Love in 21st Century.

Hello again.

     This time, I will be talking about love in the modern scenario. I had been giving a lot of thoughts on the topic of my second blogpost and zeroed in on this. We are in an era where long distance relationships are the order of the day. This is very well understood by the Telecom industry and they are making it a point to connect the whole country (frequent digging of roads is the proof!). Not that the total country is covered, but you are never more than 1 km away from a telecom service (now, don’t ask me if the telecom service “works”. That will be the topic of a separate blog post).

     Okay, statistics apart. Now, let us see some common (and funny) ways people 'fall in' love these days. There is this one guy whom I knew for a long time. He is a perfect example of a lower-middle class teenager. He watches a lot of movies, sleeps late in the night, wakes up late in the morning, boards crowded buses to college and travels only on the footboard. It is in one such bus travel that he met this girl. She didn’t commit any crime other than being cute (which, by teenage standards, is a crime!) and had also got this guy his ticket, since he was standing a bit far from the conductor. After sometime he gave the ticket back to the girl. The girl threw him a questioning look and flipped the ticket. He had scribbled “I Love you” on the backside. The girl scribbled something and gave him back the ticket. Eager to find whether she had given her phone number, he flipped the ticket only to find “Congratulations. You are my 100^th ticket.” written on it. That is the last time he proposed to some anonymous girl.

     Such an impulse to propose is the product of watching lot of Indian masala movies. It is this media which promotes a lot of non-practical ways in which love can happen between two persons. A rich girl will fall for a poor ragamuffin. Sounds like a story just about right for Rajnikanth (in the 1980s). But does that happen in reality now? No. Maybe because rich girls today wear sunglasses all the time, which are peculiarly shaped like car wind-shields, barring them from looking at ragamuffins along the road, let alone look at the person in front of them. 

     Such love stories can have a successful ending only in movies. And it is solely possible only because Rajnikanth can hit 50 baddies at the same time, escape gunshots and grenades, punch through walls and save the heroine in the climax sequence. If you are not able to comprehend with what I say and think such things still exist in reality, try punching the nearest wall. That is when reality hits you 'hard'. Quite literally.

     There are a few others who act like they love someone, only to use their services. It is sad that most people under this category are women. This statement may sound a bit partial, but I bet some women will accept this too. Anyway I am not targeting all women out there, only a select few who behave in this manner. They usually are pampered rich women who are used to getting lot of attention from parents right from their childhood. It is only natural of them to expect the same attention from their life partners.

     So, they start their 'Suyamvara' from the time they get their first proposal. Then on, they are constantly in search of the perfect nutcase; one who would go out with them at any time, spend money for them without a question, wish them on their birthday, clean their car garage for them, soothe them when they are sad, and laugh with them on their extremely silly jokes. To be honest, these are only a part of the qualification that these women look for. The whole list runs for pages and is supposedly said to be archived in the government vaults under the tag 'strictly confidential'. It is so confidential that even the Government doesn’t know about it.

     And the guys who go behind these women are in my words: ‘Sore losers’. Get a life, guys, and try to know when she is beginning to use you. Expect something from her too. Stop spending for her. Stop running errands for her. And most importantly, stop gifting her with teddies. If you think boyfriends gift their female counterparts with teddies, think again. Have you ever seen their rooms? It is filled with teddies. I leave it to you to infer something from it. I know you are not stupid enough to call 1 + 1 is not equal to 2.

     The evolution of love in the modern times has given rise to a lot of jargon: relationships, break-ups, living together etc. (which made me think that love in the 20^th century was comparatively less confusing and easy). Perhaps the most important of them all is the term 'Dating'. It is also an intriguing topic. I too am at dark as to what exactly happens on a date. This is what Tamil Comedian Vivekh had to say about dating (loosely translated in English).

“Two people, who want to know each other, go to some resort in Mahabalipuram and spend some time there. They eat out of the same plate, share the same bathroom, and sleep on the same bed and return back to their respective homes the next morning, saying nothing ‘really’ happened between them.”.

     Now, it is the rich dudes who are more into dating. “Shall we go on a date?” is the next dialogue they say to a girl after getting her phone number. In my opinion, save the money you spend on 5 dates and you could buy yourself (or poor fellows like me) an Android mobile phone. It will stay longer with you than the total number of hours you would have spent with those 5 dates. Get your money’s worth, man!

     I don’t say that true love doesn’t exist in the present era. It does exist and it doesn’t expect anything, just constant care and sharing of life space. It lies in understanding the other person and also the situation around both. This is precisely what was done by our parents and the generations before them. This is how they were able to live together for a very long time. Guess we ought to learn a thing or two about living a contended life, from our forefathers. 

     Thank you for your patience. Your comments are welcome.