Hold Your Tongue and Let me Love!

Love is no more a taboo thing meant to be talked of in whispers, in dark corners or hidden nooks. The defiant rays of it are more than visible in dreamy eyes of those who love. Riding the wild horse of adolescence, our lovers are no more the slaves of slow speed things. It’s more ‘love at first sight’ then ‘gazing for years and still be unable to express your feelings but through letters’ kind of thing that did well earlier.  To cast stolen glances or send secret letters, ‘love letters’ (seems more dignified a term) has been a trend in its decline. To kiss your duck diamond with a gust of devastating emotions in the college canteen or to have your partner pinned under your weight on the kitchen slab has been the latest tantalising things shown in movies of the day. Maya talks of the changing perspectives of love, then and now, in the Special Feature on Valentine’s Day, exclusively for Different Truths.

It is February. Winter is playing hide and seek or so does it seem. Feeling a little hassle-free after the intense cold of a previous couple of months, not only our psychical selves are gradually coming out of hibernation but also our minds and hearts creeping out of their blues with each passing day. We are liberating ourselves from the shackles of indolence and are back to work rejuvenated. Youngsters have already got busy in purchasing greeting cards and cuddly toys to gift each other.

One can hear the gentle footsteps of the much awaited day, the Valentine’s Day. This is one of those occasions when youngsters wouldn’t mind if reprimanded for squandering. After all, it is a question of their image in their friend circles.

There are a number of ice layers to the cake of Valentine’s Day, i.e. Rose Day, Propose Day, Chocolate Day, Teddy Day, Promise Day, Hug Day, Kiss Day. In short, the month is bursting with celebrations!

Love is no more a taboo thing meant to be talked of in whispers, in dark corners or hidden nooks. The defiant rays of it are more than visible in dreamy eyes of those who love. Riding the wild horse of adolescence, our lovers are no more the slaves of slow speed things. It’s more ‘love at first sight’ then ‘gazing for years and still be unable to express your feelings but through letters’ kind of thing that did well earlier.

To cast stolen glances or send secret letters, ‘love letters’ (seems more dignified a term) has been a trend in its decline. Eyes’ locking on to each other is more in fashion for our high tech. lovers. To kiss your duck diamond with a gust of devastating emotions in the college canteen or to have your partner pinned under your weight on the kitchen slab has been the latest tantalising things shown in movies of the day.

Too daring a thought for the lovers of my time indeed!  Well, don’t please assume that I belong to the age when rolling of the dupatta around your finger or chewing the corner of it served as a sign of your feminine decency and coyness.

We too fell in love but differently, though.

Our damsels today have their entire faces covered with a square piece of cloth except for their eyes, of course, to see the fascinating world. These ‘masks’ are found hanging in each cosmetic shop in endless colours and designs. These are worn of course as shields against the sun but if the device serves more than that what is the harm?

You don’t stand in the constant terror of being recognised by some well-wisher of yours, not even by your Mom or Dad if s/he happen to be passing by the garden where you sit with your lover, hand in hand or have your chin buried in his fleshy shoulders under the canopy of trees, listening to the soft patter of raindrops. The each other’s best.

Love is an eternal passion, which has been playing mischief in our life howsoever simple, pragmatic and down to the earth we may profess ourselves to be.

It’s a passion that guises itself as a winged creature and steals away our rest full days and unruffled nights giving, in turn, a restless pillow, a sighing, throbbing and aching heart.

The magic of the thing is that we still love the bargain!

Love is just miraculous! It can make the entire world shrink to two!

All our sincere resolutions not to fall seriously in love are defeated and we actually enjoy the defeat more than any victory that came to our share in life till date!

With the advent of newest means of technology, love has also undergone a terrific change. We dipped the pen in the ink of our sentiments and wrote long love letters; they rather text messages and get instantly answered!

We would hide the letter in books with pulsating heart until it was delivered to the person; they shift the important messages to the folders or simply delete after the message conveyed!

Our parents had those bloody display machines attached to our landlines to reveal the number the ‘blank- calls’ came from; they carry the magical little things called ‘mobiles’ in their pockets and give ‘missed-calls’!

We’d plan a meeting for a couple of months finally zeroing on a fifteen minute meet at some reliable uncle’s or at a friend’s place, they simply send a text whenever the fit of passion overrides their ingenious brains and meet at some Dominos or Mac-D and have a lively chit chat over yummy pizzas or burgers!

We’d pine for days and days to have a look of our dream boy or girl; they are in unbroken interaction through Facebook and other social sites, sharing videos, images and much more even facilitated to do so under fake ID’s if need be there!

Do we have plenty of reasons to be jealous?

We won’t say that our love was love and theirs is not, but I do feel that they need to take their bonds more seriously.

Rather than indulging in a whirlwind romance, they should go for the everlasting relationships.

Love has to have a solid ground, which is certainly not physical allurements that are transient enough but two mental frames which are akin, and mutual understanding, commitments and above all trust, which makes you put up with petty differences.

Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, 
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

©Maya Khandelwal

Photos from the internet.

#Love #Valentine #PromiseDay #ChocolateDay #ValentinesDay #ProposeDay #HugDays #KissDay #DifferentTruths

author avatar
Maya Khandelwal
Maya, happily married to writing, is a published author of three books- My favourite Mistake Ever, Just Zindagi and A Beautiful Mistake. She’s also co-authored I Am a Woman, a tribute to Kamala Das. She’s been a regular contributor at blogs and e- magazines like Womanatics, Bonbology, Learning and Creativity etc. A passionate lover of nature, she can commune with it for hours. Nature, in its various guises, enthrals her.

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