The Indian Hypocrisy on Love

Indians are a confused lot when it comes to love. We love it and we love to hate it. We love it so much, that the sum total of our pop culture is love. The beginning, the end and the content. We Indians can never have our fill of the rich girl-poor guy cliché, the romantic songs, the very filmy romance and finally the quintessential happy ending in our movies. Because Shah Rukh Khan dying at the end is not why we spent all that money on the ticket. Unacceptable. All in the name of “true love”. We worship the god who is most famous for his love and its expression. We do unimaginably tacky things at our weddings, especially the wedding photography, because that’s yet another one of our obsessions- marriage. Marriage is the ultimate Indian institution of true love.

But, here’s the catch- we have an arsenal of ridiculous reasons to oppose the same true love that we lap up in our art- caste, the supremacy arranged marriage, age, lines drawn on language and region. Our opinions regarding love are just so prejudiced that only after a series of screening processes are two people deemed fit to fall in love. This screening includes, but is not limited to horoscopes, family background, socio-cultural status, monetary prowess and many other such largely irrelevant things. Here’s the thing with trivial elements, they have a dangerous habit of sidelining what actually matters- compatibility, expectations from life, ideals and beliefs etc are just a few of the many casualties. We haven’t even so much as come to point of discussing marriages across countries, seeing as we’re having enough trouble, with the multitude of lines within the country itself.

For a culture that celebrates love in lyrics, tunes, stories, monuments and mythology, we are insanely paranoid about love in real life. Love is left best to literature and art, in real life? No thanks.

We oppose public display of affection because its obscene and yet all manner of profanity is part and parcel of our existence. We are so paranoid about the idea that our kids are being exposed to and thinking about love that we let them wander about this concept unaided because talking about such things is just too weird. We are escapists of the highest order. We want a foreign education for our kids, great English and yet, we are not broad-minded enough to accept the changed perspective an international experience gives them. We are yet to come to terms with live-in relationships and now, the world is talking about homosexuality and how such civil unions need to be recognized. STOP THE MADDNESS! This is too much to handle.

Love to us, is scary and when the discussion comes to concepts like sexuality, we downright bolt. We are shifty and uncomfortable. Generation after generation we have managed to dodge these aspects that are such a natural part of life. For all that we are a global force, privately, we resist change. We know nothing of our culture and heritage and yet we are comfortable with the idea of using our Indianess to back every archaic belief that our society is still clinging to. We tag everything unacceptable as “western” influence and yet we have no problem endorsing their brands, wearing their designer labels and professing modernity in our lifestyle. If this is not the great Indian hypocrisy, I don’t know what is.