The Museum of Broken Relationships:
Love’s Final Theater?
- Faruck Haidar
Antique watch
Pharaceutical Bowl
Lock of hair
Tear Container
Frozen Rose
Don’t know when earthlings first became aware of love - the most mysterious of all feelings of our planet. With time they went on to invent something what was elevated to ‘true love’, sought to understand it as well. Its magic enriched their lives, made their hearts sing, dance and cry. In due course they went on to dream of ‘eternal love’ which probably meant wanting to fall in love with the same person in every incarnation. For that to happen, many have suggested, love may have to be placed in some sort of a ‘time capsule’ and the password shared with the intended party! And there are also those who describe love as “a construct of the human mind …. limited by the finite potential of the brain … and Eternity is a poet’s dream …..” Whatever it may be, we all seem to ‘experience’ it one way or the other, many times over in a lifetime. That’s the good news. The bad news is that to fall in love many times, one has to fall out of love many times. Either because someone walks out on us or we do on someone or because of circumstances beyond our control we live through the pain of breaking up with a lover. And there is ample evidence of genetic links between physical pain and ‘social rejection’ at mentally painful times. A broken heart truly hurts! Not many come out unscathed of their heartbreak, there are some very unfortunate folks who never seem to get out of it, yet most manage to survive and fall in love again. And again. Thank Heavens, they do!
These are some of the thoughts I brought back with me when I visited the Museum of Broken Relationships in Zagreb this summer. This out-of-the-ordinary museum tucked away in a corner of the Kulmer Palace, a beautiful example of baroque architecture in the Balkans, was founded only a few years ago by a loving couple when their...