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Romance? GIMME a break!
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Candlelight dinners. Looking longingly into the other's eyes. Deep sighs. Cut, cut. Wake up, dude, we're talking about Generation Me
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Love and passion can be bought off the shelf in an all-consumerist era.
KUSUM'S MARRIAGE is the stuff folklore is made of. At a time when love marriages were considered improper and attracted public censure, she dared incur her father's wrath and risked the uncertainties that such unions often brought with them.
But 28 years down the line, she feels it's been worth it. Nostalgically recounting the early days, she says: "First, it was the question of defying caste, as inter-caste marriages were rare. And, of course, there was the problem of class. Most often, people of the same caste come from the same class. So, violating caste also forced one to renounce the class that s/he belonged to. This meant that they were deprived of a whole lot of luxuries, parental protection, and most of all, social respectability. But we... believed in... love and there was a lot of romance which (compensated)."
The affluent Kusum fell in love with an unemployed engineer, Gururaj. "Guru was armed with an engineering degree and loads and loads of romance and defiance. His parents were from Chittoor. After getting a firm `no' from our parents, we decided to run away and get married as I was sure that my brothers would hound us if we remained in the city."
What ensued was straight out of Bollywood. The two went to a small town in Tamil Nadu and became man and wife. To avoid getting caught, they travelled the length and breadth of that State for more than three weeks till they were down to their last paisa.
"We finally returned to Bangalore and our parents left us at that. We had nobody to look to. Guru took up odd jobs to keep things afloat. We went through the roughest patch of our life then," Kusum says.
Things started changing for the better after Guru landed a permanent job in a PSU. "We shifted to a bigger house. By that time, even I got a job and things started looking up. Piece by piece, we built our lives."
Today, Kusum's parents have mended fences and they are a family again. Her greatest satisfaction has been that her faith has been vindicated. "Sometimes, I shudder when I think what would have happened to me if my marriage had ended in a fiasco. But my belief in some values saw me through the worst of times," she says.
But she is not sure if Generation Me shares her romanticism, or, for that matter, her ideals. "During our times, we had to face a lot of hostility by daring to enter into a love marriage. It is not so these days as parents respond to their children's wishes. But today's youth are averse to anything that involves some amount of hardship. There is some sort of a complacence that prevents them from defying the status quo," she says.
Take Abhijitha, for instance. Working as a programme analyst in a leading software company, she knows her priorities. Ask her about love and you get a big grin in return. "Love sounds very Bollywoodish to me. It's a trap most girls and boys unknowingly enter into. I would never settle for a man going by his chocolate looks. He should be financially secure, and should have a stable family background." But isn't there an element of drabness if relationships are based on such mundane specifications? "Not really. I have seen relationships evolve based on `blind' love. But they have ruptured in no time. Marrying someone who is well-off at least assures you of a good alimony, in case... " she quips.
Toeing her line is Akash, who has just dumped his third girlfriend. "I have realised that most girls look for financial security in guys. There is no point in (overlooking) this fact. My previous girlfriend ditched me as she found a better guy. That's life, man," he says.
Doesn't this stance strengthen the class disparity? "That sounds very academic," says Kusum. But she goes on to make a valid observation: "Today, love has breached caste but not class. Class continues to be intact, and it is impossible to find a princess courting a simpleton. The era of fairytales and candlelight romance is over."
But there still are a few exceptions. Apart from religion, a host of other factors separate Jacob and Veena.
But the two went ahead in the face of stiff opposition from their families. "Veena is not just from a different religion but comes from a very affluent family. Initially, I never thought she would live with me in a dingy room, considering the mansion she had for a house.
But she always reassured me that my financial status did not matter. That sounded naοve at times. But she has lived up to her words," Jacob says.
But such exceptions are more of an aberration for a deradicalised Generation Me. And, as consumerism and market forces penetrate into all aspects of our lives, words like `passion' and `commitment' are swept aside by `pragmatism' and `materialism'.
SANTHOSH C
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