The Chewing Gum called Love...

“Maybe that whole love thing is just a grown-up version of Santa Claus; just a myth we've been fed since childhood. So, we keep buying magazines, joining clubs, and doing therapy and watching movies with hit pop songs played over love montages all in a pathetic attempt to explain why our love Santa keeps getting caught in the chimney” - Meg Ryan in Kate & Leopold

I have always believed that love is an overrated emotion. People who have been fed and bred on M & Bs and the idea of love as something to last one’s lifetime probably are the ones who have either never experienced this emotion first-hand or are the ones whose love stories have had a short life span. Love is the chewing gum of life – breath freshening to begin with and a dry stalemate before you spit it. Those who end chewing while the sap lasts probably have the taste lingering on in their breath for a much longer time.

Think about it. “.. & they lived happily ever after” is only a mechanism for writers to conclude a yarn for which they either do not wish or just cannot think further. Romeo and Juliet had to die for if they continued to live further probably their ever after would have turned to a cud chewing routine, much like everyone else. Imagine, Romeo coming back from work and asking Juliet what was she cooking for the dinner and her replying that it’s the regular ‘Daal-Roti’. It certainly would not have invoked the same sentiment in the reader as probably their dying a premature death did.

No matter how fanciful a love story and how passionate its characters are; the truth is that the magic lasts only until the time the characters can keep re-inventing themselves to keep each other interested. Of course, one tends to argue that despite life’s mundane routine seizing over the passion and sublime reflections of the heart, there still are quiet evenings and tender winter mornings that can keep the flame burning till the end of the time. However, the chances of running out of love just like the sugar in your kitchen shelf one day are definitely higher than the prospects of keeping the fireplace alive forever.

Over a period, people get wary of each other and then there are very few things left to talk. A passionate love story concludes at the altar. The social enzymes in the marriage absorb all what is juicy in a relationship and then the microbes of the routine life slowly cycle the roughage back and forth into a cud-chewing exercise that lasts a lifetime. Most women would have heard the line “but honey, we are married now” from their ex-lover spouses who would be unwilling to let go of the game on TV to go for a walk in the moonlight. Likewise, most men would have said this over beer to their friends “I don’t know what has come over her. It wasn’t so earlier”.

Often the gravest of problems are simple puzzles of communication and once sorted out the dying flicker can be rekindled to warm one’s heart and the golden glow can be savored on for long. How that happens and if that happens, is surely a subject matter for another discussion.

However, for now I shall let you, my reader, ponder on my cerebration on love to be the life’s chewing gum. Make an uproar, comment and share your feedback if you want to disapprove or differ from me. For those who agree, chew on.