great art literature cinema and legends would not be the same without the crime of passion without it there would be no othello no dantes inferno but romanticising murderous love aside cut out societys obsession with passion and what do we have a refusal to accept no as answer nothing romantic about it especially when it ends in slit throats acid attacks gory stabbingsin a postgraduate class at du psychoanalyst rajat mitra once asked the boys how many of them had obsessed about some girl hung around outside her schoolcollege or tried to ferret out personal details almost all hands went up but probably only one out of the 50 students wouldnt be able to take no for an answer says mitra most of us have the ability to deal with rejection in a healthy manner we brood over it reject women abuse them but eventually move onwhen does a normal crush turn into pathological obsession the starting point of a perfect passion crime what pushes men and women to do the unthinkablewhere passion overrides the dictates of reason and all caution and rational thought is thrown to the winds clinically speaking there is no such thing as obsessive love in the psychiatrists book nimhans psychiatrist y c janardhan reddy is categorical obsessive compulsive disorders do not record any obsessive compulsion related to love its more a case of delusiondocs say it isnt fair to look for an answer in psychiatry for all such crimes or deem all such criminals mentally ill so what are we to make of real and reellife cases of obsession obsession which manifests itself in murder violence occurs as an extreme act of impulsiveness and a loss of inhibition says mohan isaac of nimhans theres definitely a genetic predisposition but environment and values where you are taught not to take no for an answer also play a role says mitra who has worked with such offenders in tiharoften there are enough clues that point to such behaviour these people are usually loners shy and withdrawn and have had no established relationships at any time says mitra also potential victims often sense something is not right women in such situations who have come to me always have a nagging intuitive fear that theres something wrong not normalin police terminology these are pointless crimes committed in the heat of the moment passion crimes unlike serial rapes or killings never get repeated delhi dcp crime deependra pathak says usually theres no remorse offenders almost always blame the victim their usual response pagal kar diya dimag kharab kar diya police say the great anonymous metro sprawl is making things worse theres no psychological release human relationships are virtually evaporating leading to latent aggression why is violence the