I found time to play my ukulele. I found time to learn a new song. I also found the time to make a bungled recording (I should have practiced longer- but I’m impatient to share, and not shy enough to mind) of me singing this song. Please don’t mind the mediocre cover. In this edition of “who sang it better” the answer is always Kygo and Labrinth.

A friend- a mirror– spoke with me this week about the kind of love we want. About wanting someone who doesn’t need me, but someone strong enough to take the endless surge of my love. We laughed about our endless capacity love and simultaneously being afraid of being needed. She let go of the men she has around her, and I let go of the pressure for a man to fulfill my life- and yet here we are talking about men, and love and life.

It’s such a wonder to me that in every culture there is a word for love; that poets and artists and writers have tried since the beginning of time to explain the attraction, and overwhelming emotion between two humans. I feel so connected to these kindred souls of yonder, as here we are, in the modern age of digital-everything, still trying to understand and explain the illogical, impossible connection that is given the name Love.

I recently discovered that the word for love in Sinhalese, “Adare” derives from the Sanskrit word “adara” which means “to respect.” It was impressive to me. To understand that culturally my roots lay in such a grounded fact about love, which is that to love is to respect, or to love you MUST respect.

I’ve noticed how all the many contemporaries of mine who are getting engaged, getting married, having their first child, having their second child, having their 10th anniversary, refer to their partner as their best friend. I always rolled my eyes, because I never actually believed that the person you marry is your best friend.

I mostly felt this way because the term “best friend” has a much heavier, deeper, and longer lasting connotation for me than that of “spouse.”

So what then is the connection between friendship and love?

I watched a movie recently, which introduced some powerful quotes about love. I’m typing this quote in Urdu, because the English translation just doesn’t carry the same emotional weight.

Pyar mein junoon hai, par dosti mein sukoon hai. Aur mein nehin chahte ki hum dhono ke beech is sukoon khabi bi chala jaye. Girlfriend, boyfriend, husband, wife, yeh saare rishtey jab toot jaye tho toot jathe hai nah? Aur mein tuhmein kabhi nehin chodna chahthi… Never.”- Ae Dil Hai Mushkil

(There is passion in Love, but there is peace in Friendship. And I don’t want to lose the peace between us. Girlfriend, boyfriend, husband, wife, these relationships break, and when they break they are gone right? And I don’t ever want to leave you… never)

Well, here is something to think about for those romantics out there, and here also is a video of me singing as promised.