Today is Valentine’s Day, when roses are given and gifts are received. It’s the day when friends give friends flowers for fun, when people receive chocolates from secret admirers, when the cheesiest romance movies are run and rerun on television from morning to night. Yep, the day when you get constant smses from mobile network companies telling you about fantastic deals to tell someone you love them in only a hundred bucks (exclusive of all taxes).
The idea has been done to death and its fascinating how no one ever gets bored of it; it’s like they like knowing all the dialogues in Sleepless in Seattle, which has a nine out of ten chance of being played on at least one TV channel today.Maybe they do this because love is not so easy to celebrate, it’s a simple explanation, they celebrate today because they don’t have to think about anything else, there is no practicality practiced on February the 14th, no thinking about class, culture, will the parents approve, what’s next, where is all this going and the whole shebang that the mind goes through and not the heart. Love changes everything, because you see, when your friends your just friends, it’s funny how things like cast, culture and especially religion don’t get in the way of friendship; it’s almost like these things don’t really matter in everyday life. But add love to the mix, and one is bound to be thrown into every obstacle, dilemma and drama.
Take Jamal and Anjali’s case as an example. Both studied at the same college, both had the same circle of friends and both slowly began to like each other. Everything was normal, they went through the usual boy meets girl, boy tells girls he likes her, girl says no, but miraculously on Valentine’s Day she changes her mind and says yes, boy gets happy, they start going out nonsense. One thing you don’t know about Jamal and Anjali, is that Jamal is Muslim and Anjali, Hindu. This difference was never brought up nor was it an issue; nothing really mattered, because honestly, such aspects of religion could not be classified as day to day praying five times a day sort of thing. However, if someone doesn’t bring it up in a conversation doesn’t mean no one is thinking about it.
But it was too early to jump to conclusions, “you do know what you’re doing,” was all a friend of Jamal asked him. Yes I like her, was the reply. “Then fine, go for it.” And that was that, they never discussed it again. Even though Jamal and Anjali never discussed it with anyone and no one knows what they think, their friends all individually thought about it, and somehow, they all knew that each of them has in fact let the thought simmer in their mind. Not because they were against the idea, but because of all the complications that could arise from the idea. For others it was good gossip, “just a phase, it’ll end when they graduate and go to separate universities,” was their conclusion. They were proven wrong, Jamal and Anjali kept their relationship going even when they were literally worlds apart. “It won’t last long, they’ll get sick of the effort,” others said. Maybe secretly their friends even thought the same - they were hoping that breaking up on matters like being worlds apart in different universities won’t be as bad as breaking up over differences in religion. Because they understand the fact that whatever happens between them will not just affect only them, they knew that they will have a part to play in what the two decide to do and they knew that they too will be affected by it. In simple things like friendship, one never cares about religion, but in love and relationships, you get hit by it left, right and centre. No one knows what Jamal and Anjali think and their friends worry about them. They worry if things keep going the way they are and they decide to marry, what will they face? Whose parents will make the bigger fuss? Who’ll get kicked out, who’ll get cut off, will one of them have to change to compromise what they believe in and if so which one? They worry about the fact that if things crash because of the amount of differences and the load of compromises they’ll have to divide between them, as friends. Which one will they support, how will they choose? They know that they have a huge part to play ahead, and they know that both ways will be utterly complicated, devastatingly uncomfortable and just plain chaotic. (DT)
Take Jamal and Anjali’s case as an example. Both studied at the same college, both had the same circle of friends and both slowly began to like each other. Everything was normal, they went through the usual boy meets girl, boy tells girls he likes her, girl says no, but miraculously on Valentine’s Day she changes her mind and says yes, boy gets happy, they start going out nonsense. One thing you don’t know about Jamal and Anjali, is that Jamal is Muslim and Anjali, Hindu. This difference was never brought up nor was it an issue; nothing really mattered, because honestly, such aspects of religion could not be classified as day to day praying five times a day sort of thing. However, if someone doesn’t bring it up in a conversation doesn’t mean no one is thinking about it.
But it was too early to jump to conclusions, “you do know what you’re doing,” was all a friend of Jamal asked him. Yes I like her, was the reply. “Then fine, go for it.” And that was that, they never discussed it again. Even though Jamal and Anjali never discussed it with anyone and no one knows what they think, their friends all individually thought about it, and somehow, they all knew that each of them has in fact let the thought simmer in their mind. Not because they were against the idea, but because of all the complications that could arise from the idea. For others it was good gossip, “just a phase, it’ll end when they graduate and go to separate universities,” was their conclusion. They were proven wrong, Jamal and Anjali kept their relationship going even when they were literally worlds apart. “It won’t last long, they’ll get sick of the effort,” others said. Maybe secretly their friends even thought the same - they were hoping that breaking up on matters like being worlds apart in different universities won’t be as bad as breaking up over differences in religion. Because they understand the fact that whatever happens between them will not just affect only them, they knew that they will have a part to play in what the two decide to do and they knew that they too will be affected by it. In simple things like friendship, one never cares about religion, but in love and relationships, you get hit by it left, right and centre. No one knows what Jamal and Anjali think and their friends worry about them. They worry if things keep going the way they are and they decide to marry, what will they face? Whose parents will make the bigger fuss? Who’ll get kicked out, who’ll get cut off, will one of them have to change to compromise what they believe in and if so which one? They worry about the fact that if things crash because of the amount of differences and the load of compromises they’ll have to divide between them, as friends. Which one will they support, how will they choose? They know that they have a huge part to play ahead, and they know that both ways will be utterly complicated, devastatingly uncomfortable and just plain chaotic. (DT)
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