'LAHORE – A desperate young man killed his 18-year-old girlfriend, a student of Kinnaird College for Woman, and moments later also took his own life at the foot bridge built in front of the college on the Jail Road, eyewitnesses said. The death dance was danced on Monday afternoon.' (Courtesy The Nation)
How can you kill someone you love? The boy didn't love the girl and definitely confused his ignoble vanity with such a noble thing as love. Such a deplorable act can only stem from a patriarchal society where males don't cease to impose their will on the other weaker sex. The guy must have been a psycho or abnormal person. These are the stereotypical reactions that I have witnessed in the aftermath of this tragic incident.
The purpose of my blog entry is not to exploit the current situation but rather to explore the complexity of the situation that is generally dismissed summarily by our society. I am using this example as a means to an end. For years I have been thinking about the issue of dark side of love. Nothing can be worse than the recent episode. So, the question arises then what is love? Was the guy really in love with the girl? I think the answer is not a simple 'yes' or 'no'.
Despite being a romantic myself, I have always held the belief that love is perhaps the most selfish of all human desires. As an ideal, love is deceptive. It deceives us into thinking that in love we negate our self for the beloved. This is probably the most commonly held view. In popular culture, Love seems to be equated with selflessness or self abnegation. I object to this understanding. Love genealogically stems from selfishness. Love is not begging; its appropriation. What is love of knowledge then? Its nothing other than possessing knowledge. Same applies to romantic love. Its emanates from human selfishness. The problem arises when the ego devises a strategy to 'win over' the other by giving the pretense of altruistic garb. In fact, the ego makes the lover believe this pretense. Blinds him.
In my view, nothing demonstrates the truth of my diabolical take on love than this current tragedy. The boy may genuinely have been in love with the girl. He might genuinely have thought that his life revolves around that girl. The question then arises as to how could the guy had done such a deplorable act? The answer may not have depended solely on one factor but the dominant factor seems to be the selfish love impulse. The impulse to possess. Reckless lovers make their beloved the center of their universe. Their only idol. So, when failure in love encounters them; they prefer being an iconoclast to being pagans. They destroy the same idol they had themselves created.
In conclusion, every beautiful thing of value emanates from something immoral or bad. The root of flower is always ugly. Love is no different either. Such a holy thing stems from something so unholy i.e Vanity.
Yet each man kills the thing he loves
By each let this be heard.
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word.
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!
(Oscar Wilde- Ballad of the Gaol)
No comments:
Post a Comment