love stories are always so over-rated and exaggerated. everyone on this earth are scrambling to search for the perfect love and everyone has their fantasies about that. times have changed, terms like generation gap, the x generation or the y generation are being used constantly, but the perception of love still remains the same; the girl expects her man to save her and become the hero of her life and the man wants a girl who needs to be saved. barbara cartland's description of exquisite kisses, johanna lindsey's periodic romantic novels and the finally mills and boons are constantly churned out to fill one's satiating hunger for love and lust. the hero and heroine's name change, situation changes but wants and desires never change because everybody wants a happily ever after. even a hardcore cyninist would agree that all these books are feel good and it helps restore faith in your dreams and hopes.

i dont think, i know anyone who doesn't like dilwale dulhaniya le jayenge. the universal opinion about it being that its feel-good. movies like DDLJ, notting hill, pretty woman never fails to bring a smile and tear on your face even though you are watching it for the 25th time.

being a cynic, i must confess that i have read my fair share of mills and boons and watched pretty woman more than a respectable number of times. for a flitting second even i thought a rab ne bana di jodi is possible. may be i am self confessed romanticist. i like to call myself a feminist but i also like it when a guy opens the door for me and offers to carry my luggage. i would like to be saved too.

but my perfect love stories are not the ones without the happy endings. love should be above all emotions, neither should it be defined as a conquest or sacrifice. love means that moment, the look, the passion and intensity and the confidence that makes u secure about your feelings that doesn't require acceptance and support from the society neither does it require a happily ever after.

the greatest love story of scarlet and rhett butler in gone with the wind makes me feel that two people who are so fit for each other yet not meant to be together. their love was so strong and overwhelming that it was impossible to imagine them happy and together. In wuthering heigths catherine and heathcliff's love is not about marriage and permanent bliss but its about the love that is selfish and only cares about personal gratification yet so eternal in its ways. Graham Greene's the end of an affair, is again about unrequited love and passion that establishes love beyond fidelity and within the bounds of a constitution.

i enjoy morbidty otherwise love becomes way too rational. when it becomes rational and starts making sense, you start putting it into your everyday life and attach it to the small small things that sometimes become so important that it becomes impossible for love itself to hold its feet.

a perfect love story doesnt have a princess locked in a tower, it doesnt have a knight in shining armour and it certainly is not a great story to share. it is that love story that you cannot share with your grandchildren and you take it to your grave. it is one where you dont stop coveting. it is the one which you have kept it away from the rigors of marriage and society. the lasting look and lingering touch is what you reminisce that u can claim as rightfully yours. it is the one sin that is so pure to you.

P.S : None of this has to be true. As Oscar Wilde has said "They spoil every romance by trying to make it last forever."