In love?

You respect your partner? You don’t look at him/her the wrong way? You envision a dream where you and your partner are walking shoulder to shoulder? So you are in love? If yes, then read on. If no…what the heck, read on anyway so that you can talk about it to others.
Love is a sense of strong respect and good will towards a person. You can love your parents, siblings and friends, but since that perhaps is not what you would like to read here, we’ll discuss love for the special person you would want to share your life with.
To be in love, i.e. to want to share your life with someone whom you respect and wish the best for, is not bad. It’s not a sin. You have every right to like someone, to want to be with that special one till death do you apart. What is bad, what is sinning, is to hurt people, which is the opposite of love.
My definition of love does not involve dating and stuff. It involves a simple, innocent desire to belong. Being the hardcore realist that I have to be, I feel that dating will spoil your chances of being together in the future because in the Indian society, a guy who dates a girl is not considered to be moral and a girl who dates a guy is considered to be all the more immoral, and the impression of immorality is the last thing you would want to set before the eyes of your loved one’s family. It’s always more difficult for the girl, and it’s not just her whose reputation gets tainted, but it’s the entire family’s reputation that’s at stake. People would think twice before asking the hand of the other daughters of the family in marriage because we still live in a conservative society inspite of the global dynamism of our nation. Not too long ago I had witnessed a case where the mother of a boy had rejected his girlfriend, who by the way was from a respectable and affluent family, on the grounds that if the girl had dated her boy, that would mean she was immoral. This is just one case. Relationships being brought to a dead-end because of the notion of the families that if their kid was being dated by a person, then that person had to be immoral, can be found by the dozen.
So what do you do if you are in love? Simple. Work towards making your dream of sharing your life with the loved one into a reality. The best way of doing this is to understand your parents/guardians and his/her parents and guardians and take steps accordingly. Tell your parents that you would want to get married to the person. Convince them that the person whom you love, is good (i.e. suits your parent’s criteria of a good person), and that though you have not dated the person, from whatever you know of the person on a personal account and through others, you believe that you would be happy with him/her and that he/she would make a great family member. The guy must convince his family to go to the girl’s house and ask her hand in marriage, because the girl cannot do that, or at least is not supposed to do that in our culture. Expect the best, but be prepared or the worst. Their reaction may not be very supportive. You may have to pursue them. Do it, but not in all the cases.
You must understand that the diameter of your love’s consequences is not restricted to the both of you, but also encompasses two families, and sometimes two societies and two cultures. You must realize that you have to be a responsible member of the family, a responsible member of the society and a responsible person under the culture. If your love’s consequences are more negative than positive, then you might want to think twice before pursuing it. For example, if your love is bound to bud enmity among two families or two societies or two cultures, then you cannot put yourself before the world. The selfless responsible human being in you must be dominant over the selfish lover.
Throughout this article I have emphasized that love is about respecting your partner and wishing well for him/her. Be selfless in love. Do what you think is best for him/her. If you do this, then one can say that you truly are in love, and I don’t know about the others, but having done so you will have made a fan out of me. What are you waiting for? This might be the end of the article, but it is a beginning of your selfless love.

Valentine's Day

So, the D day has arrived. While a few of us are out there celebrating (parents, you did not think it was combined studies your kid is out for, did you?), several other youngsters are out on the roads and in the coffee shops. Some out of them are genuinely looking for love, which they think they'll get in one day, while several others are out in search of some one to have a good time with. Let's have a look at a youngster's Valentine's Day in India.
The boys who have a girlfriend spend the previous few days arranging for money so that they can buy a gift for their loved one and can afford a decent date. Pocket money is seldom enough, but no problem. When will friends be of any use? So they borrow from friends, of course those ones who do not have a girlfriend. The next problem is to be able to go out without having mom and dad know about their mission. So what do they do? Your guess is as good as mine. Combined studies at a friend's place is the perfect option. Once they are on the date, there is the lingering fear of being spotted by someone they know. Add to that the notorious gangs who have fun by looking at the girl like they know her or her family, and that makes for a typical date. Now, what about the guys without a girlfriend? Well, they save up money just in case they find someone. They dress up. The stag gang gets out hunting. A few of them are successful, most of them are not. At the end of the day they blow up their money, return home empty handed, and wish they have better luck the next year.
Of late the advent of Valentine's Day has got stronger thanks to it's commercialization. News channels consider it a sin to not have an exclusive show on Valentine's Day, the greeting cards and gift shops stock up and decorate like it's a festival, the pubs, discoes, coffee shops and even book shops get ready to seduce your pocket.
Finally, is Valentine's Day worth the hype? You don't need a special day to tell your loved one that you love him/her. You don't have to blaze your pockets just because everyone else does. You don't need a girlfriend or a boyfriend just because your friend has one or one too many. It's just a regular day with a lot of commercialization thrown in. It's not mandatory to be a part of the rut just because everyone is a part of it.

Does he love you?

It's a fact well known but not often discussed, that many of the guys hitting at girls nurse feelings which are dominantly carnal. So, how do you know if the guy who claims that you are the love of his life is speaking the truth or not? Fairly simple. In almost all the affairs that I have witnessed, I found that those guys who were serious about the girl they claimed to love, respected the girl, and kept a physical distance. A serious guy cannot even think of touching the girl until he makes her his till death, by means of marriage (for which he does make sincere efforts) . On the contrary, those guys who thought of their girl as nothing more than a boy's toy, hinted or worst still, pushed the girl for sex, and after their demand was met with, they looked for a new prey. You think I am exaggeratting? Alright, picture the following true event.

A Delhi based girl meets a Hyderabad based boy (whom I unfortunately know through a common friend) through the internet. The boy charms her with sweet talk, which would occasionally be mixed with talk not so innocent. Given the seasoned player that the boy is, she falls for him so hard that she decides to shift her base to Hyderabad. She arrives to our city, he takes her shopping, puts her up in a posh hotel, and...you got it right, has sex with her. The next day he' gone. Frantic calls from the girl are answered by the boy's filthy friends who address her using filthy language. She does not mind. The boy suggests his friends to try the girl for themselves. She is bears the verbal insult. Finally, the boy insults her before his new girl. This proves to hard blow and she gets suicidal. Finally someone convinces her against suicidal thoughts and sends this emotionally wrecked girl back to Delhi. She was 17 years old. Imagine a 17 year old innocent girl being pushed to the edge of life by someone who she thinks is her first love!

Let's discuss a true case of another girl with a different profile. This one is an educated lady working in one of the best M.N.Cs. A co-worker of hers chases her, and she finally falls in love with him. She visualises a marriage with him. He, however starts pushing for sex (very typical in case of perverts). She refuses being the decent lady that she is, and he threatens to break up being the pervert that he is. She gives in to "save" her relationship. Is the relationship saved after sex, like she had hoped. No. Last heard, she was yet to come out of the emotional tornado he had left her in.

The above cases are those of girls with different profiles. While the former case is that of a teenaged student, the latter case is that of an educated, working lady. This shows that women of all kinds can fall prey to perverts if they are not careful enough. If the guy who claims to love you respects you and keeps a physical distance, then you can think of having a future with him in form of a marriage, if the marriage has practical chances of taking place. If the guy gives out signs which are not so innocent, then rest assured that he'll leave you after taking advantage of you. Such cases are always more trying for the girls since there is not only the heart-break to take care of, but also there is the imperishable threat of the girl's name and her family's name being tarnished for a long time. The society is not as forgiving in the case of the girls as it is in the case of the boys.

Now I hope you can tell weather the guy claiming to love you is speaking the truth or not. You might even consider helping your friends in this case. No one has the right to have cheap thrills at the expense of your life. Beware.

Affairs

Affairs here, affairs there, affairs and affairs everywhere! This pretty much has been the scenario in the world of the students since the time of our parents, but the valley of affairs has never had it so good before. Right from the Romeo of the colony to the introvert girl in the class, everyone seems to be diving into this beautiful and shallow valley of affairs. The life saving question they don’t ask before diving is, will this affair be really worth it?It all begins in the same manner. Boy sees girl, gets attracted to her, friends encourage the boy to talk to the girl, he chases her, and she gives in (quite a few times) encouraged by her own friends and there begins the great affair. The vice-versa is also true. In a few other cases, boy and girl break up, the girl’s friend consoles the boy, he feels emotionally attached to her, she feels sympathetic for him, and you’ve got another great affair. The vice-versa is true in this case also.They even end in the same manner. Girl’s parents want her to get married, boy can’t marry her as he’s still a student, they break up (the more stupid ones run away together only to be brought back by the cops in most of the cases, and the most stupid ones attempt suicide...what a waste of great life). The End. So, are affairs really worth it?I’ve seen many people, people whom I adore, fall in to an affair, and forced out of it. It’s not only a saddening experience for them, but also for the ones who wish well for them. The boys always have it easier. They are low for a few days, but things do fall back into place later. For the girls though, there is not only the emotional turmoil to go through, but also if the word of the affair gets out, the society evolves into a living hell for her.A relationship can stand tall only on the foundation of commitment. Commitment does not only mean being faithful to one another, it also means being able to transform the affair into a life long relationship, into marriage. If you noticed, throughout the article I have used the word affair and not the word love. The simple reason for this is that if two people are truly in love, they would surely understand the consequences of their relationship on one another and take steps in the interest of one another. If the boy knows that a relationship with the girl he loves cannot materialize into marriage, he won’t bind the girl in the relationship because more than him, it’ll be the girl who will suffer. If the girl knows that her relationship with the boy can’t culminate into marriage, then she won’t bind him at the cost of his studies and at the cost of his emotions which are bound to be deeply hurt once the relationship ends.It’s high-time that we analyze relationships from a practical point of view, because if we genuinely love a person, we’ll be more practical than emotional about him/her. That perhaps is the reason that our parents are so practical about us, because they love us.Let’s put on our thinking caps. Forget what the movies say or what the T.V says or what the media says. Let’s view this issue from a practical point of view, and let’s ask ourselves, “Are affairs worth it?”