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
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 duly jotted 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 Uske Paas Jaate 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 them. 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.
Sahir Ludhianvi and a married Amrita Pritam were madly in love. Both moved to India from Lahore after the partition. Amrita’s marriage broke down. Sahir was single. But they never married. A legacy of their doomed love may be Sahir’s verse:
Chalo ik baar phir say
Ajnabi banjaen ham donoon
Professor 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 love again, 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, Shaukat Rizwi 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.
Mussarat Nazir 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 “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 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 some time, 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 the 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 Saira Bano, the aging superstar, had a secret marriage with Asma, a divorced socialite. The wedding pictures were somehow leaked. The tragedy king, who had been denying the rumors all along, finally confessed. As expected, Saira Bano raised hell, as did the 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.
Romantic poets do need a muse. While Akhtar Shirani’s Azra and Salma were fictional characters, Iqbal’s Ema was not. The young poet had been in Germany for his PhD. His letters to the German beauty reveal that he may have been in love. Atya Fayzee, 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. Shakil Badayuni 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 1930s, 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)
