VALENTINE’S DAY: Destiny’s path

Destiny works in miraculous ways, and love is as wonderful a creation of destiny as is the human, for it delicately entwines our souls with love before we are sealed off in colourful skins and parcelled off to our respective foetuses. From there on, we are born, raised, educated if privileged, and are given ordinary lives to live and pass on. Until we find love, or love finds us.From the moment our heart skips its first beat, or rather from the moment we defy all science and logic and claim we think from the heart, the ordinariness of life somehow flees. Love takes our soul by the hand and helps it crawl out from its hiding place. It emerges from within us, like it was always a part of us, taking us by surprise. And there is no surprise more magical than the surprise of love, for its dew falls on both nettles and lilies.When together, lovers walk through the maze of life with a magic map, the twists and turns already numbered, the destination in sight from the very entrance. When apart, their hearts melt warm like a candle in a glass, falling apart and coming together at the same time.It is when touched by love that ordinary men become Rumi, Hafez and Gibran, that ordinary women give away more than they are deemed capable of so that Hafez could be Hafez, Gibran Gibran — love has no desire but to fulfil itself; to melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night; to wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving. Even after all this time, the sun never says to the earth, ‘you owe me’. Look what happens with a love like that; it lights up the whole sky.Ever since mankind, people have searched for the meaning of love, and for love itself. Those who found it wrote it down in verse, painted it on a blank canvas, played it on a violin, weaved it into a story. Those who didn’t, created the abacus, built the colosseum, invented the weighing machine.In times like the present one, where love is as much a commercial unit as a marketing gimmick, destiny has to work painfully hard to keep true love alive in the hearts of mortals. And it is a job well done on its part for the world still believes.