PASSIONS OF A NATION
REFLECTION OF LOVE SONGS

Love durations

A nation is best understood by its love songs. Romance has been sung from centuries, and the permanence of love held sacred by most societies. Romantic tales of Punjab speak of romantic love between individuals for which one reason or the other, could not normally maintain a relation. The most poignant songs are of course where there is a tragedy of relation. That is why Romeo and Juliet are icons of a tragic love affair. But all that changed with industrialization as a new barbaric age was ushered in again. Gone were the woo songs of the past, and gone was the effort for romantic love. A new horrible term came in vogue and that was a ‘One Night Stand’. It seems that even  has been replaced by the concept of perhaps ‘One Hour stand’, or a quickie in modern times.

The difference between human beings and beasts is defined by permanence. Beasts mate at fixed given times and have no memories of their beloved ones. Not even the family is remembered after a lapse of time. It is only human beings that are capable of long term relations, and when you cut that short , you are nothing short of a predator in the romantic jungle of sexual relations. Alas and woe to man for belittling the highest passions of life into meaningless relations. A saying goes that the other man’s wife always seems more attractive. You walk in a pub, in any Western city, and you see the conflict of waning youthful appearances, looming large on the psyche of both men and women. Fighting against the rebellion of their own minds and bodies., A hundred percent attractive mate seems nothing the next day after the so called conquest.

A wise saying goes in the East that Love ends with marriage in the West, in the East Love starts with marriage. The evapouration of the concept of halal and haram has gone out of society and even the children that were once termed as illegitimate or no longer thought in same terms. A fancy term of One parent child has evolved in the Western world, much to the aghast of all those who hold family sacred in life.  A group of European women ended up in an argument with me. They said we can do with out family, there is no going back to those concepts. And I said what about men? You have left them too. They said we cannot live without love. Men are essential for us.

Like a bolt and nut, men are important to women, and women important to men. But in a relation which in a second does not change. It has the permanence of life behind itself.