Love is not a feeling.

I was sitting and watching this movie on Saturday night, as one of those random flicks that hang on my perpetually surfing remote. It was a heart-warming story of a single-parent with kids trying to adjust to a new life. There was a line in the movie that got my attention - "Love is not a feeling. It is an ability." I was blown away by its truth and wanted to own it.

Six years ago, I met a man who was a father, played an instrument and was athletic just like me except for one difference. He was blind. A bout of small pox stole his sight and there was no tissue there in his eye sockets. It just carried the semblance of two hollows where if God wished He could plant afresh a new pair of eyes. But this man laughed from his belly and played in orchestras. And he had a wife who was fully sighted. Ranjan was a man in more ways than just one, like me.

He was no different, except that he saw with his heart, his other four senses and not his eyes. This ability tuned out the din that we normal people encounter when we see with our eyes. Things like shape, colour, skin texture, beautiful things pleasing to the eye. We are so used to this form of seeing that we miss the real and the mysterious like the myriad tone colourations of a single voice; the sound of a held-in breath when a person you love extends a welcome hug; the gap of interminable silence hanging between sentences of a conversation between friends that convey thoughtfulness, love and respect; the sound of your child breathing when her little head hits the pillow that lets you know your day as a parent is done....the list goes on and on... and none of this can be told to us by our sight.

I once playfully asked Ranjan if he could indeed tell the subtle indivudual differences of what made a woman attractive to him since he could not see. He said it was her "voice!" and all its nuances. I had no answer but the truth of it was a blinding light to my soul. On another occasion, I asked his wife, a Nurse, how it was that she chose to marry Ranjan, inspite of the obvious. She said she had prayed while still in her formative years, that God would give her a husband whom she could serve and take care of. Both their prayers were answered. They have a son called Rhythm, so named after their love of music.

"Love is not a feeling. It is an ability....." (like breathing almost!)

My favourite quotes in the movie are when Dan interacts with his daughters, two of whom, Marty and Cara are teenagers and like most teens passionately blinded by love at first sight.

When he is floundering miserably to make sense of it with Cara, the younger teen - " What don't I understand, Cara? Please, help me out. What is it? Is it frustrating that you can't be with this person? That there's something keeping you apart? That there's something about this person that you can connect with? And whenever you're near this person, you don't know what to say, and you say everything that's in your mind and in your heart, and you know that if you could just be together, that this person would help you become the best possible version of yourself?

Cara responds from her broken young heart - You are a murderer of love!

In another scene with the spirited Cara who is bent on proving to her dad that love is real at any age is crying her heart out after her father asks her boyfriend to leave their house. Her father standing next to his brother Marie's girlfriend (the woman that he is in love with!) sighs wistfully...

Marie: That's sweet.

Dan Burns: How is that sweet?

Marie: To be that certain, to feel that much love.

Dan Burns: Love isn't a feeling?

Marie: No?

Dan Burns: It's an ability.

Marie: Well, if that's true, then you have one gifted daughter.

"You know that feeling in your heart? When your heart is just pounding, like it's actually outside your ribs. Exposed, venerable, but wonderful and awful, and heartsick, and alive, all at the same time?" - Dan Burns