I remember thinking it was. And it was, when I did fall in love with the woman I married a few years after courting her. Now, however, it looks .... frivolous ... and even comical, when I see two lovers in a Hindi movie: the boy struts around like a peacock, while the girl, ever so shy, keeps putting the dupatta around her bosom and keeps looking down, showing her painted eye-lids and impossibly long, mascara-filled eye-lashes.
So what changed in the last 25+ years for me? Have I grown old? Of course, I have, and there is no denying that. But is it because I have grown old that I view romantic scenes from older Hindi movies with a tad of ridicule? I would need to say ... NO.
The reasons are a bit difficult to fathom. To understand this, I would take my reader into my own past, when my beloved and I met at secret times, at secret venues. Before we even got physically close, there was the emotional lurch of my heart when I saw her approaching from a distance; the sudden and persistent urge to touch her as she went on and on, talking about things completely unrelated to us or to our relationship; the often uncontrollable desire to ... to plant a kiss on her cheek even as she remained unaware of what was happening to my heartbeat; and the deepest feeling of melancholy when I missed her.
Remember, those were days when we communicated only through notes or the rare land-line. No mobiles or computers existed then. Our best friends were neighbours who had phones, colleagues who worked with her, doormen and sweepers and watchmen and kids who stayed in the same quarters she (or I, in her case) lived in .... but the bestest of our friends was FAITH. Faith ruled supreme, and it allowed us to live on even when we could not connect with each other, or see each other in days. That faith is what led us to finally join in wedlock after courting for more than two years, out of sight of our relatives, but not out of sight of the tens of others who helped us to maintain the secrecy and the charade of "we are just good friends".
That romance is perhaps only seen by the actors in the drama of life. To others, it is merely a source of embarrassment or entertainment, depending on which side of the relationship they are. True, there are many angels who nurtured our relationship. But equally, there were ... I wouldn't call them devils ... but spokes in the wheel of our love, who stood in between and tried to prevent us from joining our hearts and souls with each other.
The entire thing came to me suddenly as I was watching Amir Khan and Raveena Tandon (both Hindi movie actors) singing to a popular ditty from the nineties.Click here for the song. And I suddenly began to laugh and think to myself: why are they being so childish? Why not just embrace, kiss and get it over with, rather than singing a song for all of four tedious minutes and not even touching each other!
What do my readers think? Is love magical or not?
So what changed in the last 25+ years for me? Have I grown old? Of course, I have, and there is no denying that. But is it because I have grown old that I view romantic scenes from older Hindi movies with a tad of ridicule? I would need to say ... NO.
The reasons are a bit difficult to fathom. To understand this, I would take my reader into my own past, when my beloved and I met at secret times, at secret venues. Before we even got physically close, there was the emotional lurch of my heart when I saw her approaching from a distance; the sudden and persistent urge to touch her as she went on and on, talking about things completely unrelated to us or to our relationship; the often uncontrollable desire to ... to plant a kiss on her cheek even as she remained unaware of what was happening to my heartbeat; and the deepest feeling of melancholy when I missed her.
Remember, those were days when we communicated only through notes or the rare land-line. No mobiles or computers existed then. Our best friends were neighbours who had phones, colleagues who worked with her, doormen and sweepers and watchmen and kids who stayed in the same quarters she (or I, in her case) lived in .... but the bestest of our friends was FAITH. Faith ruled supreme, and it allowed us to live on even when we could not connect with each other, or see each other in days. That faith is what led us to finally join in wedlock after courting for more than two years, out of sight of our relatives, but not out of sight of the tens of others who helped us to maintain the secrecy and the charade of "we are just good friends".
That romance is perhaps only seen by the actors in the drama of life. To others, it is merely a source of embarrassment or entertainment, depending on which side of the relationship they are. True, there are many angels who nurtured our relationship. But equally, there were ... I wouldn't call them devils ... but spokes in the wheel of our love, who stood in between and tried to prevent us from joining our hearts and souls with each other.
The entire thing came to me suddenly as I was watching Amir Khan and Raveena Tandon (both Hindi movie actors) singing to a popular ditty from the nineties.Click here for the song. And I suddenly began to laugh and think to myself: why are they being so childish? Why not just embrace, kiss and get it over with, rather than singing a song for all of four tedious minutes and not even touching each other!
What do my readers think? Is love magical or not?
1 comment:
Wow, reading about how you felt for your wife back then made me feel so...happy. Love is magical like that. I feel the exact same way for some one right now. But I don't know what he thinks about me. I pray things work out for us the way they did for you.
And oh yes, I agree, Bollywood romance especially the old stuff is hilarious.
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