint bother much about rules.It’s more like a strategy. You have the tips to a man’s heart and ways to a woman’s soul – they even publish such stuff in the newspapers.Hearts are won, time is less and life is short! So called love marks the Valentine’s Day…would you be my valentine? Blind dates, match-fixing and life on the fast lane…

The break-up over a few tissues and words of glory, a few promises and a few lessons… single and ready to mingle!Can love play second innings in your life? Or is there a way to ensure a steadfast partnership on debut?We blame the men and try to protect the women, oppressed. We try to drown in self-pity, rewind and play the archives of our relation directory!

And then we decide that it wasn’t love! No! Voila! It was a trap, a play, entrapment and we deserve much better! The chest bulges out, the lips curl in some involuntary pride and you are again swimming in the whirlpool of life.When can we know its ‘lock kiya jaye’? How is the measure of time a catalyst in these reactions? Friends, relatives… we all have seen the old wine of love being poured across varied shapes and sizes… we have felt good, bad and angry but the question with which this scribble began… hmmm… has no answer.Now Adam and Eve, the historical & fictional characters have all made us marvel with philosophies that have been analyzed over PhD courses, which have given birth to schools of thought… but let me ask you again… when do you know it’s the winning wager?

When do you know, it is really love?‘What is this life so full of care… we have no time to stand and stare…’ and we move on with the half-truths and the hopes of the biggest truth of our life. Of our life, remain these emotions, this love… the rest? All go into the 6 by 4!Destiny’s child.Do they teach these at any B-school? Maybe Cupid can take a guest-lecture for us.Till then… its Archies, CCD, Barista – as they say… a lot can happen over coffee JThe candle (light) in the wind…