V-Day special: It's always Renaissance for the romantics

Part 1 of four different points of view on what it means to be in love in the (not-so-new) millennium: has the 'traditional' notion of romance remained the same, been buried, reformatted - or just evolved?

This was a difficult theme to pin down. But pin down we had to: it's going to be Valentine's Day in a few short days, and we needed something to ensure we took deep breaths of all the love in the air. Back to pins on the drawing board. Like hooks. A nod to the Bollywood movie Love Aaj Kal - Love: Today and Yesterday. Love back then, and love now. Tradition (simplistic) vs angularity (complex). Rock-steady (boring) vs rolling stone (shiny and contoured). Patriarchal (man, the protector) vs feminist (woman, the leveller).
All things considered, circa 2019, I'm still a believer in conventional wisdom. It's alright if the man takes the lead, and remains the bulwark against which the woman collapses every now and then (there's more body resistance in a man's frame, if nothing). The forward strides of the new era don't take away anything from the (visual) aesthetics. There's nothing wrong if the woman takes the lead obviously, but getting all hot and flustered under the collar about gender concerns somehow kills the romance. Love can never be a lodestar when you sit across a table in a restaurant and decide how best to split the bill.
Boy meets girl or girl meets boy - who cares, as long as the fallout is love? And as long as there is no formula to that equation. Sorry, also not settling on a set narrative, where love is supposed to strike only when a few (at times many) things are pre-decided. That's compromise masquerading as no-holds-barred love (for instance, you wouldn't fall headlong in love with him/her if he/she wasn't from the same ethnic background or socio-economic category as you, would you?).
For as long as literature has been chronicled, there have always been haters of love. Which is why the greatest love stories had star-crossed lovers and tragic endings. Today, when value systems have broadened, and urban, educated youngsters do not have to necessarily toe the line - like their ancestors did - isn't it sad that the four-letter word that makes the world go around is being sullied in the name of practicality ("Do you really think I have time to stare into someone's eyes? I'd rather be checking WhatsApp!")? There were times when people died for love. and now everyone appears to be running scared of living for it; or, at the very least, claiming to be bored of the triteness of romantic theories.
Before driving off into the rain-drenched sunset - and out of Francesca's life forever - Robert Kincaid, in Robert James Waller's The Bridges of Madison County, steps out of his off-roading travel persona and mouths his tour de force: "In a universe of ambiguity, this kind of certainty comes only once, and never again, no matter how many lifetimes you live." Maybe not 100 per cent thoroughbred (let's face it, most of us are not as unbreakable as Kincaid): maybe it happens a few times, maybe many times. But it happens. In flashes; believe me, it strikes at the oddest, most unguarded, times (won't life be so brittle without the lightning strikes?).
I'm going to stick to the line that Annie's Song - John Denver strumming "You fill up my senses like a night in a forest/Like a mountain in spring time/Like a walk in the rain" - is the most romantic song ever.
It sounds too all-consuming, a younger friend (yes, a millennial) pointed out, and not particularly clever.
Would you rather listen to Father John Misty's song - whose title I dare not reprint here - that goes "Oh, and love is just an institution based on human frailty. Maybe love is just an economy based on resource scarcity"?, I asked.
Er, whatever, she shrugged.
So, has the new millennium killed love - as we knew it? Without sounding too presumptuous, the short answer to that is: NO.
I'm sure there will come a time in millennial lives when they say (like Barbara Novak to Catcher Block in Down With Love): "This is terrible - we are behaving just like two people. in love!"
sushmita@khaleejtimes.com