Known as the ‘Father of English poetry’ Geoffrey Chaucer’s 14th century poem Parliament of Fowls describes a group of birds which gather together in the early spring to choose their mates for the year. This is one of the earliest references to the idea that St. Valentine’s Day is a special day for lovers.
Since then, the second week of the second month of every year has been earmarked to celebrate the essence of love and relationships. Moreover, it has turned into a significant cultural, religious, and commercial celebration of romance in many regions of the world and Odisha is no exception.
With just a couple of days to go before Valentine Day, Sunday POST caught up with a few euphoric lovers who go down their memory lane to dote their valentines.
Love is as ancient as this earth
Love is not an ‘Entitlement’; you ‘Earn’ it by making yourself ‘Worthy’ of its grace. It is a primal energy and emotion and is as ancient as this earth and civilization itself, believes bilingual romantic poet Durga Prasad Panda.
“The force, pattern and intensity around love are not something new: what is new are their outer manifestations and packaging. I believe that there is always a certain sense of ‘timelessness’ to love, leaving aside constrictions like ‘modern’ times or old times. Love brings out the best and the worst in human beings. It defies and thwarts any attempt to define or box it into fixed notions. For me, love gives you an elevation, depth and spread; all at the same point of time. Love is a splendored thing that makes the world go round itself and makes life exquisitely colourful,” says the poet.
He recalls, “During our formative years, back in the 1980s, we didn’t hear anything like Valentine Day and its significance. Unlike its brazenness today, in our small town upbringing ‘love’ was talked about in whispers, that too in a closed circle. Friends used to make fun linking one’s name with someone from the opposite sex on slightest pretext: an exchange of glance or note (book) s was cause enough to spark a murmur leading to sleepless nights, gossip, and lots of daydreaming. In those days our ideas of love originated from and shaped mostly by Bollywood films and cheap novels. No wonder, Cupid’s arrow struck us without much of a fanfare and show”.
He goes on to add that in those days when mobile phone was unheard of and land phone was a high class luxury, love found its way through artistically handwritten letters; the smell of ink, paper, sweat of her hands and the long wait surrounding it added a mysterious aura to it. But the toughest part was hiding these love letters for fear of getting caught by the prying, hawkish eyes. The whole secrecy of it was so profoundly beautiful that added a separate charm to love, recalls the poet whose poems have been anthologized thrice in British Council’s Poetry India.
Panda has always believed that love is a journey together, much like a combined exploration of an unknown city, a growing up of two bodies and souls, both individually and together.
Nothing in human affairs can be ugly
Famous author and gender specialist Hiranmayee Mishra says, “Love is limitless and is the only powerful emotion that transcends time. They may add various terms or adjectives to it, but they are mere vocabularies for me, I believe there’s nothing changed in the pattern of love.”
When asked about what ingredients cook the best relationship, Hiranmayee said, love, honesty and time. “I believe that love is the most beautiful feeling which makes you see that the world is beautiful and nothing in human affairs can be ugly”, she added.
“Expression of love has never required a strict confession, it grows gradually and people in love do feel it. Going back in time, I reminisce how letters were a wonderful means; the curiosity to write and get a response days later was intriguing. As with the passage of time, they were also carrying the growing emotion. The soft words carefully chosen, the poems, songs – these were all more than any confession,” she concludes
When ‘sharing responsibilities’ is love
Ankita Nayak, a professional photographer specialising in newborn safety and posing owns the studio ‘babystudiobyankita’.
After working in IT for five years, she decided to quit and started exploring the art of photography. Having done her diploma in photography from NYIP (New York Institute of Photography), she speaks of love in the language of photography.
Love is like films which are limited. There are no retakes once the picture is clicked, you can’t edit much into it. But you can touch and feel them, says Ankita.
“My partner has been my greatest strength throughout, we cherish our ‘me times’ as well as the family time we spend with our little one. Also, we make sure to take some time out for ourselves,” she says.
What Ankita loves the most about modern love is sharing the responsibilities be it financial or parental. Whenever she goes out of station for shoots or workshops, her husband manages everything so well. And when he needs to go for his work or just for a boys’ trip, she is there to babysit and handle the household work.
“He always encourages me to do things independently whether it’s driving to work/ calling the plumber while he takes up the daddy duties whether taking the little one for tennis classes or taking care of her after school. We literally put up notes/schedules for each other so the other person knows when to step in. My favorite part is our checklist on the white board on our fridge, which does most of our communication. We both feel it makes our life quite peaceful and stress free, knowing that someone got your back if you fall short on anything,” quips a proud Ankita.
Definition of love differs from person to person. For Ankita, love is from nurturing the child to bonding with the parents to romancing with a partner to sharing happiness with friends. It can also be the smallest of things like snuggling with your pup, cup of tea on a rainy day, a long drive with your favourite with music on or going through an old album with family, she concludes.
Love becomes transactional
The advent of a digital society has altered the very essence of love. Vintage love is like slow cooked food over charcoal, whereas modern love epitomizes fast food culture and instant gratification, says Sujit Mohanty, Assistant Professor, National Institute of Fashion and Technology (NIFT).
As modern societies become more and more intolerant and give into capitalist pursuits, love becomes transactional, devoid of patience and endurance. True love doesn’t require the approval of a social media crazy generation. Love transcends all human made boundaries and has the power to bring out the best in a person, he adds.
Stating the example of Radha and Krishna, he said, “Radha’s selfless love was the highest form of devotion. The union of Radha and Krishna may have never taken place, yet their mythological love story is truly inspirational”.
Each day is a day of love
Expressing love for your loved ones shouldn’t be limited to a specific day. You should celebrate each occasion as it’s your new day of celebration, says nutritionist and fitness consultant Priyanka Singhdeo, a woman so much in love.
We need to make an effort to do something exciting in relationships, shaking things up in relationship, trying things you don’t really do like steal a date night with your partner, sneak out late night, go on long drives, take a trip down the memory lane and recreating moments. These things end up in going back in time and reminiscing old times,” she explains.
Sharing her experience Priyanka recalls, “Initially our journey also started like any other love bird, spending hours together, talking, driving, riding and just finding space in each other’s likeness. But after getting married we just moved in with such feelings and love was taken over by responsibilities. Though initially we both struggled to manage but eventually we learnt. We learnt that we need to blend really well. I learned riding and started loving it. He found a hidden interest in workouts.”
For them now a perfect weekend would be riding on their bikes, working out together and hanging out with friends. Since they started sharing common interests now, they started their instagram page called ‘HumTumDiaries’.
“We share blogs on our experiences with riding and also food. Somewhere we feel we complement each other really well,” Priyanka says.