Love ke liye kuch bhi karega...
By Paromita Vohra
Some people shout it out from the rooftops.
Others go several miles higher and declare it by hijacking airplanes. That’s what a 59-year-old Egyptian man, Seif Eddin Mustafa did on Wednesday—when he hijacked a plane wearing a fake suicide belt and insisted he get to contact his ex-wife, in Cyprus. It was a bit of an early April Fool’s joke where the only laughter was one of relief – except from his angrily embarrassed ex-wife.
Channel V too used to have a show called Love Ke Liye Kuch Bhi Karega, in which people performed acts ranging from the ludicrous to the dangerous to prove their love.
And Hindi films often have scenes where men recklessly endanger themselves to prove the intensity and supposed purity of their love to women who aren’t giving them patta. Just before threats of self-destruction turn into action, the women always scream nahin!, capitulate and cue in: love duet.
Are these people just fools for love, then?
To an extent it remain a mystery, what selfendangerment has got to do with love. Especially to those of us who are Meatloafers, which is to say, those of us whose theme song is: I Can Do Anything For Love, But I Won’t Do That – ‘that’ being a long list in my case, which includes losing sleep, losing appetite, going bankrupt, climbing mountains or water tanks, and last but not least, giving in to emotional blackmail.
Because that’s what all these behaviours are, aren’t they? Emotional Blackmail? Not to mention Emotional Conmanship in which the blackmailer makes their happiness other people’s responsibility. Falling for that would make you the real fool in love – and that’s a joke that quickly grows old for most people – leaving The Joker in the story mad.
However, Emotional Blackmail is much lauded by everyone and those who do foolish things, allegedly for love, become “pyar mein mashoor” as evinced by the fact that one man took grinning selfies with the Egyptian hijacker.
Maybe for spectators, the appeal of such acts is metaphorical. Our brain chemistry and our cultural conditioning both ensure that we experience love as an unreal state—where the judgements of self-preservation are abandoned, dizzying emotional highs and lows experienced, and a leap of faith and courage demanded. Love hijacks our senses, holds us ransom to its own demands.
Thus, a narrative where all of these emotional experiences are rendered in heightened terms, maybe resonates with our experience of love. That is why, in their own peculiar way, such narratives sometimes make meaning in art or culture.
However, its literal translation into everyday life, is really an act of aggression, designed to punish the person who does not return your love with embarrassment, discomfort and public censure.
When less dangerous, as in the case of a hamhanded fake hijacking, or a poorly constructed bomb hoax call, there is a pathos in an aggression that refuses to accept another’s refusal. It is a kind of public storytelling that overrides the private truth. It is forcibly yoking another’s name to your own, joining them with you in a public story, mythologising and making “mashhoor” a love that doesn't exist.
Some people shout it out from the rooftops.
Others go several miles higher and declare it by hijacking airplanes. That’s what a 59-year-old Egyptian man, Seif Eddin Mustafa did on Wednesday—when he hijacked a plane wearing a fake suicide belt and insisted he get to contact his ex-wife, in Cyprus. It was a bit of an early April Fool’s joke where the only laughter was one of relief – except from his angrily embarrassed ex-wife.
Mr Mustafa’s act belongs to established tradition. Just last year, right here, in the land of the lovelorn and lovesick, a vengeful lover apparently made a bomb hoax phone call, claiming a woman was carrying a bomb on a train from Diva. It turned out the two had been romantically involved and when she broke it off, this is how he exacted revenge.
Channel V too used to have a show called Love Ke Liye Kuch Bhi Karega, in which people performed acts ranging from the ludicrous to the dangerous to prove their love.
And Hindi films often have scenes where men recklessly endanger themselves to prove the intensity and supposed purity of their love to women who aren’t giving them patta. Just before threats of self-destruction turn into action, the women always scream nahin!, capitulate and cue in: love duet.
Are these people just fools for love, then?
To an extent it remain a mystery, what selfendangerment has got to do with love. Especially to those of us who are Meatloafers, which is to say, those of us whose theme song is: I Can Do Anything For Love, But I Won’t Do That – ‘that’ being a long list in my case, which includes losing sleep, losing appetite, going bankrupt, climbing mountains or water tanks, and last but not least, giving in to emotional blackmail.
Because that’s what all these behaviours are, aren’t they? Emotional Blackmail? Not to mention Emotional Conmanship in which the blackmailer makes their happiness other people’s responsibility. Falling for that would make you the real fool in love – and that’s a joke that quickly grows old for most people – leaving The Joker in the story mad.
However, Emotional Blackmail is much lauded by everyone and those who do foolish things, allegedly for love, become “pyar mein mashoor” as evinced by the fact that one man took grinning selfies with the Egyptian hijacker.
Maybe for spectators, the appeal of such acts is metaphorical. Our brain chemistry and our cultural conditioning both ensure that we experience love as an unreal state—where the judgements of self-preservation are abandoned, dizzying emotional highs and lows experienced, and a leap of faith and courage demanded. Love hijacks our senses, holds us ransom to its own demands.
Thus, a narrative where all of these emotional experiences are rendered in heightened terms, maybe resonates with our experience of love. That is why, in their own peculiar way, such narratives sometimes make meaning in art or culture.
However, its literal translation into everyday life, is really an act of aggression, designed to punish the person who does not return your love with embarrassment, discomfort and public censure.
When less dangerous, as in the case of a hamhanded fake hijacking, or a poorly constructed bomb hoax call, there is a pathos in an aggression that refuses to accept another’s refusal. It is a kind of public storytelling that overrides the private truth. It is forcibly yoking another’s name to your own, joining them with you in a public story, mythologising and making “mashhoor” a love that doesn't exist.
Disclaimer: The views expressed here are the author's own. The opinions and facts expressed here do not reflect the views of Mirror and Mirror does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.
