Shaheryar Ali
Iss Shert pe khelon gi piya pyar ki baazi
Jeeto’n tu tujhe pao’n, haar’on tu piya teri
The question of Love is one of the most profound questions which has preoccupied human thought and the wisest of thinkers for thousands of years. What is Love, it’s still impossible to define Love, its one 
of those concepts which defies every attempt of a rational conquest. With the age of advanced logic and analytical philosophy, every attempt was made to conquer love, to reduce it to an emotion, every analysis ends in a contradiction. The different shades of love were converted into types and subjected to rigorous analysis, using the most advance models knowledge available, Eros, Agape and many other forms of Love were identified and explained. But every Love, every manifestation of it showed combination of these types, the Erotic attraction, the seduction parallels extreme devotion and urge to care for the loved ones, the extreme devotional love, weather for God or for children or parents can be shown to have a sexual character. The attempts by the wise to combine the models, appears un-tasteful to say the least, a review of literature shows that in the Analytical Model , literature has appeared which implies the only difference between what is called “Friendship” and “Love” is “sex” that is “act of sex”.[Thomas] Does friendship lacks Love? . Or does Love lack “friendship”.
Problem gets worse if one tries to analyze the “discourse” of human relationships. Eros has been declared the “original” Love, but those with whom one makes a “romantic relationship”, are called “boy friends” or “girl friends”. Where does the distinction go now?
The classical textual Love, one which is said to release the endorphins, nor-epinephrine and dopamine into our mind, with twist of oxytocins making one “high” in the classical sense of the word [Eros] , the later twist building what is called “trust” thus maturing Love into a relationship. Why all of a sudden it ends with extreme of mistrust, cheating and pain. Dejection, insomnia and depression?. The one who makes the heart beat, makes it shatter in pain. What is the problem of Love? The great revelar tells us the the problem of Love is actually the problem of the difference between “the who” and “the what”. The whole history of Love is between the who and the what. The original question is Who does one Love?, Does one Loves “some one” or “some thing”
When I say “I love you”, does it means that I love some one absolutely, for sake of him or her being some one? Or actually I am loving “some thing” about that some one. I Love the some one, his absolute singularity or I love his intelligence, his personality, his beauty, his sense of humor?, This is the question of “the who” and the “what”. I love a girl or a boy or love some thing about that boy of girl. If we go into history of love, love usually starts with some sort of seduction, that part is always about some thing, one is attracted to beauty, intelligence, or any thing, The moment heart starts moving, one is caught with the dilemma of Who and What, One thinks one loves some one for sake of him being that some one, but that some one is always judged on the things one fell in Love with, the realization that lover doesn’t have the things one fell for, kills the love. The fidelity is threatened by who and What. This difference between Who and What separates hearts. One stop loving some one not for him being him or her being her but because him or her is not such and such—
Any one , the great revelar tells us who falls in Love, or stops loving comes into this dilemma of difference between the Who and What—
Does one Loves some one, or does one Loves Some thing?
Interestingly this also is the first question of Philosophy, the question of what it is “to be”. The question of “being”. The question of being is also the question of the who and the what. Weather Being is some one or some thing?. When philosophy classes start, they usually start with , what is philosophy, and every philosophy student knows the routine, the etymology of Philosophy, Love of Sophia, love of wisdom, what is Sophia , what is philia? What is Love.
Love is also an affirmation, an affirmative desire towards other, to pay attention to the “other”, not to destroy the otherness of the other. Levinas often speaks of this affirmation, this affirmative desire towards the other, the one which makes one aware of his own being. This contact which at pre-cognitive level tells us not to hurt the other, Love thus forms the base of Ethics, as well,
The great reveler speaks of this dichotomy of what and who, which kills the love, he stops here, burying love, calling it the History of Love. The question of being is fatal for Love, but this girl who speaks of Love, transcends the question of being. Its Sublimation . Does Love ends with Who and What, or is it a question of “I” and “You”. The sages of Punjab subverted this dichotomy of dualities, to be a Lover is” to be” the loved one in its totality. This saves the Love, makes it eternal.
RanJha Ranjha kerde kerde aape Ranjha hoi
Ranjha Ranjha aakho hur koi, heer na aakhe koi
What “who” and what “what”, does it violates the “otherness” of the other? Rather not, it celebrates it. Long before the advant of fashions of “radical subversion”, of “deconstructing reality”, of “celebrating difference”. Long before “feminism’s arrival, in the primitive plains of Punjab, wise old men were revealing the secrets of wisdom. Love , which transcends beings, is not “annihilation” of the “other”, its not “union” with the other as well. Its looking beyond the “otherness” of the other, after being consciously aware of the “otherness” of the other. Its than adopting this “otherness” and than becoming the other itself. Its not submission, its a freedom, a freedom that re-alligns ones being but which doesnt make it a hurdle . It is charactarized by the extreme non-conformity. Love here is base of revolution and emancipation as well
Buri aa’n Buri aa’n Buri aa’n
Ve aasa’n Buri aa’n ve Loka
Burian kol na bu ve
Je tu takhan hazare da Sai’n
Assan Siyala’n diyan kurian ve Loka
ve assan Buri aa’n ve Loka
Buria’n kol na bu ve
we are bad [women] we are bad
o people dont sit with us, we are bad
If you are the lord of takhat hazara
we too are daughters of the [mighty] Siyals
we are bad women—–
Is this “submission”?. This perhaps is most radical subversion of societal morality. This is freedom and emancipation. It destroys every norm every conformity . Its from the most primitive plains of Punjab , and they say Feminism is modern. Love is not what ends in the “who” and the what, it what survives this dilemma. The great revelar knows Love , he hasnt felt it perhaps——
The great revelar : Jacques Derrida
The girl : Parveen Shakir
Punjabi poetry from “sufi” poets , Waris Shah and Shah Hussein
