Other Loves

Vampires and zombies have no respite. Their search for connection continues for centuries. And then there is unrequited love-an ache that smoulders for a lifetime

- Vineetha Mokkil

LOVE is a mystery. A puzzle, a paradox. Opposites attract. Eternal love promises eternity, but often comes with an expiry date. Love kills, love cures; love can be cruel to be kind. Poets, philosophers, psychologists, saints, and matchmakers keen to make a quick buck—have all tried to solve this mystery from the moment Adam and Eve were kicked out of Heaven. Reams of poetry written. Mountains of prose piled up. Operas belted out. Pages and pages of research filed and footnoted. And yet, the answer stays out of our reach much like the riddle Meatloaf left behind for us: “I would do anything for love/But I won’t do that.” Anyone with a beating heart who has heard that Meatloaf song walks the earth haunted by one question: what does “that” stand for? What exactly is the “that” he wouldn’t do for love? Who can say for sure! Meatloaf is gone, leaving us guessing.

Luckily, not all riddles are left unsolved. Not all of them have to nag us this Valentine’s week. Dying to know what happens when vampires fall in love? Watch Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive. The love story of deeply depressed Adam (Tom Hiddleston) and a slightly less pessimistic Eve (Tilda Swinton) is centuries old. Adam is about 500 (not in human years, obviously!), and Eve, 3,000. The two have loved and lived for so long that they know how to appreciate the finer things in life—music, literature, science. Adam is an underground musician who thinks humans are a lost cause. He calls them ‘zombies’ who are blind to everything that is worth seeing. “I’m sick of it,” Adam says. “These zombies, what they’ve done to the world, their fear of their own imaginations.”