Every time I ask myself why I should be writing on this thing called love, I am reminded of only one person – Syed Zubair Hasan. Yes, that is me of course. I am the very same person who never believed in love outside any relationship, showed disrespect to every person who was involved in such a relationship and also wrote a blog-posting which had 19 reasons that one should keep away from love marriages.
I never believed in love outside any relationship that came with birth. I never believed that love could exist between friends. I thought that the relationship between husband and wife is just a written agreement arising due to some religious compulsions that have been enforced upon us by Allah and that are to be followed because not doing so would lead to consequences in the hereafter. I only trusted in relationships bonded by the same blood.
I disregarded every person who said he/she was in love with some person who was not related to him/her. I assumed firstly that there was no such thing such as love that can happen between two people who have absolutely nothing between. Let alone two strangers. I supposed that anything that can happen between a boy and a girl would be some cultured physical attraction bringing them close – their youth speaking. I pitied these people for their lack of self control.
Whenever there is a proposal to do something, all the possibilities including consequences are weighed, measured and calculated. When something is to be adopted as a standard or a virtue, it is seen that it has more merits than demerits. A plan or a concept with better, valid and rational returns is opted for. Likewise, if there is an idea that needs to be dropped, it’s demerits and negative consequences are taken as the reason for letting it go. A careful study has to be made before deciding anything. A very strong and a concrete reason is required to believe in something that can hurt.
You can’t fully believe in something unless, for at least once, you doubt it’s validity. It is again the weighing of all the merits and demerits of the idea you plan to adopt. It is only for a person of good mental strength to be function with two things in his mind. To be functional, his analyzing capabilities are tested and how much he can endure accounts to how well he can take things that can hurt him. I may not be so good at all this, but I intend to know what good is with an aim to have it deposited within me.
Through my post, ‘Modus Operandi of Love Marriages’, I meat to make two things – tell myself that there are many disadvantages of getting into a love marriage, and explain others that for a love marriage to survive successfully, the husband and wife need to work a lot, not just for their spouses but for themselves, and that it takes them to have some extra ordinary qualities. I never criticized love marriages.
Coming down all through these years I have seen and experienced till now, I have learnt that I was wrong in thinking that love can’t exist outside any implicit relationship; I was rude and execrable in having contempt for people getting into ‘love marriages’. I was wrong that husband – wife relationship was just some paperwork; it the most beautiful relationship Allah has created. I was a fool to think that a boy and a girl can never fall in love that is pure.
If a boy loves a girl and intends never to get close to her or become friends with her, doesn’t even want to talk to her, doesn’t want to look at her because that would be a bad gesture in a way if it is misunderstood, doesn’t want to keep showing to her that he is after her, and respects her the most, and intends to marry her in the future when the time is right, is he erroneous?
If the guy’s parents have themselves told him that he has the perfect liberty to choose the girl he wants to live his life with, then, is the boy not free enough to make some decisions for himself?
If this guy has never seen a girl the way he has seen this girl he loves, never flirts with anybody, never looks up at any other girl unless he has got something to do with her, never tries to get too close to any girl he already knows, can never think of anything other girl in his life, can never stop dreaming of her, always wants to be with her all though his life and love her the most, is it something that may have Allah’s displeasure?
Yes, it can definitely have Allah’s displeasure. A boy is not supposed to take a second glance at a girl he has seen once. What if he did that mistake and loved himself for doing it? What if he has thanked Allah for showing him that girl? What if he asks Allah’s forgiveness and begs Allah that he gets to have that girl with him all through his life? I know Allah may still be unhappy with him. We are not supposed to commit sins and justify them later….
What can he do now? Cry? Punish himself? Punish himself by trying to forget her? Hurting himself trying to believe that there is nothing called as love and he is not supposed to get into a love marriage because it has more disadvantages than advantages?
And what if that girl doesn’t love him? What if she never gives him a chance even to talk to him? What if she becomes cold towards him to such an extent that he thinks she hates him and tries to avoid him? What if he cries daily and asks Allah to help him though but doesn’t know what thing could be of help to him – forgetting her or having her love him?
He wants to have her in his life. He doesn’t know what it would mean if she really started to love him.
The last but one paragraph was “So finally, I would like to repeat what I had written even before listing out the demerits – it takes at least one of the two spouses or both of them to have something extra, more than what is required from those in arranged marriages, in them to have a successful relationship and a peaceful life.”
The last paragraph was “The rest is left for the readers to comprehend. We all have been obliged with the capacity to think, differentiate, analyze, judge and decide. A decision needs to be followed by an action.”
They both will remain the same. I still don’t know about me!
My poems are on xubayr2.blogspot.com "Gridlocked"