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Whacky ways to win your love
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Tomorrow is Valentine's Day. PREMA MANMADHAN talks to couples who took love head on
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The Laila Majnus and Mumtaz-Shah Jahans down the ages have devised their own unique ways of communicating with their lovers. From the pigeons with stamina and steadfast friends to SMS and missed calls, lovers have managed to keep in touch, parents notwithstanding. Emotions and hormones hardly change, whether it is 1940 or 2006; whether it is Independence Day or Valentine's Day, love goes on.
But on Valentine's Day, propelled by the global hype, hearts young and old do feel that rejuvenated high when they hold hands or simply go out for a movie. Cards and flowers heighten the hype and a sense of reassurance descends on couples. Love is in the air.
"My grandparents had a love marriage and my parents were also in love before their marriage. Now, any wonder that I'm in love," asks Krishnan M., a young professional working in the banking sector. But the mode of communication reflects the age in which they live. While his grandfather who was in the Far East wrote letters to his grandmother who was in her village in Kerala, his mother and father phoned one another during a short romance before they got married.
Of his own current, serious romance, Krishnan M. says, "Of course I phone her but usually, it is an SMS, when I'm very busy, just to make her feel she's in my thoughts." His sweetheart meanwhile, gives him missed calls so that he knows there is something that she wants to tell him urgently. If he does not return the call, he's in for it, he says. Now both have switched over to a cell phone provider that offers free mobile-to-mobile calls for one number, he discloses!
The chemistry between two persons is often decided at the first meeting, people who have loved say. Even if the chemistry is right and the vibes come naturally, some relationships click while others don't, depending on the degree of intensity both feel. Nurtured by circumstances, they either end up at the altar or split wide apart. It's difficult to get into `Control Z' mode in most affairs of the heart. It's a sad `Press Delete'. But some rush things sans fear, so there's no time for either sweet nothings or petty squabbles.
Matter-of-fact
Like Leela Menon, veteran journalist, who had a love marriage, "I was staying in the YWCA and Bhaskaran was a member of the YMCA in Kochi, way back in the late fifties. We went together in a group to sell carnival tickets. He asked me whether I believed in God, when we passed by a temple. I said `yes'. Later he asked me whether I liked flowers and dogs. I said I did. I was impressed by the way he spoke English. The third day, he came to the YWCA and proposed to me. I accepted him. My folks objected because he was jobless and his folks objected because I was a working woman! But we went to Guruvayur and got married," she says, laughing.
Singer Devi Menon and her husband, director Hakkim also had little communication before their marriage. "I saw her in the evening and the next day I asked her to marry me. She dropped her plans for a journey and got married to me immediately," says Hakkim. Not all are as lucky as Hakkim and Devi.
Singer and popular composer M. Jayachandran had a long love affair with his ladylove before she became his wife. "We fell in love during our PDC days, but I was too scared to tell my father. The affair went on for ten years before I gathered courage to tell my mother. But it was an uncle of mine who finally persuaded my father to let us get married. During those years, it was letters that kept alive our romance, apart from phone calls. It was in 1995 that we finally tied the knot," he recalls.
Stolen moments were the most treasured for romancing pairs till the seventies and eighties while post 2000, there is hardly any need for it. "It's better that they get to know one another before they get married, as there are so many divorces these days. It's good for them to talk. Communication is important if they are to know more about each other," says Madhu Pillai, who has two twenty-something sons.
Whether a Valentine's Day is necessary or not will be an eternal topic of discussion; the young will continue to exchange gifts and cards, because they look for an excuse to do it, (and why not?). The positive side of Valentine's Day is that people, whatever their age, will pause to think of love, and that is surely a heady feeling, even if it's bitter. For it's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all!
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