Flame of First Love Lasting A Lifetime

10-Nov-2024

It was two and a half decades ago... we (authors) got 'engaged' in the month of October -- one of us was working in a multinational investment bank and the other doing Masters. In those days, there were no mobile phones. The most advanced technology was 'Pagers', where you had to tell the call centre executive what you wanted to SMS to your 'love' -- hardly a welcome thought (This is where we invented most of the 'code words' that made no sense to the Pager Executive)!

In such circumstances, public telephone booths were our only hope. However, the availability of a Public Telephone booth near the college, college recess-break college classes and the timings of office meetings had to synchronise at one point in time to get connected for a few minutes each day (I mean. Once in a couple of hours)!

My heart usually leaps like a calf when we finally get to hear the sweet 'Helloooooo' from the other end! Occasional knocking ('banging' is the correct word) on the booth-door by others standing in line outside to make their call was the least of our concern. Our conversations never had any introductions (mostly, they started with a kind of sound that a 4 year-old would produce when gifted with a Triple-Sunday Ice cream!)... no specific subject... no take away points... We were just happy to be talking about whatever... It was sheer love! Mad over love (not doughnuts)! First love!!

Most of you have experienced this 'first love' at the beginning of married life. It is indeed supported by bio-chemicals such as Dopamine and Norepinephrine firing up through the veins. At that point, every movement and every word of the spouse brought pleasure to our hearts... even 'burnt food' gets consciously interpreted as having a nice 'Chinese taste' to avoid hurting her...

Low on first love

As the years go by, love gets 'settled' (Often, that's a synonym for the word 'dead').

An email joke that we got recently goes like this:

"A family counsellor was speaking to a group of women about their relationship with husbands. He suddenly asked them about the last time they said this magic statement of 'I Love You' to their husbands. Some said, several weeks ago, some a few months ago, have even forgotten when it was last said. He then asked all of them to send an 'I Love you' SMS to their husbands right then. When all of them did it, the counsellor collected their mobiles and started reading the responses that poured in... The first revert came with a '???'. Another lady got one that asked "Come straight to the point, how much money you need". A third SMS had an angry tone "Have you done it again?" and a fourth one, "I will murder you if you don't tell me whom you meant to have sent this SMS"!! The best was the last, of course "Who is this?"

The above joke, although said tongue in cheek, sadly portrays an average marital relationship that is run out of 'first love'! Love is 'lost' or 'almost lost' or 'mostly lost' from several marriages. When 'first love' is lost, in India it is those 'other compulsions' such as community, culture, financial considerations, children etc, often keep the marriage together from falling apart.

Perishable commodities

The very meaning of the word 'Love' is misunderstood as a kind of 'feeling towards anyone or anything'. Today one can 'love' iPhones as much as (if not more) 'loving' spouses! The problem is that all those 'lovable commodities' have an 'expiry period'. Therefore, it is not a surprise if we have started believing that even 'first love to Spouse' too will have an expiry date!

Recently we have come across a news item of a well known politician ending his 30-year-long marriage relationship. But what baffled us was that the journalists interviewing him were more keen to know who his next wife would be than feeling sad about breaking up the of his existing marriage (the tribe of journalists knows well that breaking-up of marriages are no more 'breaking news' as much as a 'scandal' that assures them eyeballs!)

Love unlimited

The Greek language has multiple words to describe different kinds of love. For example, parental love is 'Phileo', sexual love is 'Eros' and comradely love is 'Storge'. But 'agape' is one specific word exclusively reserved for the ultimate love! This word describes a kind of love that has no selfishness in it... a kind of love that seeks the good of the other person sacrificially... love that expects nothing in return!

I like you

The expression 'I like you' is far removed from 'I love you'. The 'ultimate love' is very different from the kind of 'love' that we experience in most marriages. Mark Zuckerberg thankfully gave only 'Like' symbols on Facebook. Someone recently commented that a man who had 1586 connections on his Facebook page with so many 'likes' for all his photos and words, when he died, had only 9 of them turned in for his funeral. Unfortunately, 'like' is a passing fad. It is under the law of 'diminishing marginal utility'!

Once in a counselling session, we met a man who boasted of having purchased whatever he wanted for himself on the pretext of buying a 'birthday gift for his wife'. Apparently, he expected that she would not like them, and thus he would get to use them. This is classical 'self-love'!

When love is based on 'selfishness', the resultant composure becomes a far cry from what 'first love' is supposed to be. In such adulterated concoctions, love is re-defined as 'feelings that are aimed at making oneself happy'. Own happiness is the prime motivator of such relationships. Even educating children in order to get 'credit from society' or 'being looked after by children when they become old' are the kind of love caused with selfishness.

Several so-called 'love affairs' on campuses are actually 'infatuations' that are totally tilted towards one's own pleasure. A few years ago, a distraught divorced mother brought her 15-year-old girl. The girl was pregnant by her 'boyfriend'. The sweet talk and strong assurances of the boy suddenly dried up when he realised that she was pregnant, and he just vanished from the scene. Where is the 'love' gone? It wasn't love in the first place! The youngsters were indulging in satisfying their emotional surge with the wrong notion that they are in deep love. When reality hit hard, the poor mother whom the girl used to scoff at as an 'old timer' was left crying by her side...

Embers of love

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A recent survey finding of 'internet marriages' failing miserably suggested that 'virtual love' mostly hits the rough patch soon after they are actually married. Those couples expect the comfort of 'space' to continue between them even after the marriage. This so-called 'space' is the safe distance that they wanted to keep from the commitment of love as it was during their virtual relationship.

Keeping the embers of 'first love' burning in your marriage is continuous 'hard work'. It is hard because 'unselfishness' is not so natural to human beings... it is divine. One has to have inner strength and commitment to love without expecting anything in return. It requires 'pure love' fed into the lamp of relationship day in and day out. It calls for the spirit of forgiveness and sacrifice.

After a hard day's work, when a husband returns home, the natural expectation is to be 'cared for well (pampered?) by the wife'. But what about that poor 'wife' who has spent all the day at home dealing with moody children, the heat of the kitchen, laundry and loneliness?! Can her plight ever be the single most concern of her husband when he is returning from work?

That is where 'Like' gets distinguished from 'Love'!

^{1} Bible - 1 John 4:8