Sir,
It is heartening to read that Presidency University Kolkatta is all set to introduce a new course on ‘love’ from the next Semester Love is a basic human emotion and it is in fact, the basis ofall life. Our emotional need for love is just as great as our physical need for air, water and food. True and unconditional love for someone is not bound by the laws of human behaviour and it has the power to heal all wounds. It can not be defined though it is possible to experience love . It can not be bought or sold. It can face every obstacle and it is the life’s greatest blessing of God. But one cannot love others unless one starts loving onself. True love demands sacrificing everything without demanding anything in return. It cannot be forced or demanded and it takes time to bloom.
Love is the most popular theme of literature and all creative arts. If we take ‘love’ out of literature nothing is left it. But love has different connotations for different people. For a philosopher, love is a passionate commitment between two people. We have love for parents, children, partner, country and so on all having different qualities. For a lover, love for this beloved is such a strong drive that deprived of it he feels all consumed and hollow from within. He can dig tunnels through mountains, write passionate poems or kill hundreds to take revenge on a rival-all for the sake of his beloved.
But unfortunately, no sincere effort has been made to conduct research on this most sublime and basic emotion so far. Now the prescribed course on love will help the scholars conduct research on the sociological and psychological implications of this sublime emotion and offer them an opportunity to decipher its true/real meaning and differentiate between what love is and what love is not.
They will get a chance to conduct intensive research as to what was it that inspired Shah Jahan to build, The Taj Mahal, drove Romeo and Jullet as also Antony and Cieopatra to end their lives. We will also come to know whether orders of the Khap-Panchayats not to opt for love marriages, acid attacks, rapes and murders committed in the name of love are justified or not. Last but not the least, we will be able to analyse different types of love,strength of bond between them and resolve the enigma if there is any love more powerful and sublime than a mother’s love for a child.
Yours etc….
Ashok Sharma
Lecturer in English
Govt. Hr. Sec. School,
Barolla (Udhampur)
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