March 27, 2010

College Romances-The Indian Way



Everything looks pretty. There are smiles all over and every stranger looks happy.
A guy has finally overcome his fear of being rejected, his heart still pounding though.
A girl just heard the words she always wanted to hear, her face more red than ever.

Love is in the air.

A guy proposed to a girl, and she accepted.

Mr. Cupid got this one right!

This will be followed by countless hours on phone and a million texts in a day! You can always figure out a person in love when they smile ear-to-ear while texting. Every beep on the cell phone excites them and fingers start moving faster than ever to reply back.
Every moment they will spend together, from this moment onwards, will be etched in their minds forever. They don’t need a romantic “dating point”. A class room filled with a hundred other students is just fine. Just a look, from the corner of the eye, is enough to make her blush. A similar look from the girl makes the guy’s day.
It doesn’t matter where they are. Whether it is walking in a crowded path or sitting together in a roadside restaurant or being on a dilapidated fort’s top, it is all about stealing a few moments together. To dodge the security to remain together for five more minutes, before the gate closes, seems like the biggest conquest.
Even if they are not together, they are not separate. Their call durations are always in hours and the call disconnects only to charge the phone again. Now the biggest expense is of recharge coupons!
All they need is each other. All they want is to know each other, more and better, everyday. Everyday sun rises with the excitement of seeing each other and everyday sun sets with the promise of doing the same all over again, and again, forever. When others around are busy making careers, they are busy making lives. After all, college is called the best time of your life for some reason.
Their love is true and pure….full of hope, full of promise, ignorant of reality!
Everyone wants to graduate from this place as soon as possible. They want it too. But for entirely different reasons. It’s all planned. Get out of the college, get into a company. Works for two years then tell your parents about each other, and since they love you so much, they would agree. Get married and live your life like a dream. Nothing cinematic,
So simple!
Quite a picture, isn’t it?
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But I know the future. I have seen what they haven’t or they don’t want to.
It’s all perfect except that it is in India.
The guy may not be from the same caste as the girl or the girl may be from another state or worse they both may follow different religions and the worst of all, their horoscopes may not match. Even the most educated Indian people believe in all this planetary crap.
Even if nothing applies, just the concept of “Love” is unacceptable. It’s against the honor of the families.

Everything suddenly became dark.
Where is the love?
It's lost, once again!

Love, in Indian families, is just a vice which is a result of bad company. And the re-habilitation center for this is the institution of “Arranged Marriage”!
India is famous for its legendary love stories. But one point goes un-noticed in all of them. All of them had a tragic end, except for the story of the “Taj Mahal”, which ironically is built on the foundations of a tragic end of an otherwise successful “arranged” love story.
Now what?
It would be followed by a few days of silence and a few tearful calls.
The guy would try to be a rebel but the girl would never have the courage to go against the wishes of her parents. What blossomed in years, would die out in days!
Indian youth is expected to have developed the ability to “forget and move on” on the same day they learn to love others. They are not expected to fall in love too young. I mean 21 is too young in India!!!
However perfect it may seem, your College Romance getting materialized has a lesser probability than anything else in this country.
One of those times when you feel Life was simpler! It isn’t.