This article focuses on the feeling of LOVE which forms an important part of the emotional side of every human being, especially our youth. It is very difficult to prioritise the different forms of love on the basis of their importance, as one form may be insignificant for someone but crucial for others. Also, the value which they add to a person’s life could be entirely different.
The traditional Indian society seems to have been giving prime importance to parental love for ages. This form of love is considered second only to the love we shower on the almighty God.
Leaving aside the love towards living beings other than humans and also the inanimate objects, if we consider the present scenario, most of those forms amongst youth pertain to peer-to-peer love. This affection could be heterosexual or, in some cases, homosexual.
Now that our judiciary gives us a right to express ourselves freely on the latter form, we can discuss it as well. Though in this article, I will restrict myself to heterosexual affection, which is the most common amongst youth.
Right from school days, teenagers find themselves getting attracted to the opposite sex in schools, neighbourhoods or even because the media influences their feelings in many cases. If we consider the college life of a youth, this affection takes a more serious and mature form.
I would be keener to draw your attention towards the transition of this affection to the feeling of LOVE for a teenager and a grown-up child like a college student pursuing under graduation.
“When love came for me, it didn’t rain, no one went all “Bahara Hua Dil Pehli Baar Ve”. Neither did everything around me coordinate itself to become red (which seems to be the colour of love, according to KJo.”https://t.co/OTJA6krCtq
— Youth Ki Awaaz (@YouthKiAwaaz) November 21, 2021
Teenage affection has more chances of resulting just because of infatuation. We interact with the opposite sex in our classrooms every day. It is highly probable that because of hormonal changes in this phase of life, we are excited and keen to interact even more. Until we discover that it’s getting difficult for us to live without the company of that person, we keep on showering our affection more and more.
But when we reach a stage when it becomes difficult for us to spend time without the person we find so affectionate, we say that we are experiencing the four-letter word LOVE. From my readers, I would like to know whether this is what experiencing LOVE is about and is it all about a desire that makes us like a person?
I will address this question a little later, till then, it’s for you to ponder over. I now switch to a latter part of a child’s life — the college days. We tend to be more serious and think about our career and professional life during our college life. Needless to say that we become more mature and self-dependent, as in most cases, people live away from their homes and get to experience the ups and downs that come with hostel life.
It is at this point in life when we start thinking maturely and more seriously about the kind of person we would like to spend time with for the rest of our lives. It’s true that we can’t think about each and every aspect of married life until and unless we get married ourselves and then realise how important it is to select a life partner according to our wish.
Compared to school days, our focus shifts and gets affected because our parents are not there to check on us all the time. We then think about issues like a job, supporting a family after we become self-dependent, bride, groom, marriage, future work atmosphere, preferred place of settlement, etc.
Now when we have these things in mind and along with it, we find ourselves gripped because of affection showered on us by someone or we being affectionate towards someone unknowingly, it has a more mature form of affection. I say that it is matured because it is then that we realise the difficulties in continuing to stay with the person throughout our life whom we have found so affectionate.
I still don’t say that it would be LOVE as there is no age to stop getting infatuated with someone. This form of affection, if assessed well, can lead us to discover whether we are in LOVE with someone.
Of course, I am not saying there is a fixed boundary for this transition depending on age. In fact, this transition can never be very well defined. Even a school days’ friend could eventually be our life partner because we have been in touch with them for a long time and have understood them well. It depends on us and our beloved’s response to convince each other for tying the knot.
Also, love cannot be just looked at from the point of view of getting married eventually. I want to make an important point here regarding a certain aspect of LOVE that we, the youth, often neglect. We tend to overlook the purest form of love: passionless, platonic and unconditional.
How often do we think on these lines when we say that we LOVE someone? These factors guide us in finding our soul mate for spending the rest of our lives with, but there are no assurances that even if we have found such a person, we will successfully live with them as a married couple.
But, we can certainly proclaim that we are experiencing LOVE. More often than not, our feelings are a mere outburst of passion flaring inside us.
The circumstances drive us to think just on the lines of outer beauty and not a person’s inner beauty. Apart from the factors I have mentioned above, the purest form of love has its foundation based on immense sacrifice, care and affection.
To date, our society has given a lot of importance to arranged marriages and accepting intra-caste marriages without many complaints. The reason our grandparents and parents cite is that there is a better understanding between a couple due to the similarity in culture and traditions.
Ironically these marriages result in the creation of a rift between the couple because they find themselves incompatible after marriage and it’s too late by then for both of them to change their decisions. The only option left is divorce which is not easily digestible in orthodox Indian society.
On the other hand, the success rate of love marriages itself is not so great that we should promote these marriage institutions blindly. Then where is the fault in our system? The fault lies in our definition and perception of LOVE. Our temporary liking and attraction towards someone whom we think we are in love with makes us falsely proclaim that we are indeed in love.
Only when we have spent considerable time with someone, know the person well, their behaviour, character and attitude in different circumstances we can judge them completely and see if we are compatible with them.
So, does this compatibility define whether we can be in love with someone? Or does this hint towards a kind of live-in-relationship that is essentially required to increase the success rate of love Marriages in the younger generation? These are some of the questions which surface from the above arguments.
I personally feel that the answer to the latter is yes. But the problems against making this kind of a relationship work in our society are many, courtesy traditional mindsets of the society we live in. Then what is the feasible solution for our society which can work out for two people who want to experience God’s great gift of true love?
I have tried to bring to light some very important aspects of LOVE from the point of view of a young person. The questions are many, but the answers are yet unsearched or unfound. Your answers, suggestions and comments are most welcome in this regard. I will keep adding as and when my perspective broadens further.