the Light frOm heaVEn

What is love? Most of us never find the answer, not atleast the correct one. The point is that there is no correct answer to this. Love is what makes us rise, it is what makes us fall. It is what makes us smile, it is what makes us dissolve in the pool of quiet tears. Love is what makes us hate. I've tried to define love many times in the span of my life, never really managed to succeed.

When I was a kid at school, I thought love meant sharing tiffin at lunch. A girl in my class always used to get yummy sandwiches and I used to get upma. I always wanted to have those yummy sandwiches. I thought I was in love, I never could resist her sandwiches. One day I asked her cutely if I could have a bite. She smiled, boy! girls always know when they have a guy in their grasp. She told me that I could definitely have a bite if I helped her solve her maths homework. I did and was rewarded with half the sandwich. This developed into a regime with newer exotic foods coming in. I was so happy, I started messing up my hair whenever I met her, so that she be impressed with me. But then came this senior, tall and dark, who seemed to have a way with girls. He swept her off her feet and for some reason, the girl didn't find my math solving skills an attraction any more. With her went those juicy sandwiches which I always dearly longed for. Lesson number one, love is about sharing stuff but not just food.

As I grew up, I found this awesomely cute girl with a petite nose. She was witty you know. But somehow, she always found herself in a fix. I always did my best to help her out of it, and in the process felt a strange attraction which I'd never felt before. I always used to hang back after assembly to seek an excuse to talk to her. My crush for her continued for a good long 7 years, but I did nothing about it. She always treated me as a good friend, even now she does. I always wanted to be her 'boyfriend', the guy who takes her to movies, and discusses 'stuff' with her. She always used to sit besides this guy in the English class and gaze dreamily at him. I so wanted to be this guy. She kept on changing guys, but never let me in. So I learnt lesson number two, there are two sides to a coin - the love graph is always bipartite.

I grew up to be a typical nice guy who hadn't hurt a soul, never crossed a line. But something had got to give. I was like a box that was stuffed with too many springs, bursting to be opened. There was this girl - a wild orchid. She let the devil inside me loose. She was like the wind, bursting with passion, with energy. We never really got to the words. She never really showed how she felt for me, but deep down she always cared for me. She told me that I needed a makeover - both physical and in my personality. She rekindled the killer instinct that lay dormant in me. She always lectured me on how crappy relationships can be, and how we shared a perfect bond. I knew for sure I was in love. However our relationship was a constant hide and seek, a see-sawing journey through truth and lies, love and hate, smiles and tears. We were never really true to each other, and with time, the sandcastles of love that we had fortified, dissolved amidst the unforgiving thistles of lies. I did a lot of self thinking at this time - I had lost hope in the concept of love, that there could ever be pure love, without blemish, without lies, without fear. How do you know when someone is perfect for you? Imagine yourself in your scariest moment and find that someone right beside you. I did this test on her and knew instantly that she wasn't the perfect person for me, as my scariest moment then was the time she drifted away from me. Lesson number three, lies should not orchestrate love; unless your love stands the fire of truth, it will always wane out into a pile of dust.

So what really is love? Is it just a pleasant word that we use to describe our affection, our trust or is it the precursor to the anti-feeling - hate. Friends, you want to know when you're in love. It is when you are falling down into a bottomless pit of anger and anguish and suddenly you see light above. It is when you're turning hot all over, and a calm touch makes you shiver. It is when close your eyes and see warmth in a cold, cheerless December night. It is when the angel who sits by your side, takes away all your fears. It is when the cold malice in your head stops stirring and gives way to the pure blue flames of trust and respect. It is when you see yourself in the eyes that stare back at you. It is when you see that perfect person stand by your side, in your scariest moment, hand in hand till the black clouds pass away and radiant sun rays bask you in a moment of rapture and joy. You are in love, when your partner brings out the truth in you - the goodness in you. It might even be for 7 days or a lifetime, but the fire burns unquenched. You are falling in love when you can't wait to see the cute stares and feel the smoochie woochies that cause the corners of your mouth to curl up in an innocent smile that cannot be smothered by the intricacies of life. You're rising in love when the very image of a person makes you stronger. Once you're touched by this heavenly light, you know for sure you can find your way across the abstruse maze of life.

Love is not something which you can cultivate over time. It hurts and it heals. It helps you stand up on your feet when you're wheeling after straight shots of vodka, it helps you dry up your tears when you're in the lowest point of your life. It causes you to smile when you eat bongo burgers after just 10 minutes of slow jogging. It helps you laugh when you eat corn nuggets and curly fries. It causes you to silently cry when your friend limps away from his dreams and later comes up against all odds holding crutches and winning hearts. It helps you bond with person who when giving advice, asks for a 2 minute break to sleep peacefully. It is the feeling that helps you laugh incessantly at "arre main toh yahi soch raha hoon" and later "kya makhau aatma hai yaar". It is the feeling that you store in the deepest darkest corners of your heart so that they do not wither away with the ravages of time. For a lover, love is never over.

So here's a final lesson - you don't try to find love, because love will find you.