Love Aaj Kal

Seeing love aaj kal (not the movie) I am reminded about my childhood. My form of love was different. It involved sending mails, cards, hand written letters and personalized gifts to my love. Life was about dedicating songs and feeling extra loved on moonlit nights. You see the era in which I grew up was a time of such things. Movies showed girlfriend/boyfriend showering each other with greeting cards bearing “love you”, “kiss me”, “miss you” and similar love messages. Most romantic songs and dialogues had the mention of moon/full moon/moonlight in them. People wrote love letters to propose and would send it through a friend or hide it in the first page of a book… Romance of 80s – 90s was very different. It was very engaging because it had lot of personal touch.

With time things changed; probably innocence got lost with the advent of technology in the last one decade or so. And came the easier ways for everything. Bhavya – my brother (younger by 13 years, born in 1996) explains to me that love aaj kal is no more the same. People date each other without really uttering the 3 golden words of my time – I Love You. Most of the times such dates are casual without really wanting to marry the person. I wondered how hollow would the love promises sound. But Bhavya tells me there are no promises. So if there are no promises, if there is no mutual exchange of I love you and I will be with you forever then how is it any different than being with a best friend?

Difference between Best Friend & Girlfriend

Bhavya says best friend has lesser time and interest in you. I objected to that statement. If he/she is a best friend then they have all the time and interest in the world. Sonia, Pallavi, Erum and many other good friends of mine had all the time for me; as much as I wanted. Bhavya tells me now its different. Now its only measured qualitatively by assessing how good a time you have with a particular person if and when you meet him/her. Usually a best friend is someone with whom you have an awesome time and with a gf/bf you feel the same at a higher degree and he/she sounds more concerned for you.

That made me think…

Has love got stripped to such pittance? What about sitting together and weaving dreams of future? Bhavya says “we sit and drink and get drunk laughing”. I thought, what about holding hands in movies and parks and feeling the butterflies in stomach.

Bhavya says “so kiss if you feel all that or go to friend’s place and make out”. I wondered about the joy of unimaginable longings for years before I made love and now emotions are not even allowed to reach to that high. How can then the instance of love-making capture sweet memories and passion of a different level? Bhavya said its not meant to do all that. People make out because they are horny. Love and lust is different.

Is it shallow or is it easy going?

What sort of a feeling is this I ask again where everything seems so shallow… Wasn’t my time better? And then I remembered the grief of losing such deep love more than once. I compared it to Bhavya’s grief after he broke up with his first girlfriend. Well he looked quite okay and had no baggage from the first relationship. He is okay to see her with someone else and wastes no time to think “what she must be doing”. That makes me think, is shallowness better sometimes? Mind says yes it has lesser heartaches. But my heart still feels that if you haven’t had someone to love to the extent of insanity then what’s the use of such love. Anyways changing times have changing equations…. Sigh Love Aaj Kal!