Love is textual, not actual.

A wise man named Confucius once asked ' Can there be a love that does not make demands on its object'? Unconditional love is often epitomized by maternal love but every time that a mother makes a sacrifice for her child, does it not reduce the love that she displays for her own self, her own needs, interests or ambitions? Or is love only a gesture that we bestow upon others and not so much upon our own selves? The truth is Love is textual, not actual - text being a representation of a written (or unwritten) language; a reference point to define the abstract, illusionary, contradictory and rather subjective concept of love. A definition for love always tends to precede its actuality so that it can exist as a valid and comprehensible concept.

Biological texts view love to be an animalistic drive, similar to hunger or thirst.They view it as a function to keep human beings together against menaces and facilitate the continuation of the species. Psychological texts, on the other hand, view it as a social and cultural phenomenon and hence regard it as an explicit human attribute. From a cultural or social viewpoint, love again has a plethora of definitions. While Western love encourages the emotion to blossom from a very young age, does not differentiate it from lust and indicates it to be rather impulsive and individualistic, Oriental or Eastern love is all about wisdom, maturity, restraint and the importance of an emotional connect over physical intimacy.

If love was indeed actual, why would we need the words on a marriage certificate to validate its existence between a man and a woman? You may have heard the story of a man who was deeply in love and happily married, but turn the page and see that his wife probably wasn't.Why would the numbers printed on the currency notes of a man's bank account or the letters next to his name - Phd, MBA, CFA, MBBS increase his chances to win his lady's heart? Why does beauty allow love to bloom faster than 'ugliness'? Probably because generations of text has spoon-fed us into loving the wealthy and the familiar, as opposed to the poor and the bizarre.

We feel the need to reach out for an Archies greeting card or celebrate a commercially driven Valentine's day or send a rather long and verbose SMS forward to express our deepest feelings of romantic love. But next time take care to actually read the message before hitting the send button or else you could land up with a text like ' I feel so miserable without you, it's almost like having you here'. Where would we be without Walt Disney's fairytales, Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet or even the country of France and its language French - considered to be the language of love. Because let's face it, if you have to seduce a stranger with your words, a French phrase may serve you better than a Bhojpuri pick up line.

Political texts also have a role to play in defining love. While political manifestos of ruling parties in certain African/Middle eastern countries consider homosexuality as a criminal activity punishable by death, in India we have actually taken a step forward to frame a Constitutional Act to recognize homosexual love. So next time I'm wondering 'does he love me? does he love me not?' I'll just pick up the Indian Constitution because apparently it contains great love advice. When it comes to religious texts, Meerabai's devotion towards Lord Krishna is considered ideal but when a fundamentalist hijacks a plane and flies it into a government building, taking his own life and the lives of thousand others - we strongly condemn it. But if his religious text tells him that the love for his God is greater than the love for his own life or those of his fellow beings, do we call him a terrorist or the most ardent lover that the world has ever seen? Such confusion would probably not arise if love was indeed actual, and not textual.

The Great Indian Family love has for generations led us to deny the abuse that runs in Indian families - whether it's domestic violence, child abuse, honor killing, female foeticide or marital rape. The popular retaliation against such claims is that such evils are concentrated mainly in the poor and illiterate families due to lack of awareness and knowledge. Then the assumption clearly is that it is education and literacy that teaches us how to love and respect - thereby proving again that love is textual and not actual.

Does true love or friendship lie in forgiving or forgetting or in getting hot blooded revenge to teach the straying lover the lesson of a lifetime, all for the greater cause of love. We've all grown up hearing the phrase ' If you love someone, set them free, they come back then they are yours, if not then they were never yours to begin with' - what if we start a Facebook petition demanding that 'if you love someone,set them free and if they come back, set them on fire' because what were they thinking, leaving in the first place?! This campaign would probably see the next few generations sharpening their 'Uma Thurman Kill Bill' claws even before they were born.

'Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise' - a curious puzzle with a new piece being added every day to the jumble. In such a situation, we have forgotten to close our eyes and reach for what is inside and instead have allowed ourselves to be increasingly hypnotized by the popular campaign of love that is incessantly preached by society and commerce.All in the form of text of course, to influence and mould our emotions even before the first heartbeat is taken. The time has arrived for us to read less, listen less and follow less - all we need is to think more, write more, ask more, live more and hopefully, love a lot more.