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Friday, 19 February 2021

Letter to Juliet Capulet*

 

Dear Juliet

As they say ‘Life goes on.’ When you were separated from your love Romeo through a cruel twist of fate, you chose to end your life and here I am! I chose life, Juliet. In your time, life was pretty simple for us their ladies. You fell in love, you got married and even if you did not you got married. As easy as that. We modern women have so much to think about and yet marriage matters. My love for him might not be as high and mighty as yours but love it is.

Love is when I try to build bridges between two universes which should have never co-existed in the first place. Love is when I am hoping against hope that with faith and time I can always correct wrongs. Love is when I welcome with open arms and let go as if it never existed. Love is when I get cheated and duped and yet have the courage to trust again, love again and get duped again. Love is when I pick up the pieces of my shattered life and learn to walk alone. Love is when I gather all the positivity of the world around me and walk with my head held high.

Love is when I sacrifice all the niceties of the world and chose the isolation. But modern love is never selfless.  It questions, it confronts, it ridicules and sometimes it walks away without turning back.

Juliet, my dear we walk away instead of pining in the dark. We withdraw our affections as soon as they are not returned. We see the love of our life choose someone else and join the celebration. We save our tears for later and show the world our dazzling smiles. Juliet not everyone is as lucky as you were. Love sometimes is not reciprocated, not returned. Love sometimes is disloyal Juliet.

Yet modern love takes pride in our bravery. Modern love sometimes makes you feel like Don Quixote charging at the windmills. Yet we fight this isolation, this abandonment. Juliet, you had allies and me…I am my only ally in this quest for love. The whole world asks me to be practical yet my heart holds on to the hope of being finally understood someday.

Why was life so simple in your time? You had one centre of your whole universe…. the love of your life. That too for the sake of simplicity was only one. There was no baggage from the past to wear you down. Your world revolved around just one…even mine does. But in ways unlike yours the centre of my universe keeps changing. Self-respect, independence, dreams, aspirations and ambitions suddenly replace the all-consuming passion of your life and times.

What went wrong Juliet in this quest of love…our quest of love. The dreams are still the same but they no longer need a prince charming on the white horse. Suddenly my heart wants to say ‘Look world! I can walk alone, exist alone and be alone without anyone by my side. Like all the girls out there, my heart yearns for love but with dignity. I wish you were here to tell me a way – one way where both these universes met. Where love and my dreams can peacefully co-exist. Will they? Only time will tell.

Love

Bhavana

*Note: This letter was inspired by the movie ‘Letters to Juliet’

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