When I was six, love was mamu arriving at school to give me my cough medicine though her office was a half an hour bus ride away. I still remember seeing her standing at the gate with her red purse tucked under her arm, holding a plastic bag with the medicines. I'd put up quite a fuss and she would always have the same excuse to get me to gulp it down: The guard was watching and silently laughing at how 'a big girl' couldn't chug down a capful of medicine.
When I was ten, love meant bua getting us cakes and pastries on 'Special Sundays' as we, my elder brother and I, liked to call them. He would buy a couple of delicious chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry treats and let me pick first, and my brother would have to grudging go second. I truly believed that there was no one who loved me more than bua did.
When I was twelve, my elder brother sneaking me treats like a Dairy Milk bar or a Kitkat even when I had a toothache and my parents wouldn't let me eat a single sweet, let alone an entire chocolate bar, was the definition of love. While on all the other days my brother would fight with me for chocolate, sometimes even measuring it before halving it when we were told to share a single bar, on these occasions he would give me the whole thing.
When I was fourteen, what I loved most was spending time with friends and having ice-cream with two of my best friends on the rare occasions we went out shopping during school holidays. My parents dropping us to Bishal Bazaar in New Road and picking us up when we were done was just a nuisance. Why couldn't they trust me to come home on my own?
When I was fifteen, I suddenly started noticing this boy with slicked back hair on my way to school. I would stick my head out of the bus window hoping to catch a glimpse of him. I would, more often than not, see him and on the days I didn't I would be sure to have a bad day. After all, he was my lucky charm.
When I was sixteen, love was going out to The Bakery Café with the same guy and sharing a plate of steaming hot momos as we talked about 'life' and what I wanted to do after my board exams were over (He was already in college). He gave me little gifts like a tiny laughing Buddha figurine or a box of Ferrero Rocher chocolates and I felt like the happiest and luckiest girl alive.
When I was eighteen, love meant bunking college to meet him if he was having a bad day. Many times, I would not go to college and spend the entire day with him trying to cheer him up. Failing to do so would make me feel like a failure and I would question my 'love' and wonder what I was doing wrong.
When I was twenty-one, love was a non-existent concept. There was no real love in this world. Love was for teenagers. Adults didn't just have time for these things. There was college, and work to do. I just didn't have time for these things. Who does? I would look at school kids holding hands with their 'sweethearts' and pity them for the illusion they were holding on to with such delight.
When I was twenty-three, my best friend used to come and meet me after work to spend time with me before going home. She lived on the other side of town and didn't seem to mind that she would probably reach home after dark. Many days, she didn't meet her boyfriend after work, even when he insisted on it, choosing to spend time with me instead. I was important too, she said.
When I was twenty-six, I got married to someone I had only met a handful of times and didn't know too well. Mamu always said that life was about compromises and now that I was getting married, I would have to learn to give in sometimes, maybe even most of the times, to stay happily married. He was a nice chap, this person they had chosen for me, they said.
At twenty-seven, I was still trying to figure out what love was. My husband was, like my parents said, nice but I didn't feel any emotional stirrings when I went out on dinner dates with him, or as I slept besides him on our king sized bed. I was still getting to know him. But I liked that part. I enjoyed his company and our conversations. Maybe that was love.
At thirty when I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, I felt this overwhelming sense of pride, joy, and something I'll never be able to put in words: I would guard this little being with my life, and put her needs above my own risking all I had to protect her. That was definitely love. A few years later, my son came along reinforcing what I felt back when chori came to this world. Love made a lot more sense.
I have learnt that love doesn't have a defining moment and it's not just a feeling that you have for someone. Love is when you put somebody else's needs above your own. You have to be selfless to be able to truly love someone. My children have taught me this. And now when I look back at my life, I am thankful for having so many people in my life who have made me feel important and cherished. They, at one point or the other, made me their priorities.
Mamu was also right, love is also about compromises because you wouldn't compromise for just about anybody. That person would have to be pretty darn special. For me now, with my children around, love redefines and reinvents itself every single day. I have come to realize that love is in the little things that you take the time to do for someone else and you don't have to go searching for love. It finds you. You just have to recognize it when you see it.
ip_bista@hotmail.com
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