LifePedia | Anand Sharma
“Don’t you want somebody to love
Don’t you need somebody to love
Wouldn’t you love somebody to love
I’d really like somebody to love
But it’s hard to find somebody to love”
Rehashed Lyrics from a 60’s track though the lyricist could well have been a loveless (romantic-at-heart) person from the 2020 generation echoing our most heartfelt and sombre thoughts. It resonates with almost all of us- singletons of either sex whether from the urbane metropolitan (read accidental cities) or the Tier 2 towns (read new Consumer hubs).
So what is it about love- why do we seek it so badly in every waking hour of the day and is it really ‘hard to find somebody to love’?
Apparently yes.
“Romantic love happens. It’s not brought about; one falls in love”. Margaret Horton.
By the time we are ready to dive into love we have already formed a picture of the beloved in our heads and it’s not just confined to a breathtaking visual but also a certain set of characteristic features, a pre-programmed behaviour mostly affable, and reactions and responses to situations that are near perfect. Almost like a scripted saccharine character from films and TV. So, it’s no surprise that love remains absconding.
Do you recall that song from the Bollywood film “Woh Saat Din” -“pyaar kiyaa nahi jaata ho jaata hai”.
But are we letting it happen or are we hell bent on manufacturing it?
Sometimes it is not so much the pre-requisites that upstage us as much as our over-arching expectations from seemingly innocent meaningless gestures. A classic case of – a simple tune being mistaken for a song. And boy, that hurts!
Natasha Suri, 26, has been in multiple relationships (though currently single) feels she is still as far away from finding love as India is from being covid-free. So what eludes her?
Says Natasha, “to begin with, most of the times our interactions look forced, hardly organic and by the time we meet the fourth or the fifth time one gets the impression they are in it more for the sake of a lover than love itself, just to go through the motions of being a ‘couple’ and update their ‘status’ on social Media”.
And then as she adds the other problem with most of the men. Sex! Natasha adds with a touch of profundity- “there is no dearth of men to sleep with; the problem lies in finding one to wake up with”.
Dhruv Suri, 37, now happily married from an ‘arranged’ set-up, suggests that, “not only is the right person & right attitude the issue but even finding the right environment to find love is turning problematic”.
To elaborate further, one of the biggest maladies that urban India is grappling with and for is – ‘time’, rather the lack of it. After an average of 11 hours of work, 3 hours of travel, 2 hours of Netflix and 5 hours of sleep, how best can you utilize those remaining 3 hours; don’t forget we need some time for ourselves as well.
Either you look for romance in the office where, if rejected, you become a case of office ridicule and now in the #MeToo era, it could well end up in a case of sexual harassment that you would rather shy away from.
Alternately, you hit on an acquaintance/stranger or a common friend on Social Media/Dating App and start flirting, not so much because she/he is the ‘one’ rather, is the only one you have access to. You might pass muster at the Online/digital stage but meeting the person in the flesh might open a different can of worms, expectations v/s ground reality, Instagram filter v/s Gods` brush- and the only casualty would be Love.
It took Dhruv over 11 arranged- ‘meet the girl’ sessions, before he finally met Ms Wonderful. There were no fireworks in the sky or off-seasonal rain & thunder, they just happened to get more than 3 clicks on their check list, there was nothing apparently wrong with her or with Dhruv and they said yes.
Circa 2020, three-years into marriage, Dhruv has this to say on finding love, “I am in a happy space, almost compatible and of all the fancy places in the world I would rather be home with my wife. Now is this love or a transition to late thirties or the benign nature of marriage, I won’t know but it sure looks different to what I had always imagined how ‘being in love’ would have looked” – colourful, scented, insulated and set against a perpetually sparkling rainbow in other words, something unreal and Media created.
Finding love in the digital or almost non-personal era that we live in creates a classic case of Martians v/s Venusians mindsets as they approach dating sites.
Sadly, a large number of men surfing dating sites, do so, not intending to find ‘eternal love’ as much as bedding a quickie while a large majority of women log in hoping to find a caring soulmate. So the two often meet as railway tracks parallel and together at the coffee shops and at the movies but 5 feet 6 inches apart from love.
Yes, there will be exceptions but the bottom line suggests it is getting really hard to find somebody to love.
Should we even chase this crazy little thing called Love?
To sum it up in the words of Devdutt Patnaik,
“It is ironical that for all the value we give to the rational, life is governed by the irrational. Love is not rational”.
Anand Sharma is a media professional, associated with leading names in the Indian TV industry for almost 18 years. He has worked with broadcasters like Star TV, Channel V & MTV India and for production houses like Miditech and Colosceum, to name a few. He specializes in Content creation in his parallel roles of Director, Creative Head and Writer (for TV production houses). His range of creative expression shifts seamlessly between tongue-in-cheek humour, emotionally-charged writings and stark satire. Some of his articles have been published on Bonobology.com, The Indian Express, connectedtoIndia.com and Little India.com. He has also written an audio-book for Storytel Originals, titled – “Tinderella in Jyotishland”