Skip to main content

True Love


Rama consigned Sita to the flames.  Krishna made many husbands cuckolds.  And they are our gods.  Their love ought to be true love.  Really?

Helen and Paris loved each other and started a war which killed thousands of people.  Was that true love?

Antony loved Cleopatra to such an extent that they died for each other, killing many in the process.

Jesus Christ loved mankind so much that he let himself be crucified and then went on to be worshipped as a god.  True love?

The Buddha was not much of a lover, I think.  He was too indifferent.  But if we were to live with him, we would have found him the ideal human being, almost a god.  Indifferent.  But never judgemental.  Eccentric and yet the most sane.  True love?

Mother Teresa loved everybody because she saw the face of Jesus in everybody.  She loved Jesus.  Not Tom, Syed or Hari.  Was that true love?

Mahatma Gandhi loved his principles more than his wife or children.  True love?

I love Mr Narendra Modi because there is no connection between what he says and what he does.  I think that is true love. In today’s world.


PS. Written for the latest Indispire theme.
Labels:

Comments

  1. Roohi BhatnagarOctober 31, 2015 at 6:54 PM

    There is only one true love: love of Self :) Even parents love their offspring because they are a manifestation of their ego. No?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalNovember 1, 2015 at 9:29 AM

      If people really loved themselves they would love others too. ?

      Delete
  2. UnknownNovember 1, 2015 at 2:58 PM

    All it has to do with True love is the Feel-Good factor. Love is the purest way to feel about someone. The more you do, the merrier is your adaptability of true love :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalNovember 1, 2015 at 3:29 PM

      Of course. All human love is limited and conditional. Even divine love is, apparently. Feel-good, yeah, I guess that's it.

      Delete
  3. sunaina sharmaNovember 1, 2015 at 5:38 PM

    Being a subjective emotion, love is bound by its own limitations. For Buddha, don't you think being indifferent is a wrong word? Unaffected yes, indifferent, I don't think so.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalNovember 1, 2015 at 6:05 PM

      If we take indifference positively, the way Buddha took it, the word is good, I think. Indifference is more profound than unaffectedness.

      Delete
  4. Sunshine-struckNovember 2, 2015 at 12:37 PM

    "Rama consigned Sita to the flames. Krishna made many husbands cuckolds. And they are our gods. Their love ought to be true love. Really?"

    There is clear explanation as to why Rama and Krishna behaved the way they did.
    Rama wanted to show it to the world that Sita was "untouched",but, he knew Sita was untouched.

    Krishna had to grant the wishes of the Gopika Stree(s) to be their husband. Krishna, by instinct and definition, has won and surpassed anything that is humanly, including 'Kama' so, he is not bound by any women or desires.

    This is the right way to interpret, according to our scriptures.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalNovember 2, 2015 at 5:37 PM

      Is there any one particularly right way of interpreting any discourse?

      Delete
    2. Sunshine-struckNovember 2, 2015 at 7:33 PM

      I don't know what to say! You always amaze me with your way of thinking. That's it.

      That's in a positive sense.

      Delete
    3. Tomichan MatheikalNovember 2, 2015 at 8:36 PM

      The simple truth is that I get into a lot of problems because of my thinking and I don't like it. But I can't help myself!

      Delete
  5. MoonNovember 2, 2015 at 12:44 PM

    This is a very critical question, sir. Love is a pure emotion and a feeling which have various manifestations. If there is 'love' it has to be 'true'. Those who are in love don't think about the consequence or the outcome. It's upon us how we look at it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalNovember 2, 2015 at 5:40 PM

      Agreed. All that i'm saying is love has its limits, limitations and "manifestations" (to use your word). We have to accept that if our love is to be practical and not just an idealistic dream.

      Delete
  6. UnknownNovember 2, 2015 at 2:41 PM

    Love comes in different forms and is defined in different ways, by the people who are in love. It is only the person who actually feels can describe what it is. Others can also make guesses :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalNovember 2, 2015 at 5:48 PM

      Experience. That's what love really is. Words matter little. Most of the people mentioned in the post are people who had genuine love for others. I'm interested in the essential limitedness of human love. Even gods will arrive at points of despair in their loves. I' m fascinated by a god who can cry out, "my god, my god, why have you forsaken me?" (Jesus)

      Delete
  7. Anita SabatNovember 3, 2015 at 5:29 PM

    So many instances of love. But, love means different things to different people...
    They say 'love is blind' :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalNovember 3, 2015 at 7:14 PM

      At a certain period in life, love is blind. After that the eyes open :)

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
47 comments
Read more

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...
19 comments
Read more

India in Modi-Trap

That’s like harnessing a telescope to a Vedic chant and expecting the stars to spin closer. Illustration by Gemini AI A friend forwarded a WhatsApp message written by K Sahadevan, Malayalam writer and social activist. The central theme is a concern for science education and research in India. The writer bemoans the fact that in India science is in a prison conjured up by Narendra Modi. The message shocked me. I hadn’t been aware of many things mentioned therein. Modi is making use of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan’s Centre for Study and Research in Indology for his nefarious purposes projected as efforts to “preserve and promote classical Indian knowledge systems [IKS]” which include Sanskrit, Ayurveda, Jyotisha (astrology), literature, philosophy, and ancient sciences and technology. The objective is to integrate science with spirituality and cultural values. That’s like harnessing a telescope to a Vedic chant and expecting the stars to spin closer. The IKS curricula have made umpteen r...
8 comments
Read more

Two Women and Their Frustrations

Illustration by Gemini AI Nora and Millie are two unforgettable women in literature. Both are frustrated with their married life, though Nora’s frustration is a late experience. How they deal with their personal situations is worth a deep study. One redeems herself while the other destroys herself as well as her husband. Nora is the protagonist of Henrik Ibsen’s play, A Doll’s House , and Millie is her counterpart in Terence Rattigan’s play, The Browning Version . [The links take you to the respective text.] Personal frustration leads one to growth into an enlightened selfhood while it embitters the other. Nora’s story is emancipatory and Millie’s is destructive. Nora questions patriarchal oppression and liberates herself from it with equanimity, while Millie is trapped in a meaningless relationship. Since I have summarised these plays in earlier posts, now I’m moving on to a discussion on the enlightening contrasts between these two characters. If you’re interested in the plot ...
13 comments
Read more

The Real Enemies of India

People in general are inclined to pass the blame on to others whatever the fault.  For example, we Indians love to blame the British for their alleged ‘divide-and-rule’ policy.  Did the British really divide India into Hindus and Muslims or did the Indians do it themselves?  Was there any unified entity called India in the first place before the British unified it? Having raised those questions, I’m going to commit a further sacrilege of quoting a British journalist-cum-historian.  In his magnum opus, India: a History , John Keay says that the “stock accusations of a wider Machiavellian intent to ‘divide and rule’ and to ‘stir up Hindu-Muslim animosity’” levelled against the British Raj made little sense when the freedom struggle was going on in India because there really was no unified India until the British unified it politically.  Communal divisions existed in India despite the political unification.  In fact, they existed even before the Briti...
16 comments
Read more