A Bucket of Love

SUMIT PAUL





“Love is in the air In the second month of the year When everything looks so lovely And the sky is also clear,“ Dorothy Parker wrote this lovely quatrain as an ode to February , the month of love and lovers.It's not for nothing that Valentine's Day also falls in February and this month corresponds with vasant ritu (spring) in the subcontinent, which evokes the soul-gladdening and heartwarming feelings of love. Poet John Keats was so enamoured of February that he wrote, “Let February come A month so winsome With a bucket of love and flowers Hearts will be ripened and love will blossom.“
Mankind is all the more in need of love because we've had enough of violence, bloodshed, bad blood, rancour and wars.Only love has the capacity to heal wounded hearts and bind them like glue. J Krishnamurti said, “Nothing but love can save mankind because all humane traits come out of the womb of love.“ We can win hearts with love and not with hatred. The Buddha melted the hardest hearts with his all-encompassing love and compassion.
Mohandas Gandhi embarrassed the mighty British Empire with his unconditional love and it was the overwhelming power of love that could make the released Nelson Mandela say with a disarming smile to the Dutch jailer, “Sorry , I've nothing to give you except for my love.“
The Dutch jailer wrote in his memoirs, “Living alone for 27 years in an isolated island gaol, Mandela could come out sane and smiling sans any bitterness because he didn't let the love and hope in his heart die.“