“Love is inexplicable”, I answered to a friend when she asked me, “What is love according to you?”
Since our childhood, we love our parents, siblings and best friends. Romantic love, however, is a bit complicated. Especially when you are in India, three factors are influencing your love story. They are parents, society and Bollywood! Since a long time, films like “Mughal-e-Azam”, “Silsila”, “Veer-Zaara”, and more have shaped our perception of love. Girls wait for their prince charming like Aman from “Kal ho naa ho”, and boys want their dream girls like Hema Malini.
What can a typical Indian love story be like? Well, to start with, it will be “Pehla Nasha… Pehla khumar, Naya pyaar hai naya intezaar”. Come on, we all have to accept that this song can be heard in our minds with butterflies in our stomachs when meeting that special one for the first time. If the first meeting clicks, love blooms into “ Do dil mil rahe hain, Magar chupke chupke”. Two people start falling for each other completely because they say, “Pyar diwana hota hai, mastana hota hai”. In this “diwanapan”, many couples forget the fact that how would their parents react, when they come to know about their love stories.
As soon as your parents get to know, they try everything in their capacity to separate their kids, who have been bitten by love. “Chaandaniya to barse, phir kyun mere haath andhere lagde ne” is typically expected to be played in the lovers’ hearts, then. Slowly, the lovers find the courage to fight for their love with the feeling “Pyar kiya to darna kya.. Chup na sakega ishq hamara.. chaaron taraf hai unka nazara”. Now, these lovebirds face their parents with the anthem “Tera rasta main chhodoon naa…” in their minds.
Finally, the parents get convinced for their marriage. While getting married, lovers sing “Man mast magan, bas tera naam dohraaye” back in their minds. Wait, is this the ending? No! It is just the beginning. Throughout their lives, through every up and down, thick and thin, they expect “Jab koi baat bigad jaaye, jab koi mushkil pad jaaye..tum dena sath mera, o humnava” from each other. They grow old together and stay together until their last breaths.
Now that’s a happy ending which almost every Bollywood movie portrays and somewhat has been successful in making us believe too, in happy endings. However, the society we live in is not a Bollywood script. The harsh truth strikes the lovebirds and separation is sometimes hard to take in. Let me wish the lovebirds around India a beautiful journey.
