This stray thought have been taken from ” 60 Stray Thoughts” 1983-2007 with Rajan Narayan celebrating his 60th birthday compiled by Tara Narayan

By Rajan Narayan

AND a few stray thoughts on love is a many splendoured emotion. It is an emotion that springs from the deepest recesses of the heart. It is an emotion that of fierce. It is an emotion that is tender. It is an emotion that is selfish. It is an emotion that is very demanding. It is an emotion that is undemanding as the giving is spontaneous. It is an emotion that is as scorching in its intensity. It is an emotion that is soothing. It is an emotion that inflamed the senses. It is an emotion that can benumb the mind. It is an emotion that can be overpowering. Yet it is an emotion that will make you tranquil. It is an emotion that can make you feel secure. It is an emotion that make you feel serene. It is an emotion that make you mellow. It is an emotion that makes you feel possessive yet an emotion that sets you free. It is an emotion that can provoke deep anxieties. It is an emotion that can calm you. It is an emotion that can provoke deep insecurities. But requisite love can also root and anchor and fulfill. At peace with yourself. At peace with the world.
Love is not a transitory fleeting surge of feeling. Love is not just the shirring of the senses. Love is the churning of the soul. Love is not just a passing bounce. Love is that unique total feeling of oneness. Love make no demand but love means endless spontaneous giving. There are no condition. There are no doubts. There is no holding back. There are no pretenses. There are no subterfuges.. There are no expectations. There are no evasions. There are no ifs and buts and whys and where’s. There are no maybes. Love is total acceptance. Warts and all. Love is total unconditional surrender. Love is unshakeable, unquestioning and confident in the loved one. Love is total surrender. Love is coming together. Love is sublimation of the self. Love is the obliteration of the I. Love is the subjugation of the ego. Love is caring. Love is sharing. Love is holding fast. Love is letting go. Love is tenderness. Love os tolerance. Love is not having to say sorry. Love is a willingness to say sorry. Love is willingness to say sorry every time, all the time. Love is forgiving. Love is patient. Love is tender loving car. In good times and in bad.
In sickness and in health. For better and for worse. Till death does you part. Love is not blind. Love is omniscient. Love is very perceptive. Love sees beyond the sex force. Love gaze penetrates the heart and mind and the very soul. It sees and knows that the deimple is a wrinkle. It sees and knows the beauty spot is a mole. It sees and knows that the bravado and daring hint at most deep insecurities. It sees and knows that behind the smile there is a pain. behind the joy there are unshed tears. That behind the substance there are shadows. That nehind the lipstick and the rouge and the mascara there are the pimple and the acne. That behind the aura of confidence, there are doubts and anxieties and uncertainities. True love, genuine love, mature love can see beyond appearances. It can penetrate the myths. It can look at the stark reality. It can look at the infirmities. It can see the frailties. It can see the imperfections. It can see the inadequacies. It can see the feet of clay. It can see and sense and recognize the weaknesses.
It can see and sense and feek the vulnerabilities. True love, genuine love can penetrate the layers of pretence and see and recognize the stark realities about the other. True love, mature love can see and yet accept. Accept the other in totality. Love demands total transparency. Love demands total honesty. Love demands that you are totally completely aware of the other. There should be no need dye your hair. There should be no need to decorate , embellish. There should be no need to do behind masks. There is no room for deceit. There is mo room for lies,not even the white lies. There is no need for excuses. There is no need to pretend. There is no need to hide your feelings. There is no need to avoid or erode the truth above each other. There is no room dishonesty. There is no need to be polite. There is no need to be other than what you are. True love, genuine love means accepting the other with all the faults and all the vulberabilities, all the physical and emotional and psychological deficiencies. True love means total trust. True love, genuine love, mature love means ability and willing to be able to communicate. Communicate fully and totally and completely and openly and communicate with total candour. The ability and willingness to call a space a shovel. A willingness to communicate at all levels. A willingness to show your deepest fears and anxities. Willingness not just to sho share your joys but your sorrows. A willingness to articulate and share your innermost thoughts and desires, your doubts and anxieties and your fears and frustrations. Even your feelings of anger or even disgust. Love is very fragile, tender plant. It needs to be nursed and nurtured. And the best way of ensuring that the sapling will grow tall and strong and blossom and bloom, is to maintain total communication and all times. Communication need not be verbal it can be visual. It can be emotional. It can be telepathic. It can be through silence. To communicate you need to be able to listen to the sound of silence.
Being in love means to be conscious of the significant other in your life twenty-four-hours of the day, 365 days in a year and 3066 das in a leap year. Being in love means being sensitive to the significant other in your life. Being in love means not jusr sympathizing but accepting the sounds and the smells of the significant other. Being in love means a willingness to discuss your difference an accept each other’s beliefs and values and lifestyles.. Being in love ,eans a willingness and readiness to adjust. A willingness and readiness to accept the other’s point of view. a willingness and readiness to agree to disagree. Being in love means to protect and preserve and promote the autonomy of the significant other. Being in love means infinite patience. There is a thesis, antithesis and sunthesis. On continued basis very often love does not survive marriage becasue once Loved ones get married, they tend to take each other for granted. They tend to become complacent. They tend to become insensitive. They tend to get bogged down in minute, mundane, day-to-day travails. They lost that spark. The spark in their eyes becomes a male. The glitter in the gold band may wear off with time.
But you must not let the glow of love to die down. You must not let it flicker. It must burn steadily and steadfastly. It may not have the scorching heat and intensity of courtship. It may not have the sparkling glitz of immidiate aftermath of marriage. But you need to endeavor to sustain it. Retian its warmth. Particularly in the times when the encircling gloom threatens to overwhelm you. The fiery passion of first love should mature like vintage wine, into warm, tender, caring, sharing, giving, companionship. Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, the day dedicated to love and lovers. A time to reflect on the various aspects of love.