Why Love Can Be Such A Pain

Love
Image used for representation only

After a rather satisfying dinner consisting of chicken, roast potatoes and wedges, I lit up a cigar and pondered a long walk to work out the starchy contents which I had consumed.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not one of those chaps who keep fit, all muscles and tight T-Shirts.  In fact, I have a body that bulges at the wrong places, rather like a man who is seven months pregnant.

The stomach cuts a nice, round shape and the muscles flabby due to extreme disuse. It’s just that the starchy contents I had for dinner needed to be burnt off for the future good.

So I set off with no particular goal hoping to burn off a few milligrams of fat from the system.

Just as I turned a corner, I was accosted by the site of a couple kissing passionately without a care in the world. They were oblivious to their surroundings, so deeply were they involved in each other.

Pretending that I did not see them I continued my walk. Back in the comfort of my home, short of breath but still alive, I let my mind wander to this thing called love.

The four-letter word has caused immense pain to the world, me included. But we will leave this thing for another day.

I feel that one of the biggest promoters of that four-letter word was this thing called Mills and Boon. It was published from Britain by Harlequin UK and its contents were about love and heartbreak or whatever caught the imagination.

However, it was lapped up by millions of girls and women all over the world who went all mushy and giggly after reading these novels. They were extremely popular to say the least.

Grandmothers read for pure nostalgia, middle-aged women delved into it to rekindle the spark which died many years ago and the young ones ignited their feelings for a Knight in Shining Armour to sweep them off their feet.

The demand for handsome, clean shaven men rose as the female sex got totally immersed in these offerings

They waited for the day when a tall, dark and handsome came into their lives, grabbed them roughly by the waist and showered “burning kisses on their upturned face”.

During a weak moment many moons ago, I did pick one of these M&Bs, checked the number of pages, and decided to give it a go.

The protagonist was this rather bad chap who possessed good looks and a roving eye to boot. A wispy, young girl, with stars in her eyes, falls wholesale for this lad.

She would try hard to gain his attention but he did not notice her, she being petite and pint-sized. The man, on the other hand, would stride with a woman in each arm, quite oblivious to the world.

Then one day, the man is knocked down by a passing bus and she comes to his rescue. She takes him to his home and takes good care of him.

Unfortunately, the man has lost his memory and he needs help. She is by his side and to her good luck the man does not even recognise those blonde bombshells who were his companions.

Then the man gets better and begins to love her despite the blondes visiting him regularly in revealing clothes.

They hold hands, have dinners, visit the gardens and act lovey-dovey. The book ends with her using a stool to kiss her lover while her dog watches with tears of joy in his eyes.

This whole experience stunned me no end. It took me years to recover from this act. It confirmed that Love is a Pain in the You Know Where.

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Babu Kalyanpur
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