Today is February 14, Valentine's Day, the day when some of us celebrate this indescribable, magical thing we call love.
Merriam-Webster dictionary describes love as affection and tenderness felt by lovers. But that description does not do justice to the immensely powerful, fearsome, peaceful and maddening feeling, love evokes in the human heart.
Some disbelievers will mock at the notion of love at first sight, but it happened to me one day in college and things were never the same again. I was sitting with my friends in the university canteen cracking sick jokes, when something made me glance across the long and narrow hall.
There she was, this girl, wearing all white, sitting alone, with her head bent over a book, while all around her was the chaos of college kids on a break.
Try this sometime and trust me, it works. I found that this is the way to connect to another human being, without saying a word and even from a distance.
I gazed at her intently for about 30 seconds and then I glanced away, never to look in her direction again, for what to me seemed like ages.
Maybe that was exactly what she had done earlier and somehow I was reciprocating. When I turned my face to her again, she looked up from the book and our eyes met across the hall and it was like in the movies; the conversation and background sounds died down slowly and there was nothing else in the world but her.
Cynics and avowed bachelors and bachelorettes among you who don't believe in love, might not know this, so to find out why we celebrate St Valentine's Day, we have to go back to the time when the powerful Roman Empire practically ruled the whole world.
Emperor Claudius, it is said, wanted soldiers that would make the world quiver and tremble. He decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and children and forbade his soldiers to marry.
But in the great scheme of things by which we all free spirits live, the diktat of tyrants never counts. The soldiers found Valentine, a priest, who helped them get married in secret. It is another story that the Emperor eventually found out and killed the priest.
But love, as they say, is eternal, and that's why people today celebrate it and remember the man who brought happiness to many lonesome souls.
Strict vigil
I was born in a culture where dating was unheard of and there was no such thing as a girl having a boyfriend. Parents kept a strict vigil on their girls till they hastily married them off to someone who they thought was best for their child. "Love-marriage" was a bad word in those days.
After snooping around, I found out that her cousin lived on the same street as mine. It took a lot of work to get her home phone number out of him. "Please don't tell her where you got the number. She will kill me," he pleaded.
But trying to call her was as good as being put to death by Claudius. I just couldn't pick up the courage to dial her number. She, like me, was a Muslim, and Muslims are pretty conservative folk.
Doctors will tell you that love is nothing but your brain releasing a certain set of chemicals which stimulate its pleasure centre. The side-effects of this are known to us all; increased heart beat, loss of appetite and sleep, and the intense feeling of pleasure.
Research shows this state lasts for 18 months to 3 years. In a research study done recently doctors also found that brain scans of people in love resembled those with mental illness.
If you wish to find out how the story plays out, read next week...
