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There's love in War of the Roses

Celebrate love despite inherent gender differences

LOVE, LOVE ME DO Men are from Mars and women are from Venus and love brings them together

The Valentine's Day card will say it all. Mushy, passion-filled words will express or reaffirm eternal love. A bouquet of red roses will mean the world. Sweet somethings will be whispered and so many rational and irrational things done that will make it a day to cherish. Love defies logic and lovers too. But then do lovers remain in that state of bliss that blooms on Valentine's Day?

The man-woman relationship has always been under the microscope, since time immemorial. The need to understand each other has been a necessity so as to reach that harmonious balance. Freud, Foucault, Sartre have incessantly researched in depth and yet not come up with much practical solutions. We do know that there is an inherent difference in the emotional IQ between the two. What the women want, the men don't seem to get right. Their needs seem utterly superfluous to us. How many times has your husband forgotten to get you that special souvenir from his trips abroad, despite repeated reminders or your boyfriend forgotten the first day you met. It seems as though their biological memory and priorities and ours are definitely not in synchrony, thus resulting in the proverbial war of the sexes. The men for the life of them cannot comprehend the woman's raging hormones, that overly emotional drama queen facet, and the women that the men aren't compassionate enough. Consider yourself lucky if you are indeed in that relationship where the communication lines are open and kicking. It is indeed a rare gem of a find.

Ying and Yang

The truth in essence lies somewhere in between. The Chinese call it the Ying and Yang, the opposing forces of the sun and the moon that dwells within all of us. The good and the bad, the male and the female, the light and the dark. In all aspects of life, a state of balance should exist between the opposing forces. And that seems to be the secret of a joyous male-female interrelation. Says Naureen a newly wed, "Sajid and I have been in courtship for a year now, and our emotional interdependence have reached that plateau after all the highs and lows. It's a very sublime state of being and this was a guiding factor to go ahead with marriage. Like previously whenever I was upset about something, he would never enquire after it for perhaps fear of getting emotionally involved but now we are more candid and talk things out if there is any misunderstanding."

Art of conversation

The art of conversation seems to be a great booster for successful relationships. There is a joke about married couples that it's easy to spot them in a restaurant. Just look for the ones that look away from each other into vacant spaces. Sad but true. We spend so much time in finding faults in the other that we forget to nurture friendship in a relationship.

Rajashri Radhakrishnan has a different point of view, "The men in the Indian cultural context, are brought up to be the proverbial man's man. As a result they forget to empathise with the woman's emotional dilemma and don't really know how to deal with it. But then with time and especially parenthood he mellows down a lot more and is more comfortable in displaying his feelings. And the woman too realises that the men need their space, and their apparent disconnect may not actually be due to lack of affection but their genetic make-up. The faster a couple learns this the more blissful it would make their existence," she opines.

To live and love, as Shakespeare once said, is one big theatrical performance and we, the man and woman, are merely the actors. Whether it is a tragedy of errors or a comedy of trials, is left to the players to decide.

HUSNA MOHAMMED

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