The Theme of Love in Born Confused

              In the book Born Confused by Tanuja Desai Hidier, the theme of love is seen in three different perspectives. Dimple's mother believes that love is something that will connect you to that person for the rest of your life and it is a sacred holy thing. Dimple believes that love is a powerful and terrifying thing that sweeps you off your feet into a whole new world for the better or the worse of you. And Dimple's best friend Gwyn believes that love is something that barely exists and it is very rare. She also believes that false love is found all around. The way the book showed love in these three perspectives made me think about love in my life. I love my family and my friends, and I agree with all three of these perspectives. I believe that love can change your life and it is sacred, I believe that it is a terrifying thing that can switch your world upside down for better or worse, and I also believe that love nowadays is a rare yet beautiful thing. These three characters are all very different and their ideas on love are very different, yet I believe that one thing that all their beliefs have in common is that love is powerful. Love alters so many things in a person's life that it's breath-taking. Born Confused really expresses that in a wonderful way.
         Gwyn in Born Confused is Dimple's best friend. She and Dimple are so close that they are practically sisters. Yet Gwyn and Dimple are very different in the way that Gwyn has been used all her life for her body, and not her soul. Gwyn is a gorgeous girl, being described in the book to have lustrous blond curly hair and radiant blue eyes. Yet in the story, Gwyn dates guys who just use her for her body and she falls for every single one of them. And when they leave her, she gets extremely upset because she felt as though she has given something up all for a waste. She is anti-love, and sometimes even feels that love itself is a complete waste. Yet in spite of that, she continues to search for love, giving up her body and soul only to have it being used and wasted in the end. Dimple and her mother have both never been used like that, so obviously they have different perspectives about love comparing to Gwyn's view on love. Gwyn's perspective made me very sad, because she is only 16 and is a full grown woman in her soul because of the way she has been treated all her life. I think that possibly, sadly, Gwyn will have this outlook on love for all her life because of the way she acts.
            Dimple is the main character in Born Confused and she has just turned 17, which means she is thinking an awful lot about the life she has ahead of her. Part of that life includes getting an arranged marriage, which Dimple will comply to even though she may not be entirely happy with it. Dimple believes that as part of her womanhood, she should fall in love. This scares Dimple though, because Dimple has never been in love because her strict Indian parents forbade her to have a boyfriend or any type of companionship with a boy at all. Dimple is always surrounded by love: her parents love each other deeply, Gwyn falls for practically every boy around her, and her cousin Kavita has fallen very deeply in love with her roommate, Sabina. Dimple kind of reminds of Juliet in the beginning of  Romeo and Juliet in this way. Juliet sees love all around her, and when her parents arrange her to marry Paris, she agrees, because she is naive in the way she has never been in love before. Dimple wants love to happen to her so she can continue on with her life and be happy, yet love terrifies her because she has so little experience with love and she sees how powerful love can be.
          Dimple's mother always wants the best for what she thinks for Dimple. She wants Dimple to get good grades in subjects like math and science so she can be successful one day, and she wants Dimple to have an arranged marriage with another Hindu Indian boy. She wants Dimple to be confidant about being Indian, to have pride for her nationality, and to be a faithful Hindu also. Dimple's mother has an amazing relationship with Dimple's father that even though their relationship may not be shown as much or be as physical, their love is overpowering enough to last across an ocean and raise a child. Because of this love Dimple's mother shares with Dimple's father, she believes that love is a sacred holy thing that will connect you to that one person for the rest of your life. Dimple's mother believes that even if you stopped loving someone years and years ago, the love will still be there because once, that spark was special and it was sparkling. I personally think this is the best perspective of love to have. To know that love is something so special that it is holy and that love never runs out no matter how you may feel about the person is something so beautiful and tender. I wish all people could have that belief.
           In conclusion, three very different perspectives on love are shown in Born Confused by Tanuja Desai Hidier. The first one is by Dimple's best friend, Gwyn, and her perspective on love is that love is very rare and it barely exists. False love is also found everywhere. The second perspective on love is from Dimple's mother, and that is that love is a sacred hallowed thing in which you are connected to that specific person for life no matter what. And the third perspective on love is from Dimple herself, in which love is a terrifying powerful thing. I agree with all three of these perspectives and I love how the author incorporated all of them into the book. I personally love Dimple's mother's view on love the most because it is so moving and gentle. If all people could see the wat Dimple's mother does about love, the world be a much better place.