"True" love story.

Love Story: It’s definition (I googled) is “a tale of lovers”.

But, that’s not my concern. The idea for this blog randomly struck my mind when I saw the words “true love story” and it got me wondering. True love story, as such, has no definition.

Who decides though? Which love story is true and which is untrue? Romeo & Juliet, Cleopatra & Mark Antony , Laila & Majnu, Salim & Anarkali and some more tragic love stories are few that are considered to be ‘true’.  The stories with sad endings. And then there are movies depicting the unconditional love between a couple where one partner is diagnosed with some terminal disease eventually or the ship they are travelling in hits an ice berg and sinks.

As much as I love sappy sad stories, I hate how our notion of true love stories has now become the very idea of someone sacrificing their life either waiting for ‘the one’ or devoting their life to a dying loved one.

"True love stories never have endings."

And then there are these quotations which frame such very notion of true love in our brains.

Whatever happened to our childhood when true love meant our parents fighting ever second day and then making up to each other the next? The constant nagging and arguments followed by “ladte wo hi hain jo pyaar karte hain”. Rather, our grandparents. The time when the women in the house wore a pallu over their head and had meek expressions with eyes that never met their husband’s (atleast when they were not alone). That was also love, true one for that matter but only in a way now alien to us.

Fortunately, I haven’t seen the tragic ones around me. But when I see an old couple walking together at a market or a mall, I look at them and think that is true love. I see my parents, and there I see true love. I see my friends who sometimes fall out of relationships but I know their love was true, only it just didn’t work out. Because sometimes it’s not meant to work out. And sometimes, true love stories do end.

It was always her.

She woke up to her phone ringing.
"Hello", she muttered in her sleepy voice.
"Hi, you sound so cute. I just called you to apologize for last night and wish you morning."
"Morning", she replied with a smile on her face. "Let me get up and give you a call back?" she asked.
"Sure babe. I'll be waiting", Jay replied.

She dragged herself out of her comfortable bed and walked to the restroom. She started brushing her teeth.
"Hmm, that wasn't so bad. Maybe I can get used to this." She smiled again. After freshening up, she went to the kitchen. Caffeine was desperately needed. She decided that she'll call him later. There were other important things she had to care of before talking to him that day. She needed to think about what had happened the last night, and exactly why.

Jay and Aria had been dating for a few months now. Their's was a relationship that grew out of new friendship, they had known each other a few months before they decided they both liked each other. It was going great, until last night. Last night, they had their first real fight.
Jay was a sincere guy. He knew he wanted to be with Aria from the day he had met her. No one had understood him the way she had. No one ever will, was what he always believed. Aria, on the other hand, was a carefree girl. She wasn't used to giving much heed to emotions and feelings. She took everything as it came to her. She was smart enough to expect the least out of people, to not put her faith in anyone. She started dating Jay because she liked him just the same. He made her happy. She was reluctant initially, thinking that Jay was too sweet to handle someone like her. She was too strong with her ideals and her rules. But she still went ahead with it.
Yesterday's fight was about her insecurities, her expectations which had started to rise without her acknowledging them. It was a silly reason though. He had apologized and he tried to reason with her. In her heart, she knew he was right but she was hurt. She didn't understand why. And she ended up being really pissed, more at herself than at him. She tried real hard, but she couldn't keep the thought out of her mind that maybe it was a mistake, her relationship. Maybe they were not ready. Maybe he was not able to handle. Or maybe, it was her. She was unable to handle all the emotions and she was caught in the turmoil. She wasn't used to expecting anything at all from anyone but now she was expecting, and getting disappointed. But it was noone's fault for her expectations were unrealistic and she knew it. All the anger was hurting her from the inside and she had no one to go to. That's why she ended up fighting with him.


Caffeine helped her think straight. She needed to figure how to make things right. Reflecting upon everything that had happened last night, that she said and whatever he had explained, she finally accepted that she was very wrong. She needed to let a lot of things go and get used to being disappointed a few times here and there. After all, he had a life of his own and he won't do everything according to her. That's why she's always hated being involved with someone, she wanted things her own way and when that didn't happen, she used to get pissed. But the way he had handled her anger last night, the way he had tried to make her understand, she knew noone else would have done that.
Maybe it was never him or anyone. She was highly wrong in thinking that he won't be able to handle her in a relationship. It was her. Always have been.
She was not able to handle herself like that, like the way being with Jay was changing her. Yesterday was not about disappointment, it was about facing the reality.

Because the heart is a black box.

The past recurs in the smell of burning sugar; hints of it linger in the sound of certain words; or it unexpectedly takes shape in the back of a stranger’s head. Worst of all are the thoughts that form in the silence of the night, when the truth is hardest to ignore and one’s own culpability is undeniable. Then regret consumes me, and I feel the bitterness rise in my throat. But, even in the worst moments, there is this consolation: that you, too, can never forget.

Because the heart is a black box.

Every conquest, loss or rejection leaves its trace. We love according to what the heart has been taught. We love in the shadow – sometimes benign, sometimes malevolent – of every disappointment, betrayal or fulfillment. We love – and no god can control the feeling or mitigate the consequences.

This is an extract from the book The Obscure Logic of the Heart by Priya Basil that touched me.

There is no such thing as Happily Ever After.

I read an article this morning about Photographer Dina Goldstein who captured the imperfect world of the perfect princess and the perfect doll. Her Barbie walks in on her cheating husband Ken, who she discovers, is gay. Snow White’s marriage is a nightmare as she manages four kids without help, and her Prince Charming turns out to be an out-of-work sloth and Rapunzel has cancer, undergoes chemotherapy and loses her lovely locks.

In today’s world, our world of dark realities is far more pertinent than a fairytale we grew up believing in. Our banal notions of expecting too much out of a person and a relationship ends up screwing things which we fail to realize, rather accept.

Your expectations are your own problem, no one elses.