Each man kills the thing he loves!

"Yet each man kills the thing he loves,

By each let this be heard,

Some do it with a bitter look,

Some with a flattering word,

The coward does it with a kiss,

The brave man does it with a sword!"

In his engaging and riveting work, The Merchant of Venice, William Shakespeare through his character Bassanio asks a very chilling question to his readers - "Do all men kill the things they do not love?" Conversely another question that can be asked as well is and more relevant to our time, Do all men kill the things they love as well? At a glance we may be tempted to dismiss it by saying a instinctive No! Afterall, In our times and time immemorial, relations are forged and broken "peacefully" infact some with chauvinistic tinge would say amicably and there has been hardly any violence. But is violence only bloodshed and not intentional mental tickering? Is violence not devouring physical intimacy by decieving vulnerable hearts on pretext of false promises? Is it not violent to simply leave by waving hand and saying "Perhaps, We are not made for each other" or Is it not violence to create intentionally a situation where the other one has no option but to painfully frustrate each day till tired. And what's a peaceful sepration if not a crass illusion, manufactured, packaged and marketed by those who now at one hand wish to polish their liberal sophisticated image meanwhile romping through with lust and boredom on the edifice of a relation "that once used to resemble love". Sometimes the violence of peaceful seeming selfish withdrawls is more damning then cold blooded murder, afterall one hijacks soul in trauma other frees it forever.

"Some kill their love when they are young,

And some when they are old,

Some strangle it with hands of lust,

Some with hands of gold:

The kindest use a knife, because

The dead so soon grow cold"

No one should assume for a moment that I am lax on violence in any form but the entire intent of this article is to highlight the violence of a "peaceful separation", how for one what is peace for another is deafening silence of being decieved where the consent is often stamped upon and not consciously sought. Afterall, the violence that inflicts itself under the garb of amicablity is one which hurts most and leaves most enduring wounds of all. It's also an indictment of those who commit this consciously thinking that their superior status or exalted hold over relationship allows them to turn, twist & mould the mind of partner in any way they wish. And all in name of that manipulated game of words - the erstwhile love.

"Some love too little, some to long,

Some sell, and other's buy,

Some do the deed with many a tears,

And some without a sigh:

For each man kills the thing he loves,

Yet each man does not die"

It's not just personal rage that compells me to write this but more of sadist trend that has gripped our time. When the very people you tend to view as examples are nothing but people for whom their image matters more than the substance behind it, and those who from behind the stage of progessiveness are ready to decieve as much as possible to satisfy their own twisted desires. In a growing consumerist times, personal relations are now being viewed through lens of pleasure, fulfillment, satisfaction, a contractual commitment that can be unilaterally withdrawn on whims and fancies of one partner, but not as something that connects mind, soul and heart into one eternal bond through happiness and sorrow alike. Things that cannot be marketed but only felt, and conserved through much efforts not for some sensual pleasure but just as an emotional instinct as natural as one for survival.

To this I want to add a personal note. Those people who are decieved this way are often forgotten as an antique piece of past of someone, often blamed for their own situation, left alone to murmur to anyone ready to offer their sympathy. A pathetic voiceless creature. This caricature has to be smashed first. Every person deserves to be loved, and should never be blamed for sickness of someone else nor made to carry guilt of another's perverse shifts of mind. Those on their pinnacles of prestige need to know, the buck doesn't end with their whims, life continues on and if a flower can wither it can bloom again. A person who's relation ends is not merely puppy to be doled out biscuits of sympathy or to be called at hoary nights when there's nothing but a tinge to play but a person worth respect, empathy and love that they genuinely deserve. Sometimes for wounds inflicted by wayward lust only selfless love can claim to heel. If someone is not naming and shaming you, it's not because what happened was right or legitimate but because sometimes a calm silence conveys a more piercing indictment, something that pierces the remanants of conscience at night, if something of that name still remains. And if shame remains it's never late to apologise, apologize not as last resort, another attempt on an earlier "option" but as something genuine, to be offered and then disappear from scene forever.

And for those imposters, those who will never have enough character nor courage to ask, and those who have been coward enough in first place to decieve someone's emotions, there comes a time when -

"And all the woe that moved him so

That he gave that bitter cry,

And the wild regrets and bloody sweats

None knew so well as I

For he who lives more lives than one

More deaths than one must die."

And to those who are suffering from this void of pain, the deafening silence and a soulless life that seems like a maze, and a face & a voice that more you try to forget revolves more intensely at the back of your mind, I have nothing to offer but my sincere love, solidarity and a personal embrace of warmth affirming that you aren't alone -

"How else but through a broken heart

 New light will enter in"

- Bhuvan Krishna

  21.06.2021

PS - All the above stanzas in quotation marks are from that heart broken poet Oscar Wilde's last work before death in a lonely prison cell, The Ballad of Reading Gaol. I have no shame in accepting that I have quoted lines in ways not envisaged by poet but then reader has as much right on works as much the writer. This poem is much recommended to the readers.

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