Monday | 13 January 2025 | Reg No- 06
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Monday | 13 January 2025 | Epaper

A discourse on love and romance!

Published : Saturday, 11 February, 2017 at 12:00 AM  Count : 352
Mahbubar Rahman
Anthropological studies suggest that before the advent of homo-sapiens (modern men), Neanderthal men followed by Cro-Magnon existed on earth some 35-50 thousand years ago in different parts of the world in variegated shape, size of the brain and stature before they were extinct or transformed, making a room for the modern men to rule the world. Detailed behavioral patter of Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal men have been studied by the anthropologists wherein they must have found, without any doubt, significant differences and variations of behavior pattern with that of modem men particularly in relation to humans' change in body chemistry in certain ages sprouting love offerings to the opposite sexes. Love offering to opposite sexes which can otherwise be described as romantic feelings generates in human body and psyche due to change in body chemistry is often defined as madness of the youth in certain period of human life. Epic love stories of men and women portray how desperate the either sex could become in fulfilling their desire in materializing and giving a new height to their love what is often called heavenly. Legend has it, how a Persian boy and girl named Layla and Majnun, possessed by madness fell in love with each other when they were young. "The madman and Layla" in Persian is a love story that originated as a short, anecdotal poem in ancient Arabia later significantly expanded and popularized in literary adaptation. A couple of a boy and girl named Romeo and Juliet coming from two rival families Montague and Capulet of the city of Verona and Bengali couple Devdas and Parbati and lot more other such Romeos who sacrificed their life for the cause of love which could not excel the barrier and be translated into reality due to hurdles and stumbling blocks that stood on their way from their respective families, communities and societies. Legend says that after going mad for the love of Layla, Mojnun was engaged to take the hardship of cutting the standing mountain by his months of enduring physical vain labor which ultimately led him to death from immense physical exhaustion with remaining his lasting desire of winning Layla's hand sadly unfulfilled.
Sisyphus-the legendary founder and first king of Corinth was punished in Hades not for offering love in Layla Mujnun's height to anybody but for avarice by the vain labor of having forever to roll a block of stone uphill whence it always rolled down again and again.
Though Layla Majnun's pristine love could not be culminated with happy ending of wed-lock, yet fable tells us that their reunion by wedding will take place in the heaven with due pomp and grandeur followed by grand feast with exotic culinary splendor after slaughtering a giant bull on the horns of which the load and balance of the world rests for the time till doomsday. When the fabulous bull adjusts the load of the earth from one horn to another, then the earth tremors: This is described as earthquake in modern term. Scientific explanation of seismic jolt does not, however, undermines the purity of Layla Majnun's epic love story in the mind-set of lovers around the world for the infinite time to come. Any love story with the tragic end obviously takes the story to the height of immortality no matter how fabulous and unrealistic picture it paints in its canvas. Shakespearean tragic love story of Romeo and Juliet in the western world and Sharat Chandra Chatterer's epic love story and moving masterpiece Devdas in this part of the world-both the stories ending in heart rending tragedy have not only succeeded to imprint indelible mark in the minds of the diehard lovers but also in the minds of the common men and women who are equally moved and touched by the narratives of sad literary grandeur of such love stories.
There are no dearth of men and women in this world whose hearts always remain filled with the honey and nectar of love and romanticism and in enlivening the feelings of love, they try to behold and retain their flame of youth by adopting different measures, from decadence and ageing process. In the cine-world, we can view lot more examples how the heroes and heroines even after sharp shifting from their days of youth, attempt to remain young and gleeful by adopting different means and methods. A silver-screen shaking romantic hero of 1950s and 1960s Devanand whose love story with the reputed singer-actress beautiful Suraiya coming from the conservative Muslim family was once talk of the town particularly with the cine goers of 19505 of black and white movie era. With the vehement opposition of Suraiya's grand-mother, a conservative old lady of strict Islamic faith, couple's long cherished desire of getting into an wed-lock ended in fiasco. In contrast to the story of Devdas, Devanand walked into the path of marriage while the actress singer beautiful Suraiya chose to remain single for the rest of her life with a broken heart presumably with heaving sigh of sorrows and ruminating over her love-drenched days with Devanand. Although staying back as a married man with diminishing his flare of youth with the passage of time, Devanand always tried to remain young and jubilant and refused to accept that the ageing was in process in his case too. Meticulously attired in broad collar shirt and wrapping his neck and throat by a colorful fashionable scarf, Devanand tried to hide all the wrinkles and cloud which stood on his way to remain ever green. At the ripe age also Devanand hardly played a character role other than the role of flamboyant hero in the silver screen opposite to heartthrob beautiful young heroin of Bollywood. Before he died at the age of 83 a couple of year ago, Devanand was planning to appear in the silver screen once again as a romantic hero opposite young and sensational Bollywood heroin. He could not fulfill his desire because of the inevitabity of death which he had to embrace in the natural course.
Walking into the approaching twilight of life, some fans and avid admirers of Devanand and his likes are often seen to be caught in the labyrinth of frenzy to keep themselves young and evergreen and desperately attempt to come into the close proximity of beautiful young girls with different pretext no matter whether their such romantic approach are carnal or platonic in nature like highly talked about story of Nehru-Lady Edwina's extra marital romance of 1950s.
In the contemporary world, aggressive Bollywood culture attracts men and women irrespective of their age barriers and social placement. As love and war knows no laws, even elderly men in the society indulge in love offering to the young girls either in carnal or utopian motives. In his many great poems and songs, Tagore in his ripe age explicitly expressed his mind in appreciation of beauty of girls and offering love which can be viewed as utopian nature in all purity. Octogenarian world renowned Indian artist Moqbul Fida Hussain once said that he loved Bollywood beauty and idol Madhuri Dixit as he sees the beauty and grace of the goddess of love in her and portrays her beauty and grace in the tapestry of his own thought again and again.
I know some of my senior sexagenarian/septuagenarian friends in good spirit & health keeping romantic link restricted in conversation and dialogue only with the girls of their grand-daughter's age which they sincerely admit that it keeps them hale and hearty and get rolling in battling with the creeping fear of decaying health and mind-set hideously caught in the symptom of ageing process. Whether one sincerely admits or not, the pathological desire of the male segment of human race in keeping themselves close to women is unending till such time their all canals of the body chemistry are completely dried up and fail to produce any mellifluous symphony of life.
Extra marital relation of former U.S President John F. Kennedy with Hollywood beauty Marilyn Monroe was, ones upon a time, a talk of the country. Former U.S President Bill Clinton's sex scandal with voluptuous lady Monica Lewinsky at Oval Office created uproars in the U.S presidency leading Bill Clinton to face the scourge of impeachment. Thanks to U.S Congress for having saved him from crucible of impending impeachment process. Newly elected U.S president septuagenarian Donald Trump's lasting ambition of groping beautiful glamour girls made his candidacy hugely controversial but at the end of the day he got through amid country-wide protests and uproars. Defending Trump, many women of Donald Trump's camp came up with an argument that they were to choose Trump as president not husband.
Contrary to that, female partners of men in this part of the world including Bangladesh, after a certain age: get themselves thickly involved in their domestic matters and other social &. religious commitment and remain apathetic to the biological demand of their husbands which ultimately, in many cases, leads to creating unhealthy distance and in some extreme cases, serious distrust to each other in their twilight of life.
Due to lack of right education, refined outlook & aptitudes and proper brushing in the inner faculty of mind, male partner's up-keeping even family and social ties with opposite sex ranging from metaphorical age group of 9-90 are wrongly viewed by the female life-partners of grossly skeptic and obtuse mind. In many cases, such partners suffering from the age-old syndromes of xenophobic same sex rivalry and other mental disequilibrium, often brings about disaster in family so lovingly and meticulously woven, nourished and nurtured over the ages.
Love and romance is of course, the integral and indispensable elements of human life but its right interpretation is much intriguing and flabbergasting which needs rigorous research and brain storming experiment to find a solution in the interest of maintaining right social order.
           Mahbubar Rahman is former Civil Servant






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