Love is Overrated

Or let me put it this way, the popular definition of love is overrated. If you have seen enough Bollywood movies and if you have actually been in love (or at least in the notion of being in love) for more than lets say 6-18 months, then you probably know what I mean. Let me break that up for you to explain my point better.

How does Bollywood or lets call it ‘the romantics’ define love? They portray it as a magical, mystical, ethereal feeling where everything is idyllic and the mere mention of your lover makes you ecstatic. This could be true for the initial few months of a relationship, where you just see the positives of your lover and the few negatives you see, you see them positively. Then there is another notion of un-conditional, never ending love which in some cases even lasts for several lives. As clichéd as it may sound, the truth however, is bitter (as usual). Love is NOT (yes in capital letters) un-conditional and NOT (yes in capital letters again) everlasting. But the point here is.. why should it be this way ?

Why should love me un-conditional? Think of any thing in life that you have achieved un conditionally. If you wanted to go to school (for studies or for friends) you had to sacrifice friends, if you were preparing for IIT-JEE, you had to sacrifice partying, fuck I can’t even remember the number of excruciating hours I have spent watching silly movies because my friend wanted to see it. So if everything else in life comes with a * (Terms and Conditions Apply), why should love be different?

Why should love be ever-lasting? I can't recall anything beautiful in life which hasn’t withered away – spring, flowers, fragrance, smile, laughter and life itself, all of them come with an expiry date so why set so high expectations for love.

Please let me not in any way imply that love will die and will always come with some sacrifices, but my point is that, it is the effervescence of love, which is romanticized about, that comes with a shelf life, and this is the only phase of love which will be unconditional, lets call it the honeymoon period. The typical time frame for this period, from my experience is 6-18 months, depending on the quality of exposure you have had. I don’t understand how can Karan Johar call it 'true love' when in fact it only a trailer, where you only see the best parts of the movie. The meat or the masala is what happens when this fizz goes away… and what happens after that… lets talk about that later ;-)

Hindsight !

Of course, I don't need to explain you the meaning of the title, BUT the reason for the title. I was just browsing through my previous blogs and I saw an intereting trend about the stuff I have been writing. I started blogging when I was 19, in couple of months I would be 24. Hey, this is not an insight that I am sharing but it happens so in life, your expectations (misery) increase with your maturity (age).
When I was a kid, all I wanted was a ballon and an ice candy (cola flavored:-P), then some years later a dairy milk, bournvita and hot wheels. Few more years passed and I yearned for more than linguistic pleassures, I wanted bigger toys and games, then came the age of cricket bats and video games and it only got worse with bowling, pool and go karting. The actual problem started when I got into clothes (worse- branded clothes), junk food, gadgets and girlfriends (which was more of a fashion than anything else). It became serious with IIT aspirations and cardinal desires. After having failed both of the above I wanted to resurrect myslef. I became even more motivated, irritated and frustrated, hence all the more difficult to please. This led to dreams of high paying jobs with MNCs or preparing for suicide by going for MBA. While I already have the former (MNC job), I still yearn for the latter (MBA) which is only fuel for my expectations (miseries). And, I just don't want to satisfy my lust now, but I want to succed in love (which is a Herculean task for all mortals). Also, I have now added a BMW to my wishlist !
Something which started with a small, harmless, 2 rupee candy, is growing to swnaky cars, fine dining restaurants, marrige and a lot more, its difficult to even take stock of !
I miss the pleasure given by the candy, from the paper aeroplanes I used to build, form the Cosco ball I used to play with and of course the yummy 2 miute maggi noodles :-P
But enough of hind sight, now time for some foresight !
Lets FFWD to 35-40 years down the line. Going by my previous statement, your expectations (misery) increases with your maturity (age), that is just how long you will take to settle your unfathomable hunger for more out of life. By now, your children are married, your grand children love you, you have done all you could have (if not all you wanted to). This is the inflection point, where your misery (expectations) decrease with your age (maturity) and you feel like having sweets and gol gappas again (which you can't because of your sugar and blood pressure) and these tastes give you pleasure equivalent (if not more) to your pay hike. I 'm saying this from first hand information from my grand father.
So, what is the solution, how to drive pleasures out of small things in life........? Let me know, if you have the answer, I have already helped you with 'the' question !