You call it madness, I call it love

Recently, I came across the Song of Songs from the Bible:
“Yes, and yours are, too—may the wine go to my beloved, flowing gently over lips and teeth. I am my lover’s. I am all he wants. I’m all the world to him! Come, dear lover—let’s tramp through the countryside. Let’s sleep at some wayside inn, then rise early and listen to birdsong. Let’s look for wildflowers in bloom; pomegranates are in bloom, fruit trees adorned with cascading flowers. And there I’ll give myself to you, my love to your love.”
How mesmerising it is to witness ancient poetry intertwining love and nature in vivid, symbolic words.
Sangam literature too brims with such poetic brilliance. Kurunthogai, a collection of 400 songs of love, has a verse by an anonymous poet known only as Meen Eri Thoondilaar.
In the poem, a woman speaks to her friend about her love who belongs to a land where elephants graze on bamboo branches. One day, a guard throws a stone at the elephant. Startled, it leaves the bamboo branch, which springs back upright—just like a baited fishing hook stiffens when a fish is caught.
The beauty of the poem lies in its subtlety: “Just as the bamboo swayed back in no time, my thoughts keep returning to him, however much I try to focus elsewhere.”
Love is never just an event; it is a quiet undercurrent, a moment so fleeting, yet so profound, when two souls realise their longing for each other. It is the breathtaking instant when a flower unfurls, a microsecond when hearts recognise they are tangled by the design of the universe.
Yet, love is not always an easy journey. Even those bound by marriage often traverse disappointments.
Thiruvalluvar, in his eternal wisdom, devoted seven chapters to love’s intoxicating spell. But he did not stop there—he penned 18 more chapters about life after marriage, where love meets the trials of daily existence.
One of my favourite couplets from his Book of Love captures a woman’s poignant response when her husband insists on traveling to earn a living. Money is necessary, he argues and promises to come back soon. But for her, even the thought of separation is unbearable:
Sellaamai undael enakkurai, Matrunin
Valvaravu vaazhvaarkku urai.
"Speak to me only if you say, 'I leave thee not;'
Of swift return, tell those who can bear the pain of parting."
In just two lines, Valluvar crafts an entire story. The woman does not care for his reasons or reassurances—she refuses to even engage in a conversation on separation.
Maybe, as time wove its quiet lessons, she learnt to let him go. She would have suffered still, but love, though fragile, has its own fortitude. And yet, in their twilight years, when their hands clasped tightly, love may have reached its true zenith—not in its youthful urgency, but in the quiet knowledge of a shared life.
Sometimes, we wonder if life is but a grand, repetitive play—scenes reenacted, destinies recycled. Do we not walk the same paths as our predecessors, playing the same roles in an unchanging script?
But there is one thing that makes every life unique—love. As boundless as the canvas of nature, love is never the same. Every heart, every moment, every story, bears its own hue.
Perhaps that is why Kahlil Gibran wrote:
“You cannot direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.”