The first step to love is friendship, at least that’s my understanding. Having studied and graduated from an all-boys institution, conversation with the other sex wasn’t an option. And, when it did happen, it was full of stammers and stutters, and one evidently making a fool of himself.
Sadly, however, I think love today is complicated, with baggage and frills, in-spite of India claiming to be open, vivacious and free-spirited. This generation will do everything but when the time to settle down comes it has to be as per several norms and customs. A personal experience with me was when someone I just started to like asked me why I wasn’t a Marwari?!
It seems so sad and funny at the same time because we are still rooted in this traditional and cosmopolitan renaissance, which will sadly lead us to nowhere. We claim to be inclusive, we claim to be respectful, but, when it comes to friendship and it’s simplicity in the form of love, the list includes religion, caste, family type, and eating habits.
Having grown up with mixed parentage, I am lucky to know that love is actually quite simple; it is we who complicate it and sadly I feel a majority of us love doing it.