The Love, The Other Guy and The Old Flame

Who will he choose? For the longest time, Uthman Huzir, or Uth, a bookstore associate finds it difficult to make his choice when it comes to the love of his life. Should he choose The Love or The Other Girl or The Old Flame? This dilemma suffocates him and is turning his life around totally 360°. He never asked for all this to happen.

He only yearns for The Love, and everything about her. Still, the situation becomes more complicated. There is still The Other Girl and The Old Flame…and himself. His dilemma continues, The Other Girl pursues him. The Old Flame wants him back. The Other Guy wants The Love. How can he solve the jigsaw puzzle? Worse, he is wondering what love means and how does it feel. Is what he feels for The Love is really love?

Hehehe this is a synopsis from the novel LUVE by Pingu Toha which I have just finished reading over the weekend.

It’s a complicated love story written in an uncomplicated manner. It’s like reading one’s thought, blog style. This captivating and intriguing love story kept me turning the pages.

For a week I was really looking forward to finishing work early so that I can start reading. For a week, I was deprived of my 6-7 hour beauty sleep, and spent less time hanging out with my friends. I even refused dates because I wanted to read. Ha-ha! I’m rather selfish with my time and space, aren’t I. Ha-ha! No wonder I’m still single!

You know, except for literature materials like Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa and Hikayat Hang Tuah which are my favorites, I hardly read that many books in Bahasa Melayu. This is especially true about books that are very “jiwang” that I can puke and exaggeratedly too flowery and chronically melancholic.

When the content begins to hijack the content, I tend to lose the story in the between, somewhere along the line. Ha-ha! I sometimes blame it on my short memory and attention span, and sometimes on the writer.

So for a novel like LUVE to have such an impact on me, I must say well done, kudos to the author, Pingu Toha for spinning a complicated web of humorously touching and bewitching love story!

Back to the story, I can connect to the book because when I think deeper, I’m like Uth when it comes to interpreting love. Do I know what love really means and how do I know if what I feel is really love? There is no empirical evidence to prove that it is love. Love is so hypothetical that there is no one definition that aptly describes love for what it is.

My love story sometime ago was a little like Uth’s love story in LUVE. Like Uth, I yearned for The Love, but there was always The Other Girls who are younger and gorgeous pursuing him. I, believing in Blue Ocean Strategy, wouldn’t compete with other fishes if I didn’t think I have a good chance to win. I would rather swim away and find a less complicated fish in the Blue Ocean that would love me. The Other Guy whom I was not very keen with and really isn’t my type, is relentlessly pursuing me. The Old Flame, whom I’m not in love anymore, wanted me back somehow for whatever reason. The Self was in a dilemma. Ha-ha!

Now, a little twist to The Story….

The Crush entering the state of affairs was such a welcome diversion….a commercial break. When things became overly complicated with so many players in the drama, I sought comfort from The Best Friend.

Ooopss! It seems that my love story was a tad bit more complicated and intricate than Uth’s love story huh!