Heer - Ranja .. it's a story I heard very long ago. Nothing about it comes to mind, except this picture of young lovers, in a desert maybe, their faces drawn with intensity and pain, and their clothes - him, in white kurta, colored jootis, a sash around the waist; her - slim, a light colored lehnga, thick strands of deep black hair.
Ah, love ! The above description aside, for it's most likely a memory of some poster .. the couple were very likely real. Heer - Ranja .. is a symbol now, from the past; like the Kada - steel bracelet, which Sikhs wear to show their dedication to valor. A symbol though of something real. For those of us who might wonder, or seek in our own lives, this very real thing, called love.
Much as I might like, I will not dwell on this often found coupling of love .. and Beauty. We've seen beauty abundantly in nature, in birds, in sunrises and sunsets, or by an expanse of water stretching into the horizon, in the night sky even looking at a distant moon, sprinkled with stars.
We've admired the forms of women on posters, their graceful dresses. As often, just the sinewing forms. We've felt an attraction, which might have been of lust.
But love, they say is a gentle thing .. and, love as they also say is immortal. It does not perish. Many of us are only willing to take this metaphorically. Yet, this idea is there along with the others, that some things transcend our lives. Even become the reason for the next one.
I haven't heard of women in India asking their husbands .. why don't you bring me flowers ? It does not mean the same as it does in other countries. Nor that kiss as one of them goes out in the morning, or does missing it mean what it might elsewhere. Love in India is somewhere in the same realm where other things, other worldly, are to be found. Expressed in this lifetime with no less an open heart, bare, vulnerable, which we would like to offer to our Maker.
Enough of questioning, does He exist, or does He not ! Silence those doubtings in your mind. You are in a way, like two simple birds, sparrows; flitting from tree to tree, parapets to parapets. Nesting, feeding the young, watching them learn to fly, maybe even witness to some tragedy. Love, life, Devotion, God .. it is all the same.
Ah, love ! The above description aside, for it's most likely a memory of some poster .. the couple were very likely real. Heer - Ranja .. is a symbol now, from the past; like the Kada - steel bracelet, which Sikhs wear to show their dedication to valor. A symbol though of something real. For those of us who might wonder, or seek in our own lives, this very real thing, called love.
Much as I might like, I will not dwell on this often found coupling of love .. and Beauty. We've seen beauty abundantly in nature, in birds, in sunrises and sunsets, or by an expanse of water stretching into the horizon, in the night sky even looking at a distant moon, sprinkled with stars.
We've admired the forms of women on posters, their graceful dresses. As often, just the sinewing forms. We've felt an attraction, which might have been of lust.
But love, they say is a gentle thing .. and, love as they also say is immortal. It does not perish. Many of us are only willing to take this metaphorically. Yet, this idea is there along with the others, that some things transcend our lives. Even become the reason for the next one.
I haven't heard of women in India asking their husbands .. why don't you bring me flowers ? It does not mean the same as it does in other countries. Nor that kiss as one of them goes out in the morning, or does missing it mean what it might elsewhere. Love in India is somewhere in the same realm where other things, other worldly, are to be found. Expressed in this lifetime with no less an open heart, bare, vulnerable, which we would like to offer to our Maker.
Enough of questioning, does He exist, or does He not ! Silence those doubtings in your mind. You are in a way, like two simple birds, sparrows; flitting from tree to tree, parapets to parapets. Nesting, feeding the young, watching them learn to fly, maybe even witness to some tragedy. Love, life, Devotion, God .. it is all the same.