Love?

Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.

-Theseus, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

This is what Shakespeare had to say on the topic of lovers.

It’s funny how the virtues of ubiquity, omnipresence, omnipotence, world turningness and so much more is attributed to love and yet when it comes to putting it into words, all we’ve reached thus far is that it is what happens when a couple of pheromones, dopamine and oxytocin form a potent enough amalgamation to trigger the pleasure center of the brain. The other more widely accepted understanding of love is that it is the delirious euphoria that brings with it tornadoes and typhoons capable of ravaging entire villages and gentle breezes that can barely support a feather. But neither the winds nor the chemicals are of any help to the millions of people out there who weather the tribulations of relationships and “love”

Be it the frenzies of lust that devour young couples or the pails of silence that fill the hearts of the more wizened, love manifests itself in many ways. How then, are two mortals meant to realize if what they feel is an entwinement of their souls that outlasts the sun and the stars or the ephemeral fling of a moth to a fire.

And then there are the doubts. “What is love?” “Will this love last?” “Has the love faded out?” To answer all this, the answer to one question suffices.

“Am I in love?”. The answer can come from something as innocuous as “Radha Kaise Na Jale” from Lagaan . Love is when all the songs make sense.