Somewhere in the mysterious headquarters where society writes its unwritten rules, a committee must have once met and decided something very important. Men must be tall. Women must be short.
In fairy tales the prince is tall, heroic and rides a horse with impressive posture. The princess is delicate and looks up at him with admiration and possibly mild neck strain.
Films follow the same formula. The hero stands tall and broad shouldered while the heroine gazes upward as if she is looking at a newly installed streetlight.
Society, it seems, cannot handle a tall woman and a short man.
But I once saw such a couple at a railway station. The woman was tall, graceful and confident. The man beside her was considerably shorter. Not slightly shorter. Properly shorter.
And yet something remarkable was happening.
They were both laughing.
They were clearly enjoying each other’s company while the rest of us were silently measuring them like government surveyors.
And that is when it struck me that the world has a strange obsession with rules that do not matter.
Tall men and short women.
Fair skin and dark skin.
Rich families and respectable backgrounds.
Society loves neat categories because they make life look orderly.
But love has never shown much respect for neat categories.
It ignores rules the way a cat ignores traffic signals.
And this is where things get truly interesting.
Because the same society that worries about tall women marrying short men is also busy making serious laws about who should fall in love with whom.
When we pass dramatic sounding bills about love jihad and similar matters, we are essentially doing the same thing as those imaginary committee members who decided men must be tall and women must be short.
We are drawing lines. We are announcing rules. We are telling love how it should behave.
History shows that love listens politely and then does exactly what it wants.
True love breaks rules the way children break biscuits. Quietly. Naturally. Without consulting parliament.
If a tall woman can fall in love with a short man and laugh loudly on a railway platform while the rest of us stare, it proves something very simple. Human hearts are wonderfully stubborn. They refuse to follow stupid norms. They refuse to measure affection in inches, religions, communities or government notifications.
Because love is not an engineering project. It does not require blueprints and regulations.
It simply finds another heart that makes it happy.
So let tall women marry short men. Let short women marry tall men. Let people love across religions, languages and cultures.
And let the rest of us relax. Because in the great measurement chart of life, the only height that truly matters is the height of the heart.
And thankfully, that is one measurement no government has yet managed to regulate…!
The Author conducts an online, eight session Writers and Speakers Course. If you’d like to join, do send a thumbs-up to WhatsApp number 9892572883 or send a message to bobsbanter@gmail.com
