Love is probably one of the most complex and endearing emotions! Love has been driving us since time immemorial. What haven’t we done for love? We have been silly, we have been brave, we have embarrassed ourselves, we have been petty, we have been generous, we have given it our all. No matter how badly we break our hearts, no matter how badly it hurts we manage to pick ourselves up. For, it is great to be in love, even if the subject of our love may not love us back with as much ardour. 

Falling in love! The first sight, the touch, the melody or that sound that stirs our emotion. When Romeo set eyes on Juliet or Ranjha on Heer, great love stories were made. Radha was drawn by the melody of Krishna’s flute. One image that made quite an impression on me is that of a young horse rider on a tempestuous night who seeks refuge in an old temple, encounters a beautiful maiden Tilottama there and loses his heart to her. This has been beautifully portrayed in the opening chapter of Durgeshnandini, an acclaimed Bengali historical romance by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay. While reading the novel as a teenager I wanted to be Tillomatta, to be loved and won over by the protagonist Jagat Singh.

The trepidation of falling in love has been so lyrically depicted by Rabindranath Tagore:

With the slightest touch and a few words / I sense the spring in my heart.

The addiction of Palash and Champa/ Leaves me reeling with the colors and tune of the spring.

Whatever comes close to my mind intermittently/ Paints the corners of it with dreams.

Swells the tune of anxiety whenever they drift far away/ I am left reeling all day with their sweet sounds like anklet rings.

From old temples and gardens, love moved to college campuses. In fifties and sixties, co-ed colleges helped cupid in scripting many a tales of love. The love stories then often started in a formal note as boys and girls rarely interacted with each other in those days. “During our college days girls would enter the class with the professor and would leave as soon as the professor walked out. We would address them as Miss,” recounts my dad. Yet so many of his friends married their college sweethearts.

Soon the magic of love melted away the formality and the stiffness. Love blossomed in college campuses and canteens. Office romance flourished. In college I would love to hang out in the canteen over coffee and samosas to be with the boy I fancied or just witness other love stories around me. Hanging out in the library together, walking hand in hand under starlit sky are some memories I will cherish forever. Though it’s those moments that matter now, the person seems to have faded in the background.

The bittersweet pangs of love! The wait for a letter or one brief phone call. Long distance calls were expensive then and telephone was kept in the drawing room ensuring that there was no privacy. Though the digital age away did away with letters and brought people closer in one sense, the pangs of love remain, or seem to have become more complicated.

Love sauntered from colleges to high schools, wandered around theatres, clubs and pubs, sometimes surprised us in lifts or corridors. One fine day, love decided to take the digital route. From college canteen and office parties dating moved online. Tinder, Bumble, Hinge and the rest brought the world to love’s feet. You could fall in love with anyone now, sitting in any corner of the world. Love letters gave way to chatting apps. At one time there were occasional tales of pen pals falling in love. Now there are so many tales of online love, many ending in heart breaks. Paradoxically enough, the digital world that brough us closer has also driven us apart. The endless chats and smart emojis come at the cost of real conversation. The digital persona often masks the real person creating a split.