Today the world is celebrating Valentine's Day with fun and fervor. He is sitting outside the glass walls of the ICU. His wife of almost 59 years is see-sawing between life and death on the other side of the wall . When the younger members of the family forced him to return home last night, he resisted strongly but had to give in. He came out of the hospital after leaving endless instructions to his children.

Their journey together had begun when they were still very young. In fact, she was still in her teens when they got married. He had encouraged her to pursue her education and had been very supportive (in fact, proud) of her career as a professor. They had faced everything in life together the good and the bad without playing the "blame game" or "the credit is mine" game today, he finds it difficult to envisage life without her

They never celebrated Valentine's Day, yet their emotional attachments to each other (call it love, call it mutual respect, call it whatever you may like) survived the turmoil of life ..together they had swum with the tide and against the tide  and never lost sight of the shore.

I wonder what did the older generation have that we lack how come, in our time, relationships are so fragile that they break at the slightest provocation Maybe our generation is low on patience and high on expectations. Today, even at the sight of a thunderstorm of life I have seen couples breaking up and each partner seeking individual shelters for his/her own self. Some , while continuing to play the charade of a happy couple, hide their lonliness beneath fake smiles…Our search for security  is, perhaps, becoming the greatest source of our insecurity.

I do not the answers to the question  about what is missing in the relationships today…but I do hope and pray that the couples who celebrate Valentine's Day today continue to love each other for years and years to come. After all, isn't love supposed to bring permanence in our otherwise incomplete lives?

Wishing all couples in love a VERY HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY for now and for always!

What is it, yaar? "Coup de foudre" (thunderbolt in French) or an "osmosis  between two hearts" these are two definitions of love given by Eric Segal (while defining the relationship with the two women in his hero’s life) in his book, "Only Love" (an all time favorite love story of mine). In fact, there was a time in my life when I compared every guy to Dr. Matthew Hiller (the hero of  “Only Love”) and everyone fell short. Maybe i was a little in “love” with this character …(To friends I dare not own up to it or they will replace all their favorite cartoons characters with my name!!!)   

There were eight of us all post graduates and above (so, I guess 'educated' by society standards) groping in the dark, trying to define love(perhaps one of the most-used word in english).  Funnily except for one married friend, all of us are very vague on this subject. Somewhere is the belief that love will get us a soul mate (but if you hear some of the guys in my group you will start rethinking the definition of soul)

The reason why we were so seriously discussing the topic on Sunday was that a friend of ours is in two minds about a marriage proposal. It's an arranged one for sure. She has only seen the guy at social events before. That is, before "their parents got ideas". They were set up on a "blind date" by their families! At a common friend's wedding, both sets of parents dropped out at the last moment and they were sent together. Big deal! As soon as they reached the venue they separated (mingled with their respective friends) but returned together. Parents were very happy! All that she knows about his personal likes is that he likes his coffee black, he likes off-white color (oh no, he didn't tell her that—out of the 5 times she met him, he wore that color thrice),  he likes beer, gulab jamun, chicken (both avian & homo-sapien  kinds this she deduced by the number of times his head swung around ). Of course, the social identity bits had been filled in by her parents. But, she asked was this sufficient knowledge to marry someone? She didn't "love" him.

This was the statement which brought up the topic called "love".The discussion ended where it started ground ZERO.  Hey, wait, but isn't that how tennis describes zero —"love".

The best love affairs are those we never had, so said Norman Lindsay. I realized the truth of this statement only yesterday. People, more often than not, are so much in love with the idea of being in love that the real people they are with become only a prop to the love story.  

Janmashthami is celebrated with great fervor in our house. All relatives, friends and neighbors participate in the celebrations. As usual, I invited a few colleagues from my workplace as well.  One of them was a new guy in my dept., who has just joined this month itself.

Last evening a neighbor came to return the vessels in which we had given them the Prasad for their ailing grandmother who was unable to come. She has just completed her H.Sc. and is only 18yrs.old and very pretty too.

 As soon as my mom left the room she almost pounced on me with questions about "Mr. new guy" (I think giving out names violates privacy, so I desist from naming people). She wanted me (of all people) to carry a message for him (not only am I his boss but 2 steps up the ladder)!!! Highly amused, I tried to talk some sense into her head .the usual stuff like padhai pe dhyan do etc .and it bounced right off her beautiful head (like it has always done over the ages).

 Later in the evening she called me up from her home and told me, in quite a defiant tone that she actually  knew him for the last several months; that they went for drives and movies together; that he was interested in her; that I should stop my "dadigiri" and start acting my age .. She said that she sought my help only coz she has lost her cell phone and with it his contact number. Her commentary was full of romanticism, the stuff dreams are made of .it was very obvious that she was dreaming aloud.

She seemed so charged about how ideal their friendship (or whatever you call it) was, that I couldn't remind her that just a couple of hours ago she had asked me what his name was .. I couldn't tell her that till last month he was with our Chennai office, so how could they have gone for drives & movies I couldn't  tell her what all of us at office knew about him, what he never cared to hide away , what he always was very honest about .  That he was gay.