One Love?

[one of my previous posts had this sentence somewhere in it "We need somebody to be there for us at the end of the day, and more importantly _only_ for us." It refused to stay buried in obscurity and came back to haunt me for a blog of its own. So here is....]

Long ago, with enough alcohol in my body to inspire this, I had asked my dad pensively "whats the most important thing in life? money, power, knowledge, truth??" "Emotions you stupid fool, emotions!" I laughed at him then, now i know better.
So heres the big daddy of them all. Love. Though my tryst with this one has been rather unfortunate it is no doubt the most intriguing of all human emotions. Literarily, everything from a sonnet to an epic has been written abt it. Financially, everyone from Shahrukh Khan to the "khare daNe" vendor outside a park makes his living out of it. Historically, everything from bar brawls to monumental wars have been fought over it. Socially, everything from a condom to a commitment has been associated with it.. which.....brings me to my point.

Commitment. (rather, the lack of it)

What is so serene, so holy so noble about this word? Why does the almighty all powerful love, loose all its seriousness without its backing? Ayn Rand says “Love is the emotional price we pay for enjoying the virtues in others." Ok....i didn’t get that either, but do you guys sincerely believe that one human being can love just _one_ other human being in his entire life? I mean do you really buy that “mere liye koi ek bana hai, aur wo (god, I presume) mere dil ko ishara karke batayega..” yash chopra style crap? And am talkin romantic, dead serious, bottom of heart, no chance in hell kinda love. Not the hot body, crazy for sex love. If love is such a great thing, why is it so immoral to have it twice? Which law or what reason says it _has_ to be unique. If love just happens, then how can we be so sure that it wont happen again?? Somehow this commitment thing does not seem aligned with the spirit of love. There is no restriction on whom you love, who decided this 1 per lifetime upper limit then? How can a reasonable man/women ignore this simple reasoning and say, whtever they say while getting married! This, deciding your partner when ur around 25 (btw..this is the age when you r at ur stupidest best) and then sticking to it without thought or option till the end, is more of a convenience than true volition.

Society must have experimented with this looong ago and came up with the most simple and robust solution that we see today. One Love, One Family, simple, no complications. You follow this chain - birth, education, income, marriage, kids, retirement, goodbye.- and u r acceptable. u don't and u r looked down upon. love anyone other than ur partner, ur guilty. Simple rules. Keeps the society intact. But are u really guilty? This multi-love theory may not be this simple. i mean there are some 'practical' problems. For one..who do you stay with? :D But that doesn't mean its wrong morally. We are so imbibed with this "not making or breaking a commitment is a sin" idea that we simply can't comprehend the other side. I agree its time tested to work almost flawlessly. But that is basically for people who, out of ignorance or fear play by the societies rules....
My point is why can’t we (people who can and will…think!) decouple love and commitment? We should have a choice. Judging the seriousness of love by the willingness to commit, is wrong. The society will never approve of it, hmmm....but doesnt that make it all the more worth it? (just kidding..ignore me and have a happy life)

Of course there is a personal and perhaps more important aspect to this. You meet someone and that person brightens up your life like never before. Life is so beautiful that u r shit scared of losing it. Commitment seems so soothing. You demand it, get it at all costs and promise to love nobody else again, ever. I saw nishabdh the other day (stupid movie..zia khan is hottt though). Wife gets angry ‘cause husband likes another girl. Sad, I understand, very sad in fact. But angry?? I don’t get it. The world might say its infidelity but I can never accept that loving can be a crime no matter what the promise or the consequence.

Most of us will get married and stay together till “death do us part”, always _assuming_ that it was love that kept us together and not the commitment, of course not!.We will n'joy our _unique_ status in our partner's life and make a big scene if that status is lost. Just like normal people. But there might be very very few among us who will not commit but still stay together for ever _knowing_ it was love and nothing but love that kept them so. Those brave-hearts will most assuredly deserve but even more assuredly _not_ get, our society’s utter respect. And I wonder why….. :)

Cheers!