Of Love and Infatuation
By Dr Asif Javed
Williamsport, PA
Back in the good old days, when we were in a medical college in Lahore, a class fellow followed a female classmate all the way to her home, in Gujranwala. The following day, sitting in the hostel canteen, as he was lamenting his inability to express his feelings to her, someone made a suggestion. He was advised to do what one of the characters in Shafiq-ur-Rahman’s book Hamaqteen had done. This character had written a letter to his beloved that went like this:
When you will grow old, and will have wrinkles on your face, and your beautiful hair will be all white, in those times, perhaps, you will remember that long ago, there was an unfortunate soul who really loved you.
The love bird dulyjotted it down and got his love letter somehow delivered to the girl’s hostel. No response was ever received. There is a follow-up to this but we will return to that later.
According to the dictionary, love is ‘a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person’ while infatuation is ‘an intense but short-lived passion or admiration for someone or something’. What differentiates the two is, therefore, the time factor; you can’t predict early on which way it will go.
Several years ago, when Bridges of Madison County was released, the audience was mostly elderly and middle-aged couples. A reviewer noted with surprise that several of them were visibly in tears; he should not have been. Many amongst us have stories in our past, like the one portrayed by Marryl Streep and Clint Eastwood in that movie. Most of those stories are never told. We take them to our graves.
Guru Dutt, was a successful actor and director. He had to his credit classics of Bollywood including Piyasa, KaghazkePhool and Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam. Married to popular singer Gita Dutt, he fell under the spell of Wahida Rahman. Rebuffed, Guru Dutt, a sensitive man, committed suicide.
Mustafa Zaidi, a bureaucrat, and a respected poet, was found dead. A young woman, Shahnaz Gul, was found in his room. The poet who wrote Hum uskepaasjaate the magarahista,ahista had been lonely and depressed. These lines might have been written for Miss Gul. Mr Zaidi was also married with children.
Surraya and Dev Anand wanted to marry but Surayya’s grandmother wouldn’t allow. Having thrown her engagement ring in the Arabian Sea, Surraya called off the wedding. While Dev Anand moved on and got married, Surraya died a spinster. A few years before her death, as a visitor was about to leave her flat, she told him to leave by the back door, to avoid the crowd of her admirers, at the front door. When outside, the curious visitor looked back; the front entrance was deserted.
SahirLudhianvi and, a married Amrita Pritam, were madly in love. Both moved to India from Lahore after partition. Amrita’s marriage broke down. Sahir was single. But they never married. A legacy of their doomed love may be Sahir’s verse:
Chaloikbaarphir say
Ajnabi banjaen ham donoon
Prof. Siraj had a love marriage, had a son, and a distinguished academic career, being Professor of English at the Government College, Lahore. But the married Professor fell in loveagain, this time with one of his students. His first wife, made hardly any fuss, and moved abroad. One of his former students reports that the Prof. had a miserable life after his second marriage.
Having directed two successful movies, ShaukatRizwi had a brilliant career ahead of him in Bollywood when he fell madly in love with Noor Jahan and married her. They moved to Pakistan. A bitter divorce was followed by a public feud that effectively destroyed Rizwi’s career.
MussaratNazir took early retirement from movies after a love marriage, moved to Canada and vanished from news. Decades later, she re-emerged, released a music album, before going back to Canada. The last we heard of her was that she was divorced.
Napoleon fell in love with Josephine who was many years older than him, a widow with children. He wrote passionate love letters to her: “I awake full of you. Your image and the memory of last night’s intoxicating pleasures has left no rest to my senses.” The emperor, who had once said that “Power is my mistress” married Josephine. Desperate for an heir, that she was unable to produce, he reluctantly divorced her and remarried. His new wife gave him an heir. As fate would have it, there was no empire left to govern. Years later, on hearing of Josephine’s death, he stayed locked in in his room for two days, refusing to see anyone. His last words reportedly were: “France, the Army, Josephine.”
King Edward the V111 fell in love with Wallis Simpson, a twice divorced American. He made the ultimate sacrifice for love and gave up the throne for her. By all accounts, they had a happy life together, mostly spent in exile.
Taj Mahal, built by Shah Jahan in memory of his beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal, has remained a legacy of his devotion to Mumtaz and continues to inspire lovers to this day. What is less known is the fact that after sometime, Shah Jahan lost all interest in the magnificent monument, hardly visited it, and it was in a pitiful “state of disrepair” as reported by Prince Aurangzeb in 1652. As an added insult to her memory, the aged emperor “two years after her death, began to lead an active and quite licentious sex life, involving several concubines, dancing girls and married women,” writes Dirk Collier in The Great Mughals.
Salim and Aanakali’s love story is stuff of legends. Aarkali’s mausoleum does exist in Lahore. The inscription on her grave reveals ‘majnoon’ Salim’s devotion to Anarkali. But, there is no mention of Anarkali in either Jahangirnama or any other document of Mughal period.
Dalip Kumar had professed his love for Madhubala in a court of law, during the Nia Daur controversy. But he refused to marry her unless she disowned her father. She was unable to do so and that was the end of it. Years after his marriage to SairaBano, the aging super star, had a secret marriage with Asma, a divorced socialite. The wedding pictures were leaked somehow. The tragedy king, who had been denying the rumors all along, finally confessed. As expected, SairaBano raised hell, as did rest of Dalip’s family. Within a few weeks, he divorced Asma. Dalip and Saira have been living happily ever after.
Keats, the romantic poet, who wrote the immortal line a thing of beauty is a joy forever had his muse, Fanny. He wrote passionate love letters to her. Diagnosed with advanced TB, he moved to Rome, to be in warmer climate. Fanny received the news of Keat’s death (he was twenty-five) in London. She mourned him for six years. Eventually, she did marry and had children. Before death, she gave them the love letters from Keats. These were published, creating much interest as well as controversy.
The romantic poets do need a muse. While Akhtar Shirani’sAzra and Salma were fictional characters, Iqbal’s Ema was not. The young poet had been in Germany for his PhD. His letter s to the German beauty reveal that he may have been in love. AtyaFayzee, who visited Iqbal in Germany, had a chance to see Ema and noted how overwhelmed Iqbal was by her. They used to dance, and at least, once, Iqbal tried to join Ema while she was singing an opera. After returning to India, Iqbal continued to write to her. In one letter, he writes, “I have completely forgotten the German language, except for one word—Ema.” There is some indication that he wished to marry her and settle down in Europe. That did not happen. Ema’s loss was our gain. But she deserves our gratitude for becoming his muse.
Syed Hussain had everything that a young man could wish for: scion of an aristocratic, respectable and wealthy family, he had the good looks, and also, the brains to go with it. Ashiq Batalwi, who heard Syed Hussain speak in Lahore, notes that Hussain may have been the best orator in India. Hussain was close to the Nehru family. Proximity to the Nehru household allowed him and Vijay Lakashmi, Nehru’s sister, to fall in love. They were not allowed to marry. Syed Hussain was packed off to the UK and, then to the USA. While Vijay Lakashmi was forced in to a marriage, Syed Hussain never married. He returned to India after twenty-five years. Those who met him in his last years, saw a lonely man, with a broken spirit. A few months after being sent to Egypt as India’s ambassador, he died, received a state funeral, and had a Cairo Street named after him. He may have died of ‘Broken Heart Syndrome’, a well-recognized medical condition. It is said that Vijay Lakskmi was once seen laying flowers on his grave. ShakilBadayuni may have written the following verse for the likes of Syed Hussain and Vijay Lakshmi:
Ae mohabbat tere anjaam pero na aya
Jaane kiyon aaj tere naam pe rona aya
Here is an unusual case of love: Back in the 1930’s, a married professor fell in love with a famous and beautiful prostitute Inayat Begum of Lahore. He would visit her once a month. Out of his salary of 700, he would give Rs 600 to her and the rest to his unsuspecting wife. Inayat Begum, a seasoned member of the oldest profession, but with a heart of gold, soon figured it out. She started to send Rs 600 to her devotee’s wife-every month. This peculiar bidirectional movement of currency continued for several years. The professor never found this out.
Back to our class fellow: his attention soon turned somewhere else. The young lady, whom he had pursued right to her doorstep, did marry for love later; she has been divorced twice since.
Never say you know the last word about any human heart-Henry James.
(The writer is a physician in Williamsport, PA and may be reached at asifjaved@comcast.net)
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