The pursuit of love and familiar agenda

Saba Naqvi

Give me my Romeo, and, when I shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night,
And pay no worship to the garish sun.

Juliet (Act III, Scene 2) From Romeo and Juliet 
by William Shakespeare

FIRST, a confession: I am from a family packed with love jehadis. This misguided family (full of uncles, aunts, cousins and sisters who married and produced children with partners outside the barricades of religion) thought they were making love, not war. I’m still trying to figure out the demographic change my clan has made to the statistics of children who would be Hindu, Muslim or Christian for I recognize that’s now a matter of utmost national importance.

There’s also a little gem of information that I have concerning the known Muslim personalities in the BJP. Most of them (not revealing their names) have married Hindu women but I’m sure that was before they knew it was love jehad, those damn Romeos! But now as a collective and congregational exercise they should all mull over the political and demographic implications of their personal actions. Are their children Hindus or Muslims? These are apparently the important questions of the day, besides Ram temple, illicit or licit slaughter houses, is the beef buffalo or cow and those anti-Romeo squads. 

Delightful name that’s apparently been given by the BJP leadership even though they have their Shakespeare wrong. Poor Romeo loved Juliet who also loved him and they both pined for love and eventually died in this famous romantic tragedy. Romeo was not a serial philanderer although he did have his heart set on one Rosaline before Juliet caught his eye. Still, he hardly adds up to what we in India so cutely call an “eve teaser” when we mean a man who indulges in sexual harassment. 

Along the way to the death of these star-crossed lovers in Romeo and Juliet we have some fabulous lines such as “Parting is such sweet sorrow that I shall say goodnight till it be morrow.” Or these famous lines: “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose/ by any other word would smell as sweet.” Or “thus with a kiss I die…” 

In the midst of all the news about Yogi’s coronation, there was a small news item about a couple in UP’s Shahjahanpur district killing themselves on March 21. The report stated that Feroz Ahmed, 19, and Gunjha Sharma, 18, committed suicide after their families objected to their relationship. According to the report “the teenagers hugged each other, after which Feroz shot Gunjha in the head and then killed himself with a pistol near the railway station at Bantara in front of shocked eyewitnesses.” 

This is an extreme case. We have no means of understanding the level of social ostracism that contributed to the psychological disturbance that can lead two young people to this horrific death. But what we do know is that it is normal for young men to pursue young women (and vice versa). It is part of the rite of romance.

Yes, we do live in a conservative society where religion, caste and gotra come in the way of free coupling, yet no one can deny the role of pursuit and courtship in romance. 

Sexual harassment is an altogether different matter but young couples being separated by anti-Romeo squads amounts to nothing more than moral policing of normal teen and young adult behaviour. It can be traumatic for couples we see in all Indian parks to have the police swoop down on them on the pretext of saving the girl’s chastity. I can imagine the consequences today were it to be a mixed religion couple stranded in a park in some UP town. 

What is really disturbing about these times is that intrusions into private spaces should be socially acceptable at any level. Fixing law and order and protecting women is different from stating that these are anti-Romeo squads as the name itself suggests moral policing. 

It’s best possibly to escape and remember the many memorable lines from the most performed play by William Shakespeare. Besides the romantic dialogues there are two phrases we freely use in English language that come from this play. “Tempt not a desperate man” and “plague on both your houses”. Shakespeare invented words and phrases. We’ve taken a name from one of his plays and perverted its entire meaning and usage.