BENGALURU: The cherubic heroine gets into the city bus without taking a second glance. The hero looks at her with surprise and remorse. The bus starts and gains speed. Our goodlooking young man drops his bike in haste and makes a last minute dash for the bus. Love is all he needs he realizes. As he paces up the road panting he makes a handsome leap towards the door. He traps the heroine between his athletic arms and peers into her eyes. Catcalls, hoots and shrieks reverberate the theatre.
Dulquer Salman has just managed to make a thousand hearts pound with love. Mine just cringes. I don’t remember when I took the monumental step from being an incurable romantic to one who cannot watch a romantic movie without wanting to sigh every half an hour or hold my head in agony. So immature I mutter. I have even blocked ‘Romedy’ channel on my TV. Since when has romance been funny? This from a girl who cried while watching ‘My Best Friend’s Wedding’. Not my proudest moment, but it's been a learning curve. It is true. Most women, suffer from a delusion, a misconstrued idea of love thanks to picture perfect rom coms, set in the world’s most marketed city, New York. Women have high expectations out of love, just as men have about women, and their bodies. But all one needs is good old reality to ruin life. A good lashing from maturity, a pinch of heart breaks and a couple of failed relationships and evolution occurs.
Have I become the cynic that Oscar Wilde wrote about? The one who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing? Truth is painful, but it sets you free. You soon realise that no guy isn’t ever risking boarding a running bus for you. No one ever waits in the pouring rain just to hear you mouth ‘I love you’. Guys who write song for you are seldom found and ones who remember every moment they spent with you never existed. What movies tell you is a lot. But what they don’t tell you is a lot more.
For instance they never tell you that love comes in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes distorted, and most of the time oblivious to the naked eye or guarded heart. Or that the best kind of love is finding a person who one can talk to for hours and be comfortable sharing silence. They never tell you that romance is not just a phantom kiss or a stolen glance. It’s feeling alone yet not lonely. It is sitting in a crowded room, immersed in thoughts. Mostly, it’s becoming a nicer person. Now that old age has set in and alongside wisdom has sprouted, let us bring on the melancholy ones, the dark movies that have layers to dissect and make one sob.