A Non Fiction Post on Love - Love, then!

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 Love, then!

It had been a tough day indeed. One of my friends had had the worst break up of his life. The walk home from college had got me thinking about this interested but complicated thing called love. What is love? Where do you find it? How do you keep it? It was buzzing in my brain all the time. Frankly speaking, I've never been in love. So I find it amusing when people do foolish things for foolish reasons in the same of this huge phenomenon called love. But has love changed over the ages? Was it so complicated in the past too? Was there so much competition as now?

I guess I'll have to experience it before I jump to further conclusions. Thinking of all the dumping  and drinking and crying (in that order!) I never realised when I reached home. After a quick wash I slumped into a garden chair opposite my grandfather.

"Hey Grandpa", I quipped. My grandpa, a very cool and hip dude, replied with a modest and loving "Hello Beta"

I'd just been back from college and and it was my chat time with my grandpa. Now now, no need to raise your eyebrows. As I said earlier, my grandfather is a very cool and hip dude. He is not like the usual grandfathers. In fact I take him as one of my best friends. He is very modern and open to any type of conversation.

"So how was your day?", he inquired.

"Oh Don't ask! Manish's girlfriend broke up with him. AGAIN! It was quite an effort trying to bring him back to normal", I retorted, irritated.

"Whats with you guys and breaking up all the time? I fail to understand your ability to break up with so much ease. If I was in your place, I'd be scared beyond death to fall in love ever again."

Then began a discussion on love during the time of Grandpa.

"I was about 22 when I first saw a girl in my college. Now thats about 50 years back. So its a long time back. If you think I may not remember the details, let me tell you I remember everything vividly. College has just started and I was quite enjoying the whole experience. I had made a good deal of friends. So the daily activities never seemed to cease and there was never a boring moment. Coming from a lower middle class family, I hadn't talked to girls other than my cousins. And then I met this girl. She was in my college. In my class. I had caught her staring at me a few times. Maybe I was just imagining because she rarely lifted her eyes off the ground."

I didn't ask for her number straightaway. I didn't stalk her to her home.I didn't beg her for coffee. I didn't offer her lifts. Neither did I ask her friends to set me up with her.

"I inquired about the girl among my friends and soon the teasing started. All my friends would go 'hhhmmmmmmmm' whenever she walked into the class but she never even flinched as such a little. I had never talked to her, nor did I plan to. I didn't mind staring at her beautiful face during lunch breaks or just knowing that she was near me during college trips. Sometimes we made eye contact but that too lasted for merely a fraction of a second. It was six months now since we had known each other 'indirectly'. She had begun smiling now when I was around. I would look at her only for a moment to see that smile and the rest of my day would be perfect. Maybe this was the beginning of something very beautiful."

I didn't gift her flowers and chocolates. I didn't take her to swanky hotels and pubs. I didn't give her balloons and huge soft toys. Neither did we smooch in parks and theaters.

"We already knew we were in love with each other. But what was love without marriage? In our times being in love was a sin, but being married was a blessing. Now this was a tough job for me. I being the man, I had to ask her first. Fortunately it was her birthday. College was almost over. I decided to pop the question. In the times of arranged marriages, just asking a girl about marriage was enough to set tongues wagging. But I had decided it was now or never. I went up to her and told her about my feelings. At first I couldn't hear her reply maybe because my heart was thumping too loudly. But she finally did confessed her feelings towards me, her eyes all the time boring deep into the ground. But I needed to talk to her parents first. All I wanted to hear was that. I completed the rest of my college and got busy searching a job. Once I got that I went to her parents and asked for her hand."

I didn't tattoo her name on parts of my body. Neither did she ask me to run her away and get married. There was no premarital sex. Hell there was no contact of any sort at all. There were no expensive gifts to impress. Neither were there mushy words to express. Sometimes we didn't talk for weeks. We did not have free phone call plans.

"What we had was patience.Maybe that is what your generation lacks these days. You want everything hard and fast. But you, My boy have to realize that it may always not be possible. You see love comes to those who wait."

This last piece of advice struck me like a gong. It indeed was true. While I got thinking about it, Grandma gave us a call for dinner. We looked at each other, smiling, thinking about the woman we had been talking about for so long and retired to the dining room.