Nothing Lasts...

A few days ago I shared a blog post which mentions the merits of being frank & opinionated about being attracted only to intelligent men. In response, a friend wrote me a private message warning me of the dangers of 'loving' intelligent men. After almost a decade of failed relationships, trance-dancing & fabulous friendships here are some of my observations for you.

what is love. 

love is...night blue skies

Intense emotion for someone/thing. I guess. I'm not sure how to exactly describe love - I guess you know love when you see starry skies or monsoon nights. As you sink your teeth into that oh-so-perfect blueberry muffin. or your toes into oh-so-squishy sand.


Love is owl-spotting & tree climbing. Tribal beats beneath the black black skies & inky seas. Boats dotting dark horizons like some stars fell outta the sky. Posters popping colours as wave after wave of trancers trip on Spongle by the sea. Soft green grass under my toes and purple skies on my mind. and that sunshine. That eye popping yellow sunshine. I love when you get my vibe and go for that random drive in the dark. I love when you know I need a hug but I'm too proud to ask. I love how your childish heart mourns for romantic love. You're young yet, and you will one day learn that there is no romantic love. At least not the kind TV teaches you. What love lets you demand answers and place boundaries? What love is based on the mindless accumulation of consumer goods as 'proof' or evidence of that ferris-wheel type gut twisting making my tummy go wonky when the universe grants me yet another soul mate? 

What is safe to assume about romantic love.

A 'love' where social norms dictate who you love, how you love, how many you can love, when you love, and what love is. The notions of romantic love have been diseased and corrupted into a vile system of power play & consumerism. A system which allows love to be expressed by the spending power for two individuals who will ultimately marry to appease the orthodox, conventional heterosexual set-up strongly endorsed & encouraged by families, relatives, friends, social customs, governments & traditions. A world which is based on the assumption that this is, and only this, the 'right' way to live life.

Even the way love is peddled to the consumers is scoff-worthy. The images of the typically coy women and the semi-sexy, mostly sleazy men or the crass sexist jokes or tacky fascination for other people's nudity or imagination of it have been branded into my brain for far too long. I've written over & over again about the stereotypes I fully fail to fit into. We've been taught to believe a big, expensive bouquet of flowers flown in from Denmark & dyed some ridiculous unnatural color is far more worthy that the ones which blur my vision of the purple-&-orange sunset as I lie on my back on lush green grass with my rag-tag bunch of loved ones. All shapes, sizes & species. We've been taught that Justin Bieber's stupid ignorant lifestyle & Honey Singh's stupid ignorant lyrics bring us much more pleasure than the Pee-Poo song. We've been taught that the friends we ought to have are the ones who lurch drunkenly onto us and whine incessantly that they love us. Paks' response to those drunken damsels last night was epic. 'Ok I love you too, shut-up now.'

I prefer being around the one with the constant cat-like confusion on her face. Her calm logic has an uncanny ability to cut through the clouds of confusion during my hysterical, paranoid, non-chooch best. I'd rather snort & sneeze laughing at her constant innuendos or the aunty's teenage outbursts than long, bored silences over 'let's catch up over some coffee na, babes!' sessions in lush hotel lobbies interspersed with furious typing on colourful & expensive smart-phones. EpiFatty is an excellent dishwasher and has the inbuilt discernment of the director to find the crux of any confusing tale. And the ability to contrive the simplest of stories.

Every alternate story or lifestyle is crushed, brushed aside with a great wave of the capitalist hand which cannot afford to indulge in a world where dreams of freedom exist. Freedom of thought, expression & freedom to love. Which is why I agree with my aunt's advice to make it clear that you are attracted to intelligence. Only intelligence brings that discernment between love & sex. Only intelligence will allow them to differentiate between the purity of dancing for the love of music or the gross gyrations promoted by Bollywood as a means to feed the secret fetish for flesh our society is unfortunately afflicted with. Yes, this clarity of choice will mean that partners will be few and far between. Far more preferable to an endless stream of boring buffoons who imagine the size of their muscles can hide the fact that they've never generated an intelligent coherent thought of their own.

I'm not sure whether meaningful coupling can exist in a life of serial monogamy. Perhaps it's a possibility. A life of serial monogamy is also a possibility. Perhaps they can co-exist. But only if you chart your own choices. Don't allow yourself to be trapped into a finite rendition of love as churned out by the corporates. There's too many people selling love, not enough sharing it.

We're trapped in a world where love means looking fair, fit, beautiful & sexy, for someone else. Usually it's your heterosexual partner of the same caste & religion as you. This world advertises voyeuristic delight. We constantly seek to peek into other's lives & laugh at their misfortunes. This world will not allow you meaningful coupling. nor serial monogamy. A world which propagates promiscuity in the guise of sexuality cannot offer you anything meaningful. We live in a world which celebrates the death of celebrity marriages and thrives in the throes of a lonely person's failed attempt to find some love. This world sells you all kinds of cheat codes to cooking and forgets to teach you to know & understand what you eat. I wonder if you would eat chicken if you had to behead & gut it yourself. Stories which tell of a love for nature are labelled children's 'fantasies'.

It's alright. Everyone is just a little bit confused right now. That's but normal in the current chaos we exist in. And so this world is still trying to make sense of compassion. The 'miraculous' mama cat who adopted squirrel babies or the dog who sat beside it's crushed companion on the bustling highway. Compassion is too elevated an emotion for crass humankind to comprehend. The masses are yet to figure out whether or not sex equates love. Few & far between are able to articulate clarity when it comes to love. The writers of 'Dedh Ishiqya' nailed it with Muniya's wry response to Babban's claim of being in love with her the morning after.

One thing I've learnt in all these years is the impermanence of everything...what if we were to indulge in our fantasies of freedom for a bit? What if we re-imagined love?