"You are possessed by it. You are not the possessor, you are the possessed. And every society wants you to be in control.

"The society is afraid of your wild nature, it is afraid of your naturalness, so from the very beginning it starts cutting your wings. And the most basic thing which is dangerous in you is the possibility of love, because if you are possessed by love you can go even against the whole world.

"A small man possessed by love feels himself capable of doing the impossible. In all old love stories this fact has emerged in a very subtle way; and nobody has even bothered about it or even commented on why this factor comes automatically into old love stories.

"For example, in the East we have the most famous love stories of Majnu and Laila. That is a Sufi story. It doesn't matter whether it is historical or not, that is not our concern. Our concern is its structure, which is almost the same structure as all the love stories around the world. The second famous Eastern love story is about Siri and Farhad – but the structure is the same. The third famous story is about Soni and Mahival, but the structure remains the same.

"The structure is that the lover is asked to do something impossible; if he can do that impossible thing then he can get the beloved. Of course the parents and the society are not ready to accept this love affair. No society is ready to accept any love affair, but to say no seems to be unmannerly.

"When somebody comes with a proposal of love you can't just say no. Even if you want to say no, and you will say no, a way has to be found – and this is the way. Ask the lover to perform something impossible, something which you know he cannot perform, which is an inhuman task. And if he cannot perform it then you are not responsible; he himself has failed.

"This is a civilized way of saying no. Farhad is told that he can have Siri if, alone, he can create a canal through the mountains and bring the canal to the palace of the king – Siri is the daughter of the king."