Comparing Love is Diminishing It
Lessons from my sister's ordeal of losing her cat and standing up to the family
A few weeks ago, my sister was attending a cousin’s wedding in another city, her cat escaped its boarding shelter. My sister spent 48 hours in agony, unable to participate in the wedding festivities, while also dealing with the family’s failure to understand her state of mind. She decided to leave amid celebrations, to get home and join the search and rescue efforts.
Her decision to leave resulted in a familial quagmire. Our parents were worried but unable to empathise with her. The relatives were confused and amused at her emotional response to this situation. Cousins expected her to continue celebrating the wedding, or join other festivities. “Your nephew is more important that the cat,” someone supposedly said.
A phenomenon that I’ve witnessed play out time and again within Indian families, is the expectation to equate love with the proximity of one’s relation. Affection with one’s parents, children, siblings, cousins etc. are set as default channels of love. Anything out of these circles is regarded as secondary or not important, such as friends, neighbours, and pets.
Activist and author, Bell Hooks has defined love as, “the will to extend one's self for the the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth.” Whichever relationship helps us move in that direction is worthy of being called a loving one, isn’t it?
Our families, close and extended, are too caught up in demarcating love based on societal hierarchies - family dynamics coalesced in rigid social orders. We are expected to overlook abusive patterns and histories of abuse within families. We are supposed to forgive and forget serious lapses in trust that occur in some of the closest family ties. We are asked to show respect towards elders and relationships of the higher order, even if they disrespect our life choices. Seeking forgiveness is always defined as a one-way street. We overlook bad behaviour to keep the relationship intact.
When we start placing love within the confines of societal and familial hierarchies, it’s never fully realised. Love is not interested in being compared - it’s a huge disservice to love and the beloved. It obliges to no one. Love meets love. It is simple and precisely for its simplicity sometimes so hard to grasp, when we witness it.
When it comes to love, there is no one size fits all. And isn’t that the most exciting part?
My parents struggle and often resist the idea of chosen family, because they were raised on the morals of focusing on one’s blood family. But, deep down, most of us might have truly experienced joyous and liberating love in relationships not carrying the burden of societal expectations.
The Grant Study - a 75-year longitudinal study developed by the Study of Adult Development at Harvard Medical School, studied the lives of 268 men and concluded that having meaningful relationships is by far the most critical aspect in leading happier, healthier lives. Why shouldn’t we explore and invest in building such relationships beyond the groups we are part of?
My sister drew boundaries and established her love for the cat, because in the hours that he went missing, she felt inexplainable pain and loss that others could not fathom. She set an example of what she was ready to do in order to look for someone she loves. She was reunited with him 72 hours later.
Mariyam Haider publishes poetry, non-fiction and personal essays on feminism, culture and social justice. Her work has appeared in Scroll, Asian Review of Books, Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy, Livemint, Mekong Review, among others.
She has worked as researcher-fact checker on James Crabtree’s ‘Billionaire Raj’ (2018) and science journalist Angela Saini’s upcoming book ‘The Patriarchs’ (2023).
Mariyam also produces and hosts ‘Main Bhi Muslim’ podcast, which offers a space to people from the Indian Muslim community to share their diverse lived experiences.
You can follow her work on Instagram or LinkedIn. She currently lives in Singapore.