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.

Comments

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

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

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

      Delete
  4. "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. Is there any one particularly right way of interpreting any discourse?

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

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

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ayodhya: Kingdom of Sorrows

T he Sarayu carried more tears than water. Ayodhya was a sad kingdom. Dasaratha was a good king. He upheld dharma – justice and morality – as best as he could. The citizens were apparently happy. Then, one day, it all changed. One person is enough to change the destiny of a whole kingdom. Who was that one person? Some say it was Kaikeyi, one of the three official wives of Dasaratha. Some others say it was Manthara, Kaikeyi’s chief maid. Manthara was a hunchback. She was the caretaker of Kaikeyi right from the latter’s childhood; foster mother, so to say, because Kaikeyi had no mother. The absence of maternal influence can distort a girl child’s personality. With a foster mother like Manthara, the distortion can be really bad. Manthara was cunning, selfish, and morally ambiguous. A severe physical deformity can make one worse than all that. Manthara was as devious and manipulative as a woman could be in a men’s world. Add to that all the jealousy and ambition that insecure peo...

Lucifer and some reflections

Let me start with a disclaimer: this is not a review of the Malayalam movie, Lucifer . These are some thoughts that came to my mind as I watched the movie today. However, just to give an idea about the movie: it’s a good entertainer with an engaging plot, Bollywood style settings, superman type violence in which the hero decimates the villains with pomp and show, and a spicy dance that is neatly tucked into the terribly orgasmic climax of the plot. The theme is highly relevant and that is what engaged me more. The role of certain mafia gangs in political governance is a theme that deserves to be examined in a good movie. In the movie, the mafia-politician nexus is busted and, like in our great myths, virtue triumphs over vice. Such a triumph is an artistic requirement. Real life, however, follows the principle of entropy: chaos flourishes with vengeance. Lucifer is the real winner in real life. The title of the movie as well as a final dialogue from the eponymous hero sugg...

Abdullah’s Religion

O Abdulla Renowned Malayalam movie actor Mohanlal recently offered special prayers for Mammootty, another equally renowned actor of Kerala. The ritual was performed at Sabarimala temple, one of the supreme Hindu pilgrimage centres in Kerala. No one in Kerala found anything wrong in Mohanlal, a Hindu, praying for Mammootty, a Muslim, to a Hindu deity. Malayalis were concerned about Mammootty’s wellbeing and were relieved to know that the actor wasn’t suffering from anything as serious as it appeared. Except O Abdulla. Who is this Abdulla? I had never heard of him until he created an unsavoury controversy about a Hindu praying for a Muslim. This man’s Facebook profile describes him as: “Former Professor Islahiaya, Media Critic, Ex-Interpreter of Indian Ambassador, Founder Member MADHYAMAM.” He has 108K followers on FB. As I was reading Malayalam weekly this morning, I came to know that this Abdulla is a former member of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind Kerala , a fundamentalist organisation. ...

Empuraan and Ramayana

Maggie and I will be watching the Malayalam movie Empuraan tomorrow. The tickets are booked. The movie has created a lot of controversy in Kerala and the director has decided to impose no less than 17 censors on it himself. I want to watch it before the jingoistic scissors find its way to the movie. It is surprising that the people of Kerala took such exception to this movie when the same people had no problem with the utterly malicious and mendacious movie The Kerala Story (2023). [My post on that movie, which I didn’t watch, is here .] Empuraan is based partly on the Gujarat riots of 2002. The riots were real and the BJP’s role in it (Mr Modi’s, in fact) is well-known. So, Empuraan isn’t giving the audience any falsehood as The Kerala Story did. Moreover, The Kerala Story maligned the people of Kerala while Empuraan is about something that happened in the faraway Gujarat quite long ago. Why are the people of Kerala then upset with Empuraan ? Because it tells the truth, M...

Empuraan – Review

Revenge is an ancient theme in human narratives. Give a moral rationale for the revenge and make the antagonist look monstrously evil, then you have the material for a good work of art. Add to that some spices from contemporary politics and the recipe is quite right for a hit movie. This is what you get in the Malayalam movie, Empuraan , which is running full houses now despite the trenchant opposition to it from the emergent Hindutva forces in the state. First of all, I fail to understand why so much brouhaha was hollered by the Hindutvans [let me coin that word for sheer convenience] who managed to get some 3 minutes censored from the 3-hour movie. The movie doesn’t make any explicit mention of any of the existing Hindutva political parties or other organisations. On the other hand, Allahu Akbar is shouted menacingly by Islamic terrorists, albeit towards the end. True, the movie begins with an implicit reference to what happened in Gujarat in 2002 after the Godhra train burnin...