My parents love me because I was born to them. My siblings love me because we are related by blood. My children love me because I'm their mother. My husband loves me because I was married to him. Whether he would love me the same way if we'd happened to chance upon each other, is something neither of us would ever know. It's best not to go there, not to judge each other. We're already married you see, and thinking on neutral grounds are dangerous paths we don't need to tread.
The arranged marriage system works in the most amusing way. My husband and I got married because there was nothing in particular that we disliked about each other. Not exactly the same thing as falling head over heels for a person. As children, we grow up on a diet of fairy tales. Surely, there isn't a single soul on this planet who hasn't been fed the story of Cinderella, Snow White, Rapunzel and The Little Mermaid by the time they turned five! Hence, our appetite for 'eternal love' and 'happily ever after'. My four year old daughter is so religious about these fairy tale traditions, she was more than disappointed the first time she heard The Little Red Riding Hood.
"But who did she marry?" I tried to reason with her that she was just a little girl. But it didn't go down well with my daughter. To her, it was blasphemy. After hours of discomfort, she happily declared, "I'm sure she grew up to like the wood cutter, and lived happily ever after with him!" Amen.
As if fairy tales were not enough, Indian cinema as well is inundated with scores of romantic movies. Even in action thrillers or science fiction genres, there's always a love angle. Primarily, there are two situations. One is love at first sight. Boy sees girl, boy loves girl, boy wins girl, boy fights against all odds, boy marries girl. The other situation is love on second thought. Boy sees girl, boy hates girl, girl hates boy, something something happens, boy loves girl, girl loves boy, boy fights against all odds, boy marries girl. Either way, the thing common to most movies is ever lasting love and eternal bliss. Unsurprisingly, every teenage girl hopes to find them someday. Not all of them expect a knight in shining armor to arrive on a horse and carry them away, but I'm sure a lot of them hope for a nice real guy to sweep them off their feet. I was no different. But I had high standards. I never went out for coffee with a guy who I couldn't take home to my dad. If I didn't see myself marrying that guy, why would I have coffee with him? Unsurprisingly, I never went out with anyone at all. I just got married. Ironically, my husband hardly believes me when I tell him that I never dated anybody. In those moments I wonder if I should have!
But its not the dating part that has been my loss. What I really think I have missed is to be pursued. To be loved by someone of their own free will, I guess, is the best compliment life can give you. For a person to choose to love you, of all the people they know, and for you to be attracted to the very same person and love them back. To be the object of someones affection. The anticipation of seeing that person, that phase when its still being said not in words but through the eyes. When someone casually mentions a name whose meaning to you they are unaware of, and for you to have lost the conversation at the mention of that name. When a special ones entry into a room dissolves everything else into the background. Those times when you see no one but him while he's in front of you, and once he's behind you, you become so conscious of your own body and your every little movement that your giggles become strained and your itchy ear gets a cold shoulder. The initial hesitation followed by a forced introduction through some 'who would've otherwise cared about' common friend. When even a missed call can add a smile to your face and a bounce to your walk. When love makes you silly, and silly feels good.
In this journey called life, everyone gets on the bus at the same stop, and everyone's final destination is the same. Yet in life, everyone experiences different moments that mark the journey for them, make it memorable, and define their time while they're around. And although my journey has been rather smooth, with little to complain about, yet from the window at my seat, when i look out at couples meeting each other for the first time, experiencing the attraction, something stirs inside me. It's worth mentioning that I travel with a gentleman who adores me completely and makes me feel like a princess. Our experience was different but we're surely in love and I'm definitely not getting off this bus, no matter how promising the sightseeing is. On my next journey though, in my next life, I know, this is one stop I wouldn't like to miss.
