This was the question from the audience posed to Indian poet Javed Akhtar in Lahore over the weekend where he spoke at a Faiz Festival session. His elegant answer was:

Wo mohabbat mohabbat hi nahi jis me dosti na ho.

He went on to say: You can’t call it love, if there is no friendship in it. And that love and friendship is not authentic if there is no respect. And that respect is not real if power is not given in it.

I’ve even written somewhere that our friendship is so good that even marriage cannot ruin it.

This “Love”, you know, “husband”, “wife”, this Love is troublesome. Set these words aside and ask yourself how two people can they be happy together. Then it is simple.

It will happen only when they respect each other’s feelings, dreams and hopes, selfhood, efforts. If they don’t, then things will keep running but at least one of them and possibly both of them will be unhappy.

We need to respect each other. This Love, Love—there’s been enough of it. Now do Friendship that is on equal footing. Your habits have been rotten for centuries, so it will be painful, but it would be advisable if you fixed yourself.