THE CHAINS OF LOVE

By: Lubnah Abdulhalim

THE CHAINS OF LOVE

Photo courtesy: Unknown

Someone once said, ‘True love is like ghosts which everyone talks about but few have seen." Many people have gone up and down in search of their ‘Romeo’ or ‘Juliet’.  Many people became victims of ‘lust’ in the name of ‘love’ with the imagination of the fairy tales we read about. The youth have been so much held up in this dark cave to the extent that they can no longer stay without being in a relationship.  If I am going to trace back to our grandparents and ancestor’s time, I don’t see them having the kind of stress and depressions the youth of today have. And this is because, they very well realized that love is not everything in the world and yet still, not nothing. Many girls are weeping right now, so heart broken, so sad that the guy they trusted turned their back on them. Still, some boys somewhere have given up on life and completely lost their trust on ladies cause of a certain cheap girl who decided to play on him.

Love is that overrated feeling that can barely be described in words. For decades, people have tried to give it a definition but alas, it could never happen, because this special feeling varies from each and every person and is special in its own way.

What I could feel for my family could be pure love, for someone else; love is when he brings a present to his baby sister. Another person would describe love as when he massages her mother’s feet while for another, it is that burning feeling one feels for the opposite sex. The list could go on and on without an end. As the French proverb would explain it, ‘There is only one kind of love, but there are thousands of different copies."

Filial love is always the purest of them all. That feeling you get when your mother wakes you up with a beautiful smile and a plate on her hand for you to eat, or when you wake up and find your son washed your car for you. There’s that joy that always keeps you alive in making your family members; parents and siblings happy. After all as we all know, ‘blood is thicker than water.’ We may be married or engaged in relationships but in the end, nothing can be compared to what you feel towards your mother, father and each special individual that falls in your family tree.

The difference between prior marriage love and post marriage love may be described as a garden of flowers. Young people in search of lovers to share with a relationship, can be compared to when a young boy or girl is taken to the large garden of flowers and asked to pick the most beautiful flower in the field, he/she would rush to the first and would think ‘this is it!’ but then his eyes stray a little bit further and notices another pretty one and decides to go for the other. He will go on and on, from one flower to the next further in the field thinking, ‘I have finally found it’ and in the end, he ends up with a rotten wilted flower. While in the case of a man or woman who is genuinely looking for a life partner in matrimony when taken to the same garden of flowers, the first beautiful flower in the garden that he comes across will be sufficient for him. Thus, the love in relationships is just like taking salty water, the more you drink, the more you get thirstier.

Many have committed suicide, many have wounds that may never heal, and some remain heartbroken forever while some will never forget the deep pain of betrayal in love. Stories on love have been narrated for decades but it is important that we note that the Romeos and Juliets we read about are but an illusion that can never become a reality.

 In the bible (Corinthians 13:4-7), describes : Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.’ Just in the qur’an where love is mentioned many a times and this kind of love is always linked to the kind and generous good actions and words we say to one another.

If I were to describe love then it would be that beautiful smile you give to the orphan, the helping hand you give to your neighbour, the respect you give to your parents, the joy you create in your family, the hugs you give your friends, the charity you do to the poor, the prayers you make for the oppressed without expecting anything in return. Most importantly though is the inner love you have for yourself, for there is no day your heart will wake up and tell your soul, ‘I don’t love you anymore!’ Food for thought.