Firstly, thanks to the few people who said they missed my scribbles. I have been travelling and I’m going to use that as a flimsy excuse for leaving the blog unattended for a long time. This vacation has been special and more educational for me in more ways than one, and emboldened by it, I’m going to dare to write about that complex human emotion, love. Let me know what you think.
Saraswati Puja, which for all practical purposes has served as Valentine’s Day to those who celebrate it for ages. Saraswati, you see, is the goddess of the arts and education. So her worship is almost entirely the responsibility of students and young people, an excuse for them to dress up and look and feel grown up.
And which young person has ever looked and felt grown up and managed to not lose their heart to someone?
We’ve all felt that stirring at some point in our lives. I hope for your sake, you have. For if you have not, you don’t know what you’ve missed and I do feel a little sad for you. On the other hand, if you have, you probably have a treasure trove of memories that you can dwell on in lazy winter afternoons, and smile. Very widely.
I know I do.
And then I wonder, how did it get so difficult for us to fall in love? And when did we make it so complicated?
I never tire of saying this: I have been very lucky growing up;my parents drilled in the importance of being a good person and to not trick, cheat or knowingly hurt others. Sir taught me that there is beauty in loving and in being loved. He also taught me the importance of evaluating others for what they really are. All basic stuff, all very hard to follow.
If that is too confusing, here’s a simple example. I learnt early on how to choose my friends extremely carefully and love people for what they mean to me. To not automatically seek good looking and rich studs with sexy smiles, for whoever looks at beauty after it has been around for three days? I swear to god, even SRK got boring on the sets of KBC after the first 15 minutes.
In fact, for a long time in my teens I used to think this is so basic, such a no-brainer, it isn't even worth a mention. And then I moved out of my comfort zone and met new people and kept meeting newer people as life took me from one city to another. Let’s just say I realized how wrong I was.And how lucky I was to have grown up around the people I did.
Combine that realization with some dose of literature and I was tuned to rather fall for people who can actually keep me interested after the newness of that sexy smile wears off.
It is always nice to learn from other people’s mistakes,even if they are fictitious. If you want to read about some over the top, mad love and be forewarned, try Wuthering Heights. Or, The Return of the Native. Or Devdas.
I can tell you with no iota of doubt that that has not stunted my prospects anywhere, neither has it made me into a lonely soul with no one to turn to in moments of sadness.Quite the contrary. I have friends who have known me for years and love me to death, as I them. How many people can say that without a shred of doubt in their minds?
And no, not all of those bonds were formed in the innocence of childhood, some of them were formed when I was an adult and very much in the thick of all things worldly and blasé.
So then, how did it really get so difficult for us to fall in love? In our world, Valentine’s Day is Big. I had to wait about 20 extra minutes at Trader Joes on V Day because of traffic : men and women queuing up with bouquets of flowers. Mostly men, and roses, to be specific.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not at all an evil party pooper. In fact, I quite appreciate the bouquet and dinner and read poems of love at leisure. So, safe to say I am pretty mushy romantic myself. But what I do not still get is when did we start playing by rules so much that it took all the fun out of falling in love? Worst, and I really do think this is the worst of all, how did it get so difficult for people to accept that they love another person? Given it is the right person (one who is not taking advantage of you or is not misleading you. Hence the importance of knowing people for what they really are) , acceptance can bring much more than excitement. It can bring peace.
My pet joke about the young society in the US is that the national pastime for urbanites here is not baseball anymore. It is “meeting people.” They even call it “networking”. “I go to the bar to network”. Some people even go to the temple to network. No,seriously. Why can’t it just be called “meeting people because I have nothing in particular to do today in the evening”? It is perfectly fine and accept able and I have done it at times. But “networking”?
There are meet up groups and activities and book clubs and hang out groups and so many other ways of “meeting people”, it is quite overwhelming. Society at large joins forces here to make sure no one is ever alone. Only, that does not take care of them being lonely.
Two. Different. Things. I have seen “it” boys and girls in both parts of the world feel scarily lonely and vacant at times, despite all the noise around them. That Deepika Padukone character in Cocktail? Not entirely untrue, though I should really not get started on that movie.
I’ve always had a hard time controlling curiosity and boring bores me to death, so I’ve tried a couple of these meet up/hang out things.
One of them is actually a nice idea: you meet backpackers travelling across the world with buckets full of stories there. Creep alert: there are some, but basic common sense will keep you safe. They also arrange subsidized off-Broadway theatre shows that an outsider like me would never have known of otherwise and also accounted for my first Thanksgiving dinner. Then there are burlesques and naked bike rides and scrabble nights and other things. I can’t/don’t attend most of their events because there is bread and butter to be earned, and because I like my bread and butter to go with some wine, work has to be dealt with.
I dumped the other group after two meetings. It mostly consisted of young, single people my age with reasonably stable jobs and a choice of three broad conversation openers. “So, what are you doing xxxday?", “Are you looking for a light”, “Are you Indian?" I told you, boring bores me to death. I made one friend from these events. Just one.
The few other interesting people I know are not from mass organized events, nor from playing date-poker in my head with all guards up.
I’m a lousy poker player anyway.
I wonder how many have actually met people that they would like to know for life, or for any considerable time, from these places, when you are desperately trying to stick to the rule book in your head? Except for some instances, you are so prone to be judged and scrutinized for so many small and otherwise inconsequential things, it is a miracle people still manage to talk and get each other’s numbers. If they do, that is.
I have been asked so many times why I have gone out with people who are not Adonis lookalikes (“you have better options!”) that it is embarrassing, really. For one, it bothers me to think that there are people who think I could and would choose my company only on the basis of what they wear and how they look. And for the other, I feel sad for those who think like that or do it themselves, and then howl about how they have no real friends or love.
I read recently in an otherwise smartly written column in a magazine that men get exactly one chance at a joke before they lose the woman of their dreams.
Witty men rule my world, but one chance, really? And what do women get?
The same if not worse, if the urban landscape in this country is anything to go by.
It is amazing exactly how critical men, who themselves are not Prince Charmings by any stretch of wild imagination, can be. “I would ask her to dance if she had thinner arms.”
I overheard this, gulped my drink, looked at my reflection and wondered how many people were marking me off right then.
I get that we are all busy. I get that there are too many creeps out there, both women and men, for us to not have some internal checks in place. I also get the concept of “leagues”. Somewhat. But if rules, that too, those that don’t really make much sense, is what steer us so much, maybe it is time for us to stop crying about “where are the right people we want to fall in love with”?
For you know what? He was right there, but it was a bad day,and he blew his one-time chance at making you laugh. She was just off her gym routine.