Lately I have been in a place which seems to be like a busy cross road where lot of lovers would also find themselves in.
In a society like ours, one starts loving the other based on factors like circumstance or it being arranged by their parents or better yet, love for someone is forced by one's family and many more factors which I am yet to discover. How many of them end up setting examples of true love to the humanity is something I don’t have the exact data of. Least I can do is sympathizing them.
But I am not here to write about our society. And no matter in which fancy way two people start loving each other, they are bound to reach this place sometime or the other. The place I am talking about is called DO YOU STILL LOVE ME AS MUCH AS YOU USED TO and the population of this place is quite a lot I must say. Every one of you who end up asking this question to your (in)significant other and all of you (guys mostly) who end being questioned, automatically win yourselves a membership to this place.
Just how long does love stay is the question plaguing the minds of all the residents in this place where I must say I recently got the membership of. But please don’t expect me to answer this question. I don’t know the answer. I just joined this place.
Some say one year and some two. A wise old man did mention that love stays until the lovers get married. May be that’s why all the love stories in our movies end at marriage. No director has been successfully able to make a movie as to what happens after that. Well I think we can guess the later part of the love story seeing our parents. And from their petty quarrels and arguments we can infer how the 'happily ever after' has been like. If you don’t know what I am talking about then as you go home today play that old song which your parents used to listen and see how you mom would remember the first time she heard it with your dad and see how innocently your dad has forgotten. Then just sit back and enjoy the fun.
But I am not here to even talk about that. May be I really have changed. May be I really don’t have answer to the question I have been asked. May be I am really not loving her as much as I used to a year ago. I wanted to know if I was the only person making this mistake. When I looked around I found these happening…..
Few newly married couples I knew decided to stay separate and keep their jobs in these troubled times so that they can have a secure future together when they and their marriage, are old.
What more, I knew this great dreamer who had dreamt of years of she being together with her loved one devoting every minute and every hour of the rest of her life decorating the home she called her nest for her and her loved to live there happily ever after. She is now bored of sitting home and wishes she had her job back.
I also happened to know of a person who used to brave her parents and come great distance to meet her loved one and also the person she loved who spent his nights and days making sure he was there to secure the journey she used to take. Now married the geographical distance has shortened but sadly the same can’t be told about the emotional distance which has grown.
Just when was the last time you got that small call from your loved one while you were at work just to be told that you are still being loved? When was the last time you made that call?
When was the last time a picture of your loved one suddenly popped in your inbox? When was the last time you opened that mail? When was the last time you took a picture with your high resolution cam in your phone which you bought just for this feature?
I have my credit cards taking up the space in my wallet which her pictures used to take.
I don’t even know how we both look together now as I don’t even remember the last time we took a picture together.
But how can that be? I still love her as much as I used to. Or do I?
Pondering on the things I have just mentioned I sat there in the bus waiting for it to start. The driver was unusually stopping at this stop for long. Seemed as though he was waiting for someone. Quickly noticed that he was patiently waiting for a very elderly couple to board the bus and take the seat before he could start just not to overwhelm them.
Did not take long to understand that the elderly man was taking his equally elderly wife for her routine checkup. They seemed so close together which is hard to see even in mother and her child these days. They took each of their steps together holding onto each other's hands. I knew the son of the elderly man who was always ready to take them with him but whose offer was always rejected as the elderly man wanted to do it himself. Both barely able to walk but the man leading his women, he found a seat for her which she refused to take as he had to sit apart. Soon they found the seats they were looking for and the lady took the seat and surprisingly cleaned the seat which her husband was about to take for him to be seated.
Their love had indeed stayed long I thought to myself. To give me some evidence to this prove this fact, I could see the way they used to pass each other that reassuring smile every other minute. It seemed as though they wanted to relish each and every minute of the little life which lay ahead of them. I really knew that there was no doubt that if they had another decade to live, their love for each other would have lived on.
But what I really did not know that the lady had an eye condition from long due to which she could not see beyond the distance as long as her arm's length. I also did not know that in that little distance which she can see, she really could not make out the face of her husband who was sitting right beside her. But one cannot know that from her smiles looking at her husband beside and her actions. Yet another example for how blind love is, literally.
May be that’s the reason why they were so close to each other. May be that’s why they held on to each other's hand like that. Or may be its just pure blind love.
On the other hand are we all not blind beyond our arm's length? People we loved in the past today lie right beside us to whom we turn a blind eye. They are the same people whom we used to recognize from far. It’s not that we don’t love them anymore but it’s just we are tired or busy to love them the way we used to. How valid is this excuse or reason, I leave it to you readers to decide.
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