Is there something wrong in the title of this piece? Shouldn’t love be an art and not a science that is so cold and irrational? Maybe, maybe not!
I am now 58 years old, happily married, with one wife and two children. When I was young (I think I still am) I was always getting attracted to the opposite sex, and “falling in love”. Maybe I am an infernal fool and incorrigible romantic.
I have also spent many years working among youth, and been a matchmaker for starry-eyed or star-crossed youngsters. However, I have over the last 20 years, made a startling observation. Young people today seem afraid or incapable of falling in love. Independent, highly educated and career conscious young people have lost the art/ science of falling in love. As a consequence they are also afraid of getting married/ permanent bonding. They then end up telling their parents, “You find a match for me”. What they are really saying is, “You arrange my marriage, and remember that if anything goes wrong you, Mum and Dad, are responsible, because it was your choice, not mine”.
Such an attitude and approach is alarming. It needs to be addressed, if we are to help youngsters develop the joy of falling in love and choosing a life partner. Life today is far more complex and uncertain than it was a couple of generations ago. Hence the need for companionship, understanding and compatibility is far greater today. Making a choice therefore becomes that much more difficult.
Earlier, if one belonged to the same caste, ethnic background, religion or financial status, it was considered sufficient ground for compatibility. There is the old adage that “Incompatibility is the spice of life”. If that applies to husband and wife, the spice is sure to be garam masala. I do not subscribe to this view. For good personal bonding there must be compatibility, which is not the same as commonality. This must be laced with complementarity. Is this getting confusing? Let me explain. If both like to eat rice or listen to music that is a common factor – commonality, which is good. However, if both are talkative, disorganised or spendthrifts, it would be a recipe for disaster. Complementarity means that if one partner is talkative, the other should be a good listener. If one is disorganised the other should be methodical; if one is a spendthrift, the other should be thrifty.
Young people are perhaps also looking for the ideal person, a la Bollywood fairytale endings or Mills & Boon romances. That is reel life, not real life. There is no perfect person. If indeed such a person exists he/she would be so anti-septic as to be not affected or infected by love.
Almost all religions believe that marriages are made in heaven. Marriage is believed to be a sacrament or a permanent and divine bond blessed by God. This external force cements the internal bond of marriage. If one enters a marital relationship believing that it is blessed by God, who is present in that relationship, then it gives both partners the grace and strength to love unconditionally, to forgive and understand each other. This inner disposition will make it easier to make a choice and fall in love. Without this there can be no guarantee or certainty that a relationship will work.
So how do young people begin to discover a soul mate or life companion? In a career conscious world, both sexes would be working. They could be spending 10 – 12 hours a day in their work environment. Hence their maximum interaction with the opposite sex would be in the work place. That could result in office romances. Fine. But please read the statutory warning on the pack, before you puff. At work we are always on our best behaviour. We are performing. We are not our true selves. It could therefore come as a rude shock that the person one married was so different at home and at work. At work one cannot afford to lose one’s temper. At home one unwinds, and there is no inhibition about letting go of one’s emotions. Working and living together are also not the same. One thing would often have to be sacrificed at the cost of the other.
The same goes for school and college friendships. At that point one’s primary concerns are studies or recreation, where there could be a lot of meeting ground. But these are at a superficial level, and may not hold true for a lasting relationship.
Young people from broken homes, who have not experienced love themselves, would have a greater craving for love and acceptance. Those from a strong family background would be emotionally more stable. Mature parents should actually encourage youngsters to interact with the opposite sex, especially in groups. It is the best way to find a suitable partner.
Youngsters also need to understand that the sexes are not just physically complementary (as a lock and key), but even more so are they psychologically complementary. Despite much talk of the metro sexual or unisex look, a man would normally not be attracted to a “female wrestler’, nor would a woman be arm candy to an effeminate dandy. At this point indeed opposit4es attract magnetically. One should not make the fatal error of Professor Higgins in “My Fair Lady”, who cries out despairingly, “Why can’t a woman be more like a man?”
Man is the primordial hunter. I may sound old fashioned here, but I would still say that it is the man who should woo the damsel. And be sure that the lady will leave enough tell tale signs on the trail to lead you up the garden path.
Now for the scientific part. There must be an inexplicable chemistry between a couple. It is irrational and illogical. You cannot have a reason to love, for love is devoid of reason. Chemistry is followed by botany – say it with flowers or chocolate perhaps. If the relationship does blossom it would lead to physics – the physical touch or embrace. The next love science obviously is biology. That supposedly comes naturally, and does not bear elucidation, or graphic detail So we see that love is indeed a science, to be pursued artistically!
It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. So go ahead and fall in love, and may the God of love be with you.
• The writer was the founder Secretary of the U.P. Regional Youth & Vocations Bureau.
JANUARY 2009
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