They provide housing, legal aid, and protection to couples seeking their aid who are being persecuted by family and society for wanting to marry based solely on mutual attraction and love.
In India, most marriages are arranged by parents, with potential marriage partners vetted on the basis of caste, complexion, horoscope, etc., - the matter of love is rarely considered.
Love across the barriers of caste, religion and economic class can be problematic, resulting in violence and occasionally honor killing. The police have been known to refuse protection to such couples, sometimes even siding with parents and arresting the male lovers on false charges of rape.
The Love Commandos consists of journalists, businessmen, lawyers and human rights activists. They provide protection to lovers from religious hardliners. They also run secret shelters for eloped couples, where they may stay until they gain financial independence.They also help willing couples to get married and register their marriage with the civil authorities.
LOL or lol, an acronym for laugh(ing) out loud, or lots of laughs, is a popular element of Internet slang.
It was first used almost exclusively on Usenet, but has since become widespread in other forms of computer-mediated communication and even face-to-face communication.
However, the pre-Internet version of the acronym meant “lots of love” or “lots of luck."
Joseph Andrew Dekenipp escaped by climbing two walls and crawling through razor wire.
Arizona suspect Joseph Andrew Dekenipp went from jailbird, to lovebird, and back to jailbird - all in three hours.
Dekenipp was determined to spend Valentine's Day with his girlfriend.
So much so that he crawled past razor wire, scaled two fences and made his way to a bar about 10 miles away, according to authorities.
Dekenipp went missing Friday afternoon from a fenced recreation yard at the detention center in Florence, according to the CNN affiliate.
When inmates there returned to their residential units, Dekenipp was nowhere to be found.
He'd made the daring escape and was headed to a bar in nearby Coolidge, where he was going to meet his girlfriend.
Pinal County deputies used K-9s to track him, but then his scent disappeared, so they pulled over cars on nearby roadways and searched them.
Their big break came when two teens told authorities that their friend gave Dekenipp a ride to the bar. Deputies hightailed it there, where they found Dekenipp. And no, he wasn't wearing his jail uniform.
Three hours after his escape, his handcuffs clinked shut again without incident. He was hauled back to Pinal County Adult Detention Center.
Dekenipp had been booked in jail last month on various charges, including suspected car theft, unlawful flight and driving on a suspended license, the affiliate reported.
At the time, he was held on a $5,000 bond and had a pretrial hearing set for February 25, according to the affiliate.
The lovebird - and jailbird - may be apart from his girlfriend for a longer period.
In addition to all that, he's now facing an escape charge.
Our human brains also enable us to feel intensely. The culprit is not our heart, but rather, our brain.
The human amygdala, an almond-shaped region on the side of the head beneath the cortex, is more than twice the size of the amygdala in apes. This brain region plays a central role in generating fear, rage, aversion, and aggression; parts produce pleasure, too. With this brain capacity for generating strong, often violent emotions, we humans have the ability to link our drive to love with an enormous
Even identical twins, who have similar interests and lifestyles, as well as similar religious, political, and social values, tend to develop different styles of loving and choose different types of partners. Subtle differences in their experiences have shaped their romantic tastes.
Symmetry is beautiful—to insects, birds, mammals, all of the primates, and people around the world.
photo credit pixabay.com
Female scorpionflies seek mates with uniform wings. Barn swallows like partners with well-proportioned tails. Monkeys are partial to symmetrical teeth. If you walk into a village in New Guinea and point to the most beautiful man or woman sitting around the campfire, the natives will agree with you. And when researchers used computers to blend many faces into a composite “average” face, both men and women liked the average face better than any of the individual ones.
It was more balanced. Even two-month-old infants gaze longer at more symmetrical faces.
Creatures with balanced, well-proportioned ears, eyes, teeth, and jaws, with symmetrical elbows, knees, and breasts, have been able to repel bacteria, viruses, and other minute predators that can cause bodily irregularities. By displaying symmetry, animals advertise their superior genetic ability to combat diseases.
Nature has even given us the brain wiring to find strangers exciting. Mysterious people are novel. And novelty is associated with elevated levels of dopamine—the neurotransmitter of romance.
You and I inherited this natural repulsion for copulation with close family members and other individuals we know well, a distaste that undoubtedly evolved to discourage in-breeding—the destructive act of mixing one’s DNA with close kin. As a result, we are more likely to become attracted to someone from outside our family or the group in which we were raised—someone with a touch of mystery.
It is reported that ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle advised Alexander the Great not to allow his soldiers to drink mint tea during campaigns because he believed it to be an aphrodisiac.
Valentine’s Day is banned in Iran, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan. But these aren't the only places...
WHAT do Russia’s Belgorod province and some schools in Florida and Connecticut have in common? They are unlikely recruits to the war on Valentine’s Day. In 2011 the governor of Belgorod banned celebration of the holiday in educational and cultural institutions on the ground that it was inimical to Russian spirituality and morality. Last year two schools in Orange County, Florida, forbade Valentine’s gift-giving, citing such reasons as the need to “maintain instructional focus” and “avoid distraction”. And this year a school in Connecticut wrote to parents to say it would be replacing sweets and parties on February 14th with healthy snacks and academic activities.
This puts them all on the same side as many Muslim countries that have banned the celebration of Valentine’s Day, among them Iran, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan. Saudi Arabia has gone so far as to ban all things red from flowers and gift shops on the day—with little effect other than to create a black market for red roses. Tursunbai Bakir uulu, a member of Kyrgyzstan’s parliament, recently urged his fellow legislators to adopt a ban, too, dubbing Valentine’s Day a “holiday from the devil”.
Ancient Greeks declared their love for a woman by throwing an apple at her.
photo credit pixabay.com
Yes, it seems rather funny to us in the present times, but is the truth. Earlier, throwing an apple to a woman was considered to be a way of expressing your love for the woman; and if the woman caught the apple, she accepted your marriage proposal!
Just like most Greek customs, this one too has its origins in an ancient Greek myth. According to legend, the Goddess of conflicts, Eris, was very disturbed by the fact that she wasn’t invited to the wedding of Thetis and Peleus. So as a form of revenge, she threw an apple at the wedding party, with the words “to the most beautiful one” inscribed on it.
The next thing that happened was funny to say the least. The three Goddesses – Athena, Aphrodite and Hera began to argue with one another as to whom the apple had been thrown to. When people saw that they were unable to come to a conclusion, they decided to intervene; and as a way of putting an end to this clash, they ordered Paris of Troy, the Prince who led the famous Trojan War, to decide who the apple was thrown to.
Now the Prince of Troy was bribed by all the three Goddesses to choose them as the winner, but Aphrodite had given him the best offer. She promised him that if he declared her as the owner of this apple, she would bring him his most awaited possession –Helen of Troy.
It was since then that the apple was considered sacred to Goddess Aphrodite and if anyone threw an apple to a woman, it was considered as a declaration of his love. If she accepted the apple, it meant that she accepted the marriage proposal.
This custom and its background story, both are equally intriguing. Besides, the couples in those days used to eat apples on their wedding night as a symbol of love and people also gifted apples to each other.
Falling in love appears to reduce serotonin levels in the blood in a similar way to obsessive-compulsive disorders.
photo credit pixabay.com
The first time I saw her... Everything in my head went quiet. All the tics, all the constantly refreshing images just disappeared. When you have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, you don’t really get quiet moments. Even in bed, I’m thinking: Did I lock the doors? Yes. Did I wash my hands? Yes. Did I lock the doors? Yes. Did I wash my hands? Yes. But when I saw her, the only thing I could think about was the hairpin curve of her lips.. Or the eyelash on her cheek— the eyelash on her cheek— the eyelash on her cheek. I knew I had to talk to her. I asked her out six times in thirty seconds. She said yes after the third one, but none of them felt right, so I had to keep going. On our first date, I spent more time organizing my meal by color than I did eating it, or fucking talking to her... But she loved it. She loved that I had to kiss her goodbye sixteen times or twenty-four times if it was Wednesday. She loved that it took me forever to walk home because there are lots of cracks on our sidewalk. When we moved in together, she said she felt safe, like no one would ever rob us because I definitely locked the door eighteen times. I’d always watch her mouth when she talked— when she talked— when she talked— when she talked when she talked; when she said she loved me, her mouth would curl up at the edges. At night, she’d lay in bed and watch me turn all the lights off.. And on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off. She’d close her eyes and imagine that the days and nights were passing in front of her. Some mornings I’d start kissing her goodbye but she’d just leave cause I was just making her late for work... When I stopped in front of a crack in the sidewalk, she just kept walking... When she said she loved me her mouth was a straight line. She told me that I was taking up too much of her time. Last week she started sleeping at her mother’s place. She told me that she shouldn’t have let me get so attached to her; that this whole thing was a mistake, but... How can it be a mistake that I don’t have to wash my hands after I touched her? Love is not a mistake, and it’s killing me that she can run away from this and I just can’t. I can’t – I can’t go out and find someone new because I always think of her. Usually, when I obsess over things, I see germs sneaking into my skin. I see myself crushed by an endless succession of cars... And she was the first beautiful thing I ever got stuck on. I want to wake up every morning thinking about the way she holds her steering wheel.. How she turns shower knobs like she's opening a safe. How she blows out candles— blows out candles— blows out candles— blows out candles— blows out candles— blows out… Now, I just think about who else is kissing her. I can’t breathe because he only kisses her once — he doesn’t care if it’s perfect! I want her back so bad... I leave the door unlocked. I leave the lights on.
When you think of a broken heart, you may picture a cartoon drawing with a jagged line through it. But a real-life broken heart can actually lead to cardiac consequences. There are established ties between depression, mental health and heart disease.
Broken heart syndrome is a temporary heart condition (even if you are healthy) that's often brought on by stressful situations, such as the death of a loved one. People with broken heart syndrome may have sudden chest pain or think they're having a heart attack.
In broken heart syndrome, a part of your heart temporarily enlarges and doesn’t pump well, while the rest of your heart functions normally or with even more forceful contractions. Researchers are just starting to learn the causes, and how to diagnose and treat it.
The bad news:
Broken heart syndrome can lead to severe, short-term heart muscle failure.
The good news:
Broken heart syndrome is usually treatable. Most people who experience it make a full recovery within weeks, and they’re at low risk for it happening again (although in rare cases in can be fatal).
Researchers found that an image of a romantic partner dulls activity in the pain-processing areas of the brain, to the same degree as paracetamol or narcotics such as cocaine.
Grab a mask, a scary one...what, it's not Halloween?!
From Christmas Eve until the Twelfth Night, young men in northern parts of Europe would go about in the middle of the night scaring people in the streets or in their farms. They would be wearing frightening masks, and would be “disguised according to the old fashion of the devil.” During these long, dark nights the young yule mummers would try to scare people by pretending to act like ghosts, trolls or other strange creatures.
The ‘Persian New Year’, otherwise called Nowruz (or Norooz), is a 13-day spring festival celebrated on or around the vernal equinox (The time or date (twice each year) at which the sun crosses the celestial equator, when day and night are of equal length (about September 22 and March 20)) in March.
Traditions included feasts, exchanging presents with family members and neighbours, lighting bonfires, dyeing eggs and sprinkling water to symbolise creation.
A symbol of Nowruz – on the vernal equinox the powers of the eternally fighting bull (personifying the Earth) and lion (personifying the Sun) are equal.
One of the oldest traditions still celebrated today is Chinese New Year, which is believed to have originated around three millennia ago during the Shang Dynasty.
The holiday began as a way of celebrating the new beginnings of the spring planting season, but later it became connected with myth and legend. According to one account, there was once a bloodthirsty creature called Nian - now the Chinese word for “year” - that preyed on villages every New Year.
In order to frighten the hungry beast, the villagers took to decorating their homes with red trimmings, burning bamboo and making loud noises. The trick worked, and the bright colours and lights associated with scaring off Nian eventually became integrated into the customs that are still seen today. Festivities are now celebrated with food, families, lucky money (usually in a red envelope), and many other red things for good luck. Lion and dragon dances, drums, fireworks, firecrackers, and other types of entertainment fill the streets on this day.
Since Chinese New Year is still based on a lunar calendar that dates back to the second millennium BC, the holiday typically falls in late January or early February on the second new moon after the winter solstice. Each year is associated with one of 12 zodiacal animals: the rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog or pig.
If you happen to be in Venice on New Year's Eve, a very special thing awaits you there.
In recent years it has become common that the Venetians leave their homes for New Year's Eve and go on the Piazza San Marco to greet the new year with a kiss.
Celebrating New Year on January 1 is purely arbitrary, as neither it has agricultural significance nor astronomical. Many countries still celebrate it in spring, the season of rebirth of new crops.
The first month of the year, i.e. January, has been named after God Janus (Latin word for door), in the Roman calendar. Janus is the God with two faces, one looking backwards and one forward, at the same time and marks the ‘spirit of the opening’.
The date of New Year’s Day seems so fundamental that it’s almost as though nature ordained it. But New Year’s Day is a civil event. Its date isn't precisely fixed by any natural seasonal marker.
Our modern celebration of New Year’s Day stems from an ancient Roman custom, the feast of the Roman god Janus – god of doorways and beginnings. The name for the month of January also comes from Janus, who was depicted as having two faces. One face of Janus looked back into the past, and the other peered forward to the future.
