Love Don't Cost A Thing

The chartbuster JLo song of the same title is certainly an oxymoron. Now i'm neither a love guru or an economist to be pedantic about either of the concepts - love and cost. And neither have i been there or done that to share a page out of my love life. But an apt functionality of my senses is a potent enough paraphernalia for me to have an opinion on this issue; lest not judgemental.

Love is one of the most overused yet one of the least understood concepts we come across. It makes an interesting discussion amongst all circles: age, sex, intelligence - no holds bar. Questions like what,why, how are often discussed; of course with the added punch of if's, but's, whether's, hence's and so's. People love to debate on it and since its not rocket science ( tho maybe a deeper quagmire), everyone has an opinion about it.

Now, does love really not cost a thing???

TAKE 1- Long lost are the days when a guy used to woo his lady by showing her the mirage of a dream castle and an assurance to bring down stars from the sky(cant believe the lady used to fall for it, but it didnt cost the guy anything). THey used to sit in some secluded corner in the soothing shade of a tree evading the scorching sun;with hawkers intermittently perturbing them with their unique marketing skills of selling chana Chor garam or ice candy (Poor guy has to buy one, maybe not out of concern for the lady;but to shoo away this watchdog).





By the way, we still have these hangout spots where couples coochy coo and the witnesses of their oozing affection frown. These lovers provide the best source of entertainment to the pedestrian miscreants, who've nothing better to do than tease them.Maybe not being the one with the lady, burns them up, and vengeance bursts out.

TAKE 2- Welcome to the new age, post liberalization youngistan which finds the former way of expressing love as earthbound. Opening up the economy has opened them up to an all new avenue to express love- commonly referred to as the DATING culture( "Seeing each other", "going out" are synonyms of the same phenomenon). The Gen X and now the Gen Y believe they are more pragmatic with relationships, since they give it more time before they could sing " Janam Janam ka Saath hai, Humara Tumhara, Humaara Tumhaara". Or instead it is "Tujhme rab dikhta hai" that goes better with the Youngistani love birds.

But, now this LOVE (if one can refer to it that ways) does cost a thing. Today's ladies would either kill or dump the guy, if he calls her to meet in an isolated corner of a garden to talk about how they are meant for one another in all their next lives ( rightly so i guess, even the sound of it is gross).
So, the dating joints have shifted from roadside lakeviews and parks to fancy restaurants, coffee shops,discs or lounges. Now here, there are two classifications-CHIVALRY and PRAGMATISM. The former category is the one where the guy is always expected to pay for the lady (STRIKE 1). It becomes a non negotiable agreement- THE GUY MUST PAY. And adding insult to injury is the the girl's PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS (SIZE 0 to be precise) which makes her order the whole caboodle, but she leaves most of it untouched. And not only is she cautious about her own figure,but she wants the guy to be meticulous about his physique as well; thus preventing him from hogging like a guzzler.

Now the PRAGMATICS- they pay for themselves, they make sure they order sensibly and finish it and thankfully here the girl'S obsession is in bearable limits. The gospel is "Khao or khane do: the central idea is to have a good time". But still, here as well, the moolah is the cynosure and does creep in as a major factor(thankfully the burden is shared).

The favorite kid of new age india- mobile phones are next in line. Now, people who are seeing each other, have found the perfect companion in this gadget to keep them connected 24*7. Be it In college, on their vehicles, in the bathroom, in the bedrooms(playing with the pillow), standing on the porch, walking on the terrace, climbing up the stairs, climbing down the stairs or while taking food (before swallowing, while swallowing and after swallowing), the love birds just cant have enough of each other. How much closer does it bring them is debatable, but it certainly brings the telecom companies closer to whopping moolah(Fancy Airtel crossing 100 million customer base;major chunk being youngsters). Feeling the ethical responsibility of being the facilitators of the conversations(balderdash actually !!!), these companies keep coming up with offers to lure the young minds and to keep the cash bells ringing for themselves. Now, here the love does cost them a hefty sum if not whopping (STRIKE-2) and of course the bible of love says- getting regular topups done for each other is an integral part of a strong relationship.





The elder sister of mobile revolution, INTERNET- is another avenue to achieve the same. Now, it isn't as brutal as the former because it comes under the cloak of the so called "Internet-Is-So-imporant-for-the-career" psyche and hence cushions the blow. But the social networking sites and the chatting IM's do cost a chunk of the time if not money; the height of preposterous activity being chatting and talking with the same person simultaneously.



The next in the list is -fuel(STRIKE-3). Now, for this there is no count at all. Meeting at diffent joints, taking her for a ride,taking her for shopping, taking her to a movie(Chivalrous- be ready to pay for the ticket as well), going 10 times around the girl's house are paragons of how stealethly love empties the pockets and one even loses count of it.

Moving on, we've the cornerstone and a prerequisite of any relationship- GIFTS(STRIKE-4). We've birthdays, first meeting anniversary (monthly that is),first date gift, first date anninversary gift,first movie anniversary gift, first kiss anniversary gift;the list is more than the count of your hair. Why i adore the Pragmatics is because they dont indulge in this futile ostantatious flaunting, which is supposedly an avenue to reiterate your belief in the relationship (GROW UP!!!!!).




Now comes the icing on the cake- the situation when the partner gets angry and stops talking (STRIKE-1,2,3,4 CONGLOMERATED).You're supposed to do all the above mentioned things to woo your partner, to make her take a way back into love and the expenses shoot up more than when the sensex hits the upper circuit. Like an old classic hindi song of the Amitabh starrer 'majboor' puts it - "Roothe Rab Ko manaana aasaan hai, roothe yaar ko manaana mushkil hai."

Now, the pragmatics being the sensible beings,are intelligent enough to find a way out of all the situations mentioned , so that its not only one out of them to bear the brunt. They are practical enough of not getting grandiloquent in the expenditure.Its the chivalrous group that suffers big time(unless the guy's dad is a multi millionaire). But doesn't it reflect a very sorry state that love somehow never stays the nub of the relationship and materialism takes over??

I always had a question lingering in my mind and there hasn't been a rational reasoning to quell my curiosity. Is there even one logical reason as to why the guy should pay mostly if he himself is dependent on his parents and takes money from them for varied reasons??

Now, i'm not against the concept of dating.I agree that ladies are Archangels who deserve all the mollycoddling, but when its done at the expense of not one's own hard earned money but that of one's parents', that's when i have an issue with it. And its the responsibility of both people involved, to take a cue from the Pragmatics. They need to understand that once they're in a position to be someone on their own, that's when the romantics can kick out the economics out of the window.

The patrons of love, who claim its only the other person's demeanor and assiduous deportment which matters to them, i ask the question that why then do we fall in love with equals or the more well off ones?? Why doesnt a guy or a girl who is mediocre in the basic parameters of the assessment we've inculcated, get a chance to portray his/her demeanor, his/her love?? how often do we care to even give a chance to take them into reckoning?? How often do we care to find his/her nature first and leave aside the conspicuously alluring facets??

I see we mostly ignore it. Lets face it, love is conditional (The Unconditional element sounds good only in silver jubilee blockbusters-but there also the hero falls in love with the leading lady only, never even bothers to find out that her friend may be a better person). We all are that ways, and i'm not asking one to change. Its perfectly acceptable that we all want the best for ourselves: the respective Greek Goddesses and Prince Charmings,we all want stability. But we refuse to accept it. We need to accept that here as well love comes at a cost; at an expense: the expense of a condition and hence is not as pristine as it is made out to be. So, let us be honest with ourselves for once and accept that we're proponents of conditional love. It is high time for us to face reality and stop propagating the spurious theory that "LOVE DONT COST A THING".

NOTE :- The grammatically correct usage is "Love doesn't" and not "Love don't". The usage here is just to correlate with the song. The author wont entertain allegations of misdirection [:P]

QUEUE SERA SERA

I read an interesting quote sometime back which said "An Englishman, even if he is alone,forms an orderly queue of one". The quote though sarcastic, took me in a pensive mood to ruminate over the phenomenon of queues. Indians have an unbreakable nexus with queues, and not only have they learnt to live with it, but have found out ways to mitigate the pain of the stultifying process of waiting in a queue.

To be honest, its with the advent of education only that this QUEUE-LOROFORM is sprayed on us. I can still recall the sound of my teacher shouting at the top of her voice- "All the students go to the assembly in a straight line", " Hey you, walk properly in a queue", " Dont you have any discipline that you're walking waywardly??", and of course my personal favorite: The gospel of most teaching manuals- "Keep silence when you walk in a line". Oh God!! now that's callous. Its not an exaggeration but place yourself in the shoes of a young toddler of today; a toddler who's already engrossed in unravelling the mysteries of his/her lost teeth, who carries a bag that's double his/her own size,who cant figure out whether his/her english teacher is worse than the hindi one or is it the maths teacher who beats them hands down, who already has the onerous task of becoming a Tendulkar, Abdul Kalam and SRK(mind u all of them and not just one of them) in the future, who faces the diurnal conundrum of whether to resort to pokemon on tv or CounterStrike on the PC once back home after a long day in school, who has to settle for a mediocre kurkure packet when he/she is adamant to eat out at the new pizza outlet around the corner, who has to not only remember the latest chartbusters by heart but also maintain a staunch general awareness aptitude by reminiscing the show timings of Cartoon network,pogo, hungama, disney and god knows how many channels. Now isn't it unfair to expect from a little child, who's already preoccupied with so many grave obligations and has so much to discuss, to keep quiet in a queue and also to make sure that the movements are minimal. My sympathies to them. Wish this big bad world could understand their point of view for once.

So we become part of the queue movement since we learn to stand on our feet and the instances with the queues start queuing up. What starts as a discipline developing excercise, becomes an inevitable humdrum in our lives. For me, queues are synonymous to just one thing- a saturnine period of wait which just goes on and on and on.Its the same as how the long lost lovers in our hindi potboilers put it "Ek Ek pal sadiyon ki tarah lagta hai". Sorry to steal the thunder away from one of the most sought after lines of love birds, but it describes my predicament perfectly.

And the situation exacerbates for a lackadaisical ruminating person like me ( Ah!! forget the euphemism- i mean a lazy bum like me) who gets impatient on seeing a queue and the pain grows in direct proportion to the length of the queue. But as they say " The more one whines, the more ill luck shines". I've been part of this excruciating process quite a few times of late. But this is not about me only,i shouldn't be parochial.I'll try to give a general perception and will try hard not to let my personal grudge intervene(tho i may fail sporadically). people start the quest of queues right from the time of getting admission in a school, then to fill the fees, to be part of some fancy children's club because the neighbour's kid is part of it as well, then in college for every x, y and z reason. But the real winner are queues to get some document verified. For each document u need to be part of a queue, to get them photocopied u're part of a queue, to verify them you're again in a queue and i'm not even getting into the scenario where your request may be rejected at any of these places and you've to be part of it all over again. Phew!!!!

So be it banks, courts, RTO,bus stands,hospitals,temples, bill payments or movie tickets, we witness ourselves being part of a queue at some point or the other. The latest rage being the auditions of reality shows. Just to see thousands of people flocking up, standing one after the other, waiting for eternity until their chance comes,makes me fall in admiration of these brave souls who're ready to fight out heat, hunger,fatigue, boredom and sometimes obnoxious company. They have the audacity to come and stand a day before, just to make sure they are not in the nether half of the line. Kudos to these people, they deserve a medal of honour.

Fancy the gentleman here who has found a thing to cheer about even here.



The famous Mumbaikar spirit that the entire world talks about has this striking knack of forming queues. i was flabbergasted to see the way the mumbaikars arrange themselves in a queue anywhere, anytime, anyhow. Its a commendable trait where one can witness people conglomerating one after the other and they never even crib about it.

But queues do give us the opportunity of witnessing some really interesting people. We encounter a wide gamut of people of varied psyche, backgrounds and temperaments. While some are too engrossed with their mobile phones coochy cooing, some dont leave the chance to discuss the fallacies of the Political system or the underperformance of the cricket team, some keep losing temper intermittently to indulge in vituperation (#$%@^*$#@%) meant for the officials, while some get the solace of finally finding a listener and they dont hesitate in putting their hearts out. On many occasions, people gel so well in the ghastly waiting period, that they end up exchanging email id's ,contact no.s (the more ostentatious ones flaunt by asking directly - "Are u on orkut or facebook"??). Take that for human networking!!!! We hear jokes, we have guys who keep searching if there is a pretty face in the ladies line and we've people like me who just have one thought in the mind - "Mera number kab aayega"????


Like it or not, queues are an integral part of our lives, and no matter how tech savvy we get by making everything online; queues are here to stay, atleast for our generation. There is no denying the fact that it is a sign of discipline and of an organized setup.So either i keep cribbing about the sheer pain in the neck that this phenomenon is or i take a cue out of the books of the people who somehow manage to make the wait a fun process. I feel the solution may lie in me being less QUE(UE)RULOUS and envisaging the scenario to be on the other side of the queue i.e. being queued up for.