I once believed love would be burning red

But it’s golden like daylight — Taylor Swift

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

Not again.

I could sense my seven-year-old sister looking disapprovingly over my shoulder as I picked out Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice from my bookshelf for the umpteenth time, after a difficult day at high school.

She glances over at the growing pile of unread books and gives me a pointed glare that asks me to exchange the comfort read for something new. I roll my eyes and look back at the bookshelf, trying to pick from the lot of untouched classics.

Romeo and Juliet. Anna Karenina. Frankenstein. Les Misérables. The Great Gatsby. Beloved. Wuthering Heights.

My sister watches my crippling indecisiveness with a hint of amusement; she saunters to the bookshelf and pulls out Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights and hands it over to me.

Here, that looks serious. You might enjoy it.

~*~

Idefinitely did not enjoy the book, at least during my first read. I assumed it was because I didn’t understand any of it. Heathcliff and Catherine destroy each other and the world around them with abuse and manipulation, all while waxing deeply tragic, poetic lines on love and heartbreak.

“You said I killed you-haunt me, then! […] Be with me always-take any form-drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you!”

I read that line once. I read it twice. I read it thrice and then I thought to myself, what a load of hogwash.

~*~

Love is, as is conventionally described to us, a mysterious and compelling emotion that drives people to indeterminate lengths and changes their trajectories. Countless artists have created passionate tributes to the wonder and cruelty of love. As a young, curious student who prized knowledge over anything else, it seemed heretical that people and characters would succumb to the throes of love instead of self-preservation. What was this mysterious emotion which inspired people to give themselves up, so completely and thoroughly, for someone else?

Laila’s love led Majnu to madness. Helen’s love led to the Trojan War. Anna Karenina’s love drove her to suicide. Orpheus’ love didn’t bring Eurydice back from death. Surely, they would have lived a longer and fuller life if it weren’t complicated by the intensity of love? What could possibly make the despair, the pain, and the longing that comes with any form of love — platonic or not — worth it?

The more I didn’t understand love, the more I consumed media related to it. I watched all the romance movies that Bollywood had to offer, listened to the most popular songs on heartbreak, and read most of the classic literature surrounding it. I believed that love was a fantasy that was better enjoyed in fiction. If love in friendships and romance was as potent as art made it seem, it would be better to love with caution. It was a circumspect approach; one that served me well for almost a decade until I dived into my final years of medical school and eventually, intern year.

Mind over heart, reason over madness, self-preservation over heartbreak. On repeat.

~*~

The cracks first appeared in my façade on an uneventful Tuesday morning, feeling akin to glass after a bullet pierced through it, tiny fractures expanding from the hole marked by the gunshot. It was mid-way through my paediatrics rotation; I had come in early to join the ward rounds in the newborn nursery. After going through a few rooms, it was time for Room 7. We entered a dark room, switched on the lights, and gently woke the mother up and took her consent before we approached the baby. The consultant on rounds asked me to perform a full newborn examination, as a demonstration for the medical students on the team. I’d done it several times before, so it wasn’t a difficult ask.

I was going through the motions of the exam when the baby suddenly squealed and looked at me. Those big doe-like eyes kept following my gaze and I just couldn’t look away. I listened to the lub dub of their heart, and its regular pace felt oddly in sync with my racing heart. It was time to test the child’s reflexes, so I positioned the child for the Moro reflex — one hand behind their head and the other behind their back. As soon as they felt the false sensation of falling, the baby’s arms were out, and a cry echoed off the walls of the room. That’s when I felt the first bullet to my heart, a sharp pang of tenderness for the child in front of me.

I rocked the baby gently and then continued my exam. The baby tightly clasped their fingers around my finger, demonstrating an excellent palmar grasp reflex. Bang! I suppose that was the second bullet. At that moment, if harm were to suddenly appear in the room, I’d fight tooth and nail, in a heartbeat, to keep this child safe, even at the cost of my life. It was a dramatic notion, coming out of nowhere, but I felt it screaming through my chest. Despite the relatively regular interaction, a dam of emotions had been released — feelings of wonder, of exhilaration, of tenderness, of courage and perhaps, of love.

I was not the mother of the baby, nor did I know the baby in any personal capacity. I never saw them again, and yet the baby had irreversibly changed my life, even before they were assigned a name or gender. In The Notebook, Nicholas Sparks says, “The first time you fall in love, it changes you forever and no matter how hard you try, that feeling just never goes away.” It all finally made sense — almost as if a switch had been flicked somewhere. If this tenderness was love, if this fierce sense of protection was love, if this exhilaration was love, it was a potent high. I craved more.

~*~

There’s an adage that we commit to, as medical practitioners, during clinical training — the eye cannot see what the mind does not know. Now that I had seen love in the hospital once, I suddenly saw it everywhere.

A pair of infant twins, notorious for crying the loudest whenever anyone approached them, would quieten and giggle as soon as they were placed next to each other on the same bed. There was love in comfort.

A child with known disabilities communicating with her mother through non-verbal cues as the mother gently stroked her forehead and sang her a lullaby. There was love in affection.

An elderly mother constantly asking the nursing staff for support and answers every few minutes despite repeated reassurances, as her daughter progresses into active labor to deliver her first grandchild. There was love in worry.

A couple mourning the birth of a stillborn baby delivered prematurely due to complications in pregnancy. They hold hands and kiss with tears streaming down their faces. There was love in intimacy.

A man wheeled into the emergency department after a harrowing road traffic accident. His friends wait outside, offering earnest prayers to the higher powers that they believe in, hoping for their friend to make it through alive. There was love in fear.

A young woman finally getting discharged home to her children after a long hospital stay, had her family distribute sweets with the staff and visitors of other patients. There was love in joy.

A son screaming in anguish in the waiting room when he hears about the death of his mother, despite every effort by the medical team. There was love in grief.

In every corner of the hospital, in some places more than others, there is love — in different forms, but it’s all love. While I share the experiences that helped me feel its depth, I will not attempt to define it. I don’t know how to. The younger me was naïve to believe that love was a single emotion, because if it were so, why would so many artists attempt to capture its essence and yet, not entirely succeed? I regurgitate below what I had read earlier but never truly understood until my intern year.

“Love is more than a feeling. Love is a form of sweet labor: fierce, bloody, imperfect, and life-giving — a choice we make over and over again. If love is sweet labor, love can be taught, modeled, and practiced. This labor engages all our emotions. Joy is the gift of love. Grief is the price of love. Anger protects that which is loved. And when we think we have reached our limit, wonder is the act that returns us to love.” — Valerie Kaur in See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love

~*~

Love is a lesson that I continue to learn inside and outside the hospital; it has given my life colors that I hadn’t appreciated before. The vibrancy doesn’t come from the intensity of love, but instead from the frequency and consistency of it.

I see it everywhere — in secret smiles across the room, in reunion hugs, in tipsy texts, in affectionate kisses, in surprise food deliveries during busy shifts, in exchanging pictures of clouds, in meaningless banter, in watching shows together, in tears of pride, in welcoming the sunrise, in tea and gossip sessions, in fights for each other’s well-being, in impromptu dancing on the streets, in rants against the patriarchy, in watching the fireworks together, in cooking and karaoke sessions, in companionable silence, in game nights, in late night calls, in memories of grief, in trips to the grocery store, in stickers and memes, in the promises of what is yet to come — beyond and more.

The younger me was wrong about a lot of things, the biggest one being my naïve understanding of love. Love — in any form — will always be worth it.

Heart over mind, madness over reason, heartbreak over self-preservation. On repeat.

~*~