A Hypocritical Discourse on Amor

A Hypocritical Discourse on Amor

 

Disclaimer: This discourse is based on a true lecture delivered somewhere someday. Resemblance to any character or situation is purely coincidental. 'Progressive minded' and 'intellectuals' are discouraged to delve into it.

Amor in Spanish means love. Love is indeed cringeworthy to avid readers of blogs but this is an objective overview of love, a generalisation through all ages and quite 'hypocritical' but ultimately defining the truth of 'love game'.

Wikipedia defines love as a variety of different emotional and mental states, typically strongly and positively experienced, that ranges from deepest interpersonal affection to simple pleasure. Science interprets love to be a chemical or more precisely an electrochemical phenomenon in brain. They relate to pheromones, hormones, neurotransmitters, neurons and all of everything that hits a bottom to make the subject an impenetrable one to science itself. When nearly 80% of intra-cranial activities remain undiscovered, we really cannot declare love to be a scientific domain. When all world is a domain of amor, we cannot define amor to a layman but everyone claims to understand that, feel that and experience that. Literature is all about amor, movies are all amorous, and songs -think of it; why are we attracted to something that we do not understand? The answer is curiosity to know what no one can define to understandability. Curiosity -the virtue that has always brought the fall to humans.

But love; why do we love is not the question, the question is how to love? We are loving and craving for love since time immemorial but who taught us to love? In ancient times, the degree of love and whom to love was determined by women and by the martial capabilities. War heroes, lieutenants, generals, brave men were fantastic choices. Public Husband Choosing Ceremonies were organised for a martial circus! But it was all governed by patriarchy. There is not a single war in mythological history, where the reason had not been a woman -from Helen to Draupadi and Sita. The main reason being sexual desire towards an alpha female. 'Swayambhars' were arranged just to avoid wars and scuffles and most of the time they were just farcical and scripted beforehand.

In modern times, the choice of mate depends upon the bank balance or economic stability of the male, however able may the female be. In this love game, a male has clearly to play by the ancient codes of courtship and chivalry, even though feminism has come and times have changed, but feminism exists just under the wings of patriarchy. Clinging on to the love game is tough for men. There are no set rules or guide books or anything to teach a layman how he should love. Curriculum does not talk about it, teachers and parents forbid it and he thinks that he came as a gift of God till he gets in contact of porn or some 'real' friend. The climax of love is sex. No one loves just to love and there's nothing called platonic love in an opposite-sex friendship. So 'he' does not know how to love? No, he knows but he does not know how to express his love.

There is a famous Jazz song in which the singer ventures out to understand love. He goes to Einstein first and he replies, "Love is a matter of relativity." Then he goes to a priest and he opines that love is a divine blessing. In the end the singer in distress declares that though he took on love, as he entered into the subject, it got all the more muddy. There are books like 'Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus'. You can delve into it but can never fully understand it. It is like a maze, you can surely get into it but never get out. Now the question arises, how all men loved these days? Remember, we are not talking of the females, but only the males. They really do suffer and toil, get frustrated and leave, gets tagged as a cheat and generalised. They sometime do assault to, we get a glint of it in Pope's Rape of the Lock. Pope himself also supports it somehow from a patriarchal outlook. Snipping of hair in the mock epic is merely a synecdoche, cutting hair symbolises rape. Belinda in Canto IV says to Sir Peter, her assaulter,

"Oh hadst thou, Cruel! been content to seize

Hairs less in sight, or any Hairs but these!"

This means somehow that Belinda says, if it was to assault her, Sir Peter could've done it in private, not in public. One of the first pillars of courtship being 'privacy'.

The first rule of ancient courtship is, the suitor should propose courteously and do everything for his love, but the lady should and must refuse him anyway, but the suitor must never leave his venture. What does it prove? You can actually destroy yourself leaching a girl while she benefits herself with attention, gifts and advantages; and also she can be courted by many men but a man shall always court only one lady.

Then comes the other issues. T.S. Elliot's Essay on Tradition says that men learn new ways imitating others. Who told you that 14th February is Valentine's Day. You are out with your girlfriend and hiding your real self, being the best guy you ever did and suppressing the need of smoking a cigarette all day -just because some lovers in some country declared it as their day of love to save themselves from being moral policed by their society. Now you go out with your girl to a restaurant, you pull the chair for her, who told you to? You do because if you don't, your 'independent' girlfriend might not see you as an able husband. Dinner done, you book a cab and it arrives. You open the door for her and let her in. Why? Because of the same reason. You accompany her to her home to ensure that she is safe all through but you don't get a glass of water at her house because her father is too strict about his daughter. What does it prove? Why should you love if your parents don't allow it? Because love is an uncontrollable feeling (or carnal attraction is?). With it, services are free for her. You got to gift her a red rose, quite obviously, but why? Why red? Because all the other colours celebrate friendship, grief and other things already. There is not a single specific reason for a red rose for expressing love -as for the colour represents revolution, patriotism, warmth. The closest reason for gifting red rose is -the colour excites and aggravates sexual desires. Research says, a woman in red can attract 70% more males than a woman of same attributes in a different colour.

This discourse ends with a story. It's a real one. There was a guy who knew nothing about girls till he went for the University. A typical nerd he was and he was shy to talk to girls. One day, two girls of his class came up to him and asked him if he could accompany them to a trip to TajMahal. The guy was shocked and overwhelmed, why Taj? But as it turned out to be, the plan was staying a night at Agra and then returning back. The girls told him not to tell this to anyone and asked him to book the train tickets. The guy readily agreed though he had never booked a train ticket earlier. Somehow he could do it and they went. The guy was too happy and proud, there were many guys in his class, but these girls came to him only. They enjoyed the trip as all friends so and came back. Now he got all the more curious -is he heading towards something he had never experienced? Three days passed, but the girls kept him on his toes. At last, this guy consulted one of his seniors, what to do. He did not get something useful though. The next day, these girls came up to him and declared that from that moment, they are not friends anymore and the guy should never see them personally or talk to them at any pretence.

What did go wrong? The guy actually violated one if the fundamentals of courtship -privacy; though they were two girls who could consult among themselves and reaped all benefits from the guy still men love unconditionally, because we are symbiotic organisms. Feminists say, men exist because women menstruate, but it should also be acknowledged that they exist because men ejaculate. To men it all ultimately comes down to sex after everything. But its sex with benefits and a lot more with 'terms and conditions' to women. Love is indeed physical because its really hard for men to love.