Love is the sort of world that the 21st century advanced science is in its very embryonic stage to confirm its existence. Many among us avoid any talk of Valentine’s Day for being a western culture while remaining seemingly oblivious that when seen through utilitarian lens, a relic does not qualify for being discredited just because it belongs to a different culture. While one takes pain to define it, love is the total submission of a lover’s will to the will of his beloved only voluntarily. The promise of love is that the will of beloved is the will of lover -- always was, always is and always will be!

When it is mutual, love becomes one soul inhabiting two bodies. If you wholeheartedly accept your beloved with all imperfections and take pride in what she is and feel the inevitable spell of her invisible omnipresence even when she is a thousand mile away, yours is definitely love! It is this way that love becomes the metaphysical merger of a lover with the loved.

If "sometimes the heart sees what is invisible to the eye", then listen to Paulo Coelho: "[A]nd, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it." But mind it that when the universe conspires in your favour, the moment is not always a bed of roses. The tectonic plates of one’s life are shaken to the core to test the faith of a lover. No surprise then that the journey of love is fraught with difficulties. Ironically, every hurdle makes the lover firmer and brings him nearer to his destination. True commitment and undying patience hold the key.

Sometimes, love goes mad. Taking one’s own life because one could not marry her or killing the beloved because she either did not love the lover goes against the very essence of love: beloved’s will. Love is not necessarily about marrying the beloved. For the underlying objective of love is the sheer happiness of beloved, it is obligatory to remain pleased until the beloved is unhappy. When love is not real, the winter of affection may descend when its spring departs.

But a lover who never gets his beloved never sees the evening of love. For he does not reach boom, he does not experience bust. The fantasy of beloved is more enticing than having one. However, every lover wants the possession of his beloved for a compelling reason: his is the persuasive belief that she can be at her happiest only with him simply because her will is his!

Falling in love has various situations. Love at first sight is the most unique of all. The John Keats’s "a thing of beauty is a joy forever" can hardly be truer elsewhere. Natural, here love comes uninvited. With a stranger making an entry so deep that the well acquainted could never, here a lover’s submission is complete only instantly, flatly and unconditionally. For in love heart performs the function of mind, feelings override reason.

Slew of unconvincing supposedly rational arguments embedded in the wrongly-perceived-unbridgeable incompatibilities are presented to back down the lover from beloved. The unsuccessful persuaders of the old regime fail to understand that in love, as mind is at the mercy of heart, the talk of rationality may consume Socrates and Plato but finds no refuge between Qays and Laila. Idealistic, love is never about wealth and status. Sacred as love is, amorous advances can only ruin it.

The journey of love is multifarious. Love is a lonely affair in the beginning. In majority cases, one loves the other obliges. In some instances, the beloved’s willingness is time demanding. Rarely, love remains solo forever. Here the innocent lover accords love its truest meaning: self-sacrifice. A lover, neither frustrated nor complaining, understands that love is his commitment to beloved and not vice versa.

When immature, love has reasons. You love because the loved is mature, flexible and among others open-minded. Mature love has no reason: you love because you love. Yes, because "beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder" every beloved is as beautiful in the view of his/her lover as was Joseph in the sight of Zulaikha or Laila in the gazes of Qays. Since beloved is as much respected as loved, she remains the undisputed Her Majesty of the kingdom of lover’s heart.

Nervousness is the ethos of love. A lover gets confused in front of her unmoved beloved not because her respect is at stake but because her emotional investment in terms of beloved’s joy is at risk. The only enterprise where lover invests for the sake of beloved, the selfless business of love is immune to Adam Smith’s selfish capitalism.

Iconoclastic, love crushes every barrier. With a Jew embracing a Palestinian, a Sunni losing heart to a Shia, a Punjabi loving a Pashtun and an Indian feeling for a Pakistani are all instances of love obliterating hatred. An experience only once in a lifetime, love is always reserved for one person. One’s first love is always one’s last love. One’s claim to love more than once is either lust or likenesses. Unlike the everlasting love, while lust is never-satiating carnal desires, likeness is purely temporal appeal. Intriguingly, too big a place to accommodate the entire universe, heart is too small to house two beloveds!

Being eternal, love never dies. Due to beloved’s indifference edging on unhappiness, love hibernates bordering on coma. Unique, for love produces emotional interdependence, peace is the yield. We hate because we disagree. But the lover’s voluntary submission to beloved’s will is the final nail in the coffin of hatred. With love being interchangeable for peace, should we not commit to love even if it were for the sake of consigning hatred to dustbin? Every Valentine’s Day reminds us that love begets the strongest of all bonds! A harmless undertaking, love is worth risk taking!