Through difficult times, I’ve always found strength in love. And even though the present times are so distressing that we have been rendered numb, I find that in the presence of true love, I still feel hope. As I begin to write this, what keeps coming to mind are people who made love work despite extreme hardship.
While working as an assistant producer with a TV channel in Delhi, I often crossed paths with this couple at an independent recording studio that we used. They were co-producers with another television channel. They were madly in love and so into each other.
Curiosity got the better of me and I eventually asked a friend of mine, a sound engineer, if he knew their story. The woman fell in love with the man when they were working together, he said. He resisted her. But she was relentless in her pursuit.
The man finally told her that he was HIV-positive, so there was no question of him getting into a relationship, not with her or anyone else. Apparently she didn’t flinch. This wasn’t a roadblock for her, she told him. It took her months more to convince him that she was in earnest; that she loved him and wanted to be with him. He could not resist the purity of her love and so they got together.
Of course it wasn’t that easy; there are parts of society that ensure it never is. There was immense parental pressure on the woman to choose someone else. There were raised eyebrows at the workplace — why would she pick him? Friends and colleagues told her she was embarking on “a suicide mission”.
A couple of years later, they married. Soon after, they adopted a child. They were happy for over a decade, until the husband’s health took a downward turn. He passed away a few months into their 12th year of marriage. Maybe, as some said, she could have had a longer married life. But would she have been as happy, or as loved? I sincerely doubt it.
My point here is that life is short and we never know what’s around the next corner. So why don’t we just celebrate love as we find it, especially in others’ stories? Without questioning, without scepticism or suspicion.
I know of another love story that always inspires in me a sense of hope. My friend has been wheelchair-bound since she was 11, the result of a meningitis attack. She can’t remember what it feels like to walk.
The wheelchair has not kept her homebound. She travels the world and I love her spirited demeanour. She is one of the most positive people I know. Talking to her, I always tell her, is like a dose of energy.
She found love at the age of 40. They met through a matrimonial website. Her partner dotes on her; she dotes on him. But people said such cruel things when they first got together — why is he with her? how long can it last? it’s just a matter of time before he moves on. Nine years have gone by and they care and love each other as genuinely as they ever did.
Is it easy? I am quite sure it’s not. What marriage is without its challenges? It is the power of love that keeps people together, not ease or identical hobbies, matching backgrounds or anything else as superficial as that. I hope that in these troubled times we learn to welcome all forms of love, wherever we encounter them.
In our own lives, may love give us the strength we all need at this time.
(Simran Mangharam is a dating and relationship coach and can be reached on simran@floh.in)
