BENGALURU: In a popular Indian myth, a god asks if the person praying for favour would like to meet someone they would love fiercely, experience the love deeply and fully, but only to lose them exactly a year later, at the end of which they are destined to lose this love and forever be in the pain of that loss.
Or they could choose a nice, long life which would be purposeful and hold lots of meaning, but they would not experience the fullness of love - they would marry, even have children if they want, but never really experience romantic love, certainly nothing that will tear their heart apart. In the myth, the person chooses love, lives that one year fully and deeply, and at the end of that time, when the god comes to claim the loved one, manages somehow to pull a fast one, impress the god and keep the loved one forever.
In reality though, if you really get a choice between a generally mediocre life, but with a great love, or a largely lacklustre love life, but a comfortable, successful and long life -- which would you choose, especially if you can’t really hope for the kind of luck that the person in the myth had?
Many times, it is not really a choice that one actively chooses, but something that is thrust upon us. We move through life as a series of milestones, and especially in India, communities hold their life to a timeline of sorts where people are expected to study, work, marry, save money and so on at set ages. We are often driven to fulfil these milestones even if it is at the cost of possible love. We are told love will happen, and while it sometimes does, often it does not. On the other side, families often push young people away from romantic love in the name of social compatibility, family pride or other such notions.
The choice between love or life is a very real choice that many Indians face. It is not just a myth that we hear, but a lived reality. Romantic love is not a given with the way families socialises us, and yet, the movies and stories celebrate romantic love. Should we act per Lord Tennyson’s maxim, “ ‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all”, or should we aim for a life that offers everything else, but not necessarily love?
Studies that look at people at the end of their lives and ask which choice they made and which they wish they had made, seem to indicate that people mostly talk with regret of not taking the chance for romantic love. At the end of the day, to experience true romantic love is such a privilege that people wish for it.
We all may not get a chance at romantic love in our lives, but if it does come, to discard it might just become the one thing we regret.