What is love? Let's discuss shall we?

Despite the botched job by the writers I think this show raises a lot of pertinent questions on love, relationship, marriage, trust & loyalty. Is too much of trust also a bad thing? Should we necessarily choose loyalty over love? What causes relationships to click or fail? Is the sanctity of marriage inviolate. And above all WHAT IS LOVE?

From the outset this show made me ponder over this question. What is the definition of love? How do u know if you truly love someone & how to know someone truly loves you. And this emphasis on the adjective TRUE. I mean y do we say true love, surely there cant be something called FALSE LOVE can it? Either you love or you dont? Love is not a boolean with TRUE or FALSE qualifier can it?

I ve never understood love. For eg take this fictional show. I even re-watched the initial episodes & what I saw in Kunal's eyes was love mixed with desire. Even if we consider that instead of this Maggi Instant Noodles wala divine love the CVs had shown a slow progression of feelings between K & N, is that still really realistic. Does that mean that what we saw in Kunal's eyes was not actually love. Which again brings us back to the rhetorical question THEN WHAT IS LOVE? We know there are different forms of love. Love of a mother, Love of a father, Love of siblings, Love of friends but in the context of this show lets discuss only about the most obvious one, the love between a man & a woman. What makes 2 people bond & fall in love. I dont agree when people say that looks dont matter. At some level it definitely matters. For the 1st time its the looks that draw us towards a person. I mean how do u know a person's character in the 1st meeting. So the 1st thing which draws us towards that person is the look. Now this need not necessarily be beauty in the conventional sense. For eg some women might be drawn towards tall, lean men. Some men may be drawn towards curvy women with a captivating smile. But somewhere appearance is definitely present in the equation. Of course from here its a logical progression from just outward looks to more non-superficial things like shared tastes, defining qualities, sense of humor, strength in character etc. But there is no denying that every guy or gal has a type. Here if we go by this logic can we assume that Kunal's type is curvy, demure, traditional looking woman? Nandini definitely ticks all these boxes.

So from attraction we move to the next phase which is bonding & then the slow process of falling in love. Is there a timeline? Every1 here including me had a problem with this instalove between K & N. We thought at that time its so unrealistic. But is the process of falling in love time bound. If so what is it? 1 month, 1 year, 10 years? Mine was an arranged marriage. I can be candid & say that what we had initially was not even care & affection. There were lots of MUs because of his mom & we were literally at each others' throats. Forget about love we literally hated each other. But now after 14 years if I realistically assess our relationship I can safely say that yes definitely we love each other. But if you ask when or how did I finally fall in love I cant answer that. I really dont know. Somewhere in all this routine life, hectic career, pregnancy, death of loved ones (my dad), children we did end up falling in love. It's strange because there was no special wooing phase from either of us. So how did this happen & how come I dint even realize it? But we can find glimpses of this love in little, trivial things. He doesnt give me any bday or anniversary gifts but when I am angry or sad he orders my fav food. When I ve cramps during periods he makes Lemon Juice for me because I dont eat anything at tat time. I am not the traditional, caring wife but every day when I cook I ensure that the menu has at least 1 item that he likes. Sometimes in sleep without realizing we end up holding each others' hands. Are we too dull & boring? I saw lots of phrases being thrown around in this forum. People said Kunal loved Mauli but was NOT IN LOVE with her. I honestly still dont understand this nuance in the context of a man-woman love. Does this mean my hubby & I love each other but we are NOT IN LOVE with each other? WOW that's a googly 😆

May be we are just over thinking. May be love is not as long lasting or permanent as portrayed in fiction. Again if i take my eg we literally hated each other but then fell in love unknowingly. But still when we fight we hurt each other. If we love each other then y do we hurt each other. Even now there r a few fleeting moments when I actually hate him & he hates me. But then again we find love.

So may be love is not this all powerful, strong, uniform feeling. May be it ebbs & flows. May be there are troughs & plateaus. In real life may be all our relationships follow this pattern. There are highs but there are lows as well. However most of us have a strong sense of morality & righteousness. We know that we dont love our partner but our moral compass is tuned in such a way that we either fight for our relationship or wait for the rough patch to straighten out. Who knows may be if dont live in a civil society which demands a code of conduct from us, we may not have the will to fight for our relationship when it hits a plateau. Or may be its more of circumstances. Yes at this point we have fallen out of love but we do not have an alternative. Here Kunal saw an alternative in Nandini. May be it was a case of the right person being at the right place at the right time. Just when Mauli-Kunal's relationship hit a plateau there was Nandini to draw Kunal's attention. In most of our cases in real life we would not have that scenario. So we merely grit it out consoling ourselves that This shall also pass. And pass it does. The ship rides the wave, manages to stay afloat & the bond between the couple actually strengthens like in my case.

I would like to hear your thoughts on this. Rather than talking about hate, betrayal etc why not talk about love for a change 😳

First n foremost, sooo good to see ur post..

I always feel love is mixture of friendship, sharing, bonding, respect, understanding n all these comes after spending quality time with each other.

Love at first sight concept is something I don't understand...

All marriages has ups n downs.. it's upto an individual how they handle it..

Here Mauli Kunal relation was nearly perfect.. just little flaw of Mauli (busy) n this man falls for first available woman.. this relation has no friendship, understanding (comes after knowing each other), or bonding...

Since we are on a silsila platform..

Romantic love makes you feel like you can fly. It makes you feel alive. You cant get enough of the person. Everything about them generates a respose from you. You cant wait to be alone with them. There is a very passionate, intense sexual lust that while fades never truly goes away.

You know I read somewhere that Love makes you start a relationship but stubbornness to be in it is what keeps that relationship going. Love is real. I have seen my parents my uncle and aunts have a loving relationship. My parents had a love marriage and after 23 years of marriage if anyone looks closely they will see love and warmth in between them. But their love is not even close to what we see in the movies. I mean I have never seen my father eat a dish all by himself which tasted yuck just for the sake of my mother. They show things like these always in the reel world. So that does not mean the love between my parents is any more or less than that on TV. Yes, in reel world love is always attached to passion and it glorifies every moment of it. In real world it's not so much about passion as it is about comfort. It's not so much about being sexy to your significant other as it is about connecting with each other. And after an amount of time you just get comfortable with that one person around you. Not always do you have to kiss that person goodnight, sometimes even a sweet smile tells the other person that everything is perfect.

Portrayal of love in TV shows and movies have always been unrealistic. They romanticize everything unnecessarily and nauseatingly. But since the actors are goodlooking and hot, we watch it. In the real world, I don't really believe in any definitions and even if there are, I think it's different for everybody . Personally to me, it is a bond that grows with time and becomes your strength. It is a lot of hard work and will only survive if both the partners contribute actively.

As usual i pressed like before reading lol ..but now i have read.it . Brilliant post ..

A very famous quote I see often on FB is 'Difference between like and love is, if you like a flower you want to pluck it, but if you love a flower you want to water the plant and take care of it. So for me Love stems from selflessness.