We shall never find that lovely
land of might-have-been.
I can never be your king nor
you can be my queen.
Days may pass and years may pass
and seas may lie between–
We shall never find that lovely
land of might-have-been.
----Ivor Novello
This song appears in a movie called Gosford Park.
Then there is the end credit scene in the movie La La Land. Even though the scene is accompanied by a beautiful jazz score, its premise always reminds me of the song above.
These scenarios raise a lot of questions in my mind about modern romantic relationships. Where have we gone wrong?
When it comes to any other type of human relationship, it looks like we are more flexible, we put in more effort, we refuse to give up on each other, we find it difficult to lose faith in our loved ones. We forgive, too.
So what goes wrong when there is romantic involvement with another human being? What is lacking in our generation? We give up too soon. We have lost faith. We aren't making enough effort. We are selfish. We refuse to forgive.
Friends come in all crazy forms. We love them all. They are annoying, loony, deplorable at times. But we still want them in our lives. They are the family we have chosen for ourselves and the friendships have grown from strength to strength over a period of time. We can't imagine our lives without all these colourful characters around us!
Family.
We didn't choose them and yet we love them unconditionally. We live with their idiosyncrasies, their whims, their tantrums. In return, they too tolerate us where someone else might kick us out of the house.
Friends. Family members. They are a package deal. The good, the best, the worst, the ugly. We accept it all, no questions asked.
What goes wrong with romance, then? We stalk our ex, build castles in the air about how life would have been if we were still together, we get jealous when they move on to something better. Or someone better. The land of might have been...
Yun hota, toh kya hota? Kyu? Jab tha tab kyu nahi sambhala?
Something has seriously gone wrong with us. Agreed, our dreams and aspirations have evolved. Our expectations and lifestyles have changed. We live in a fast paced, materialistic, ambitious age. Despite that, our equation with the rest of humanity has evolved in a better sense. Families are more friendly than they used to be in our parents' or grandparents' times.
Not romance, though. It is dying around us. We expect too much, forgive less, move on too quickly, walk out more often, give up too soon.
Romance is just reduced to swiping left or right. Quick dates and fast judgements. Frivolous and shallow expectations. No willingness to adjust. Too much focus on our own desires.
We no longer make efforts to combine our dreams with our partner's and come to a middle ground. We are so rigid about what we want, we no longer care about what they are looking for. If we do find someone who makes adjustments for the relationship, we take them for granted, call them weak and push them away.
Gone are those days when commitment was a way of life. People didn't run away from it. That commitment was from both partners and not just one piling expectations on another and the other just burdened under sacrifices. Our parents did find a middle ground and respected each other equally. It was a refreshing change from the gender based roles in the generations before them.
By the time we became adults, our idea of relationships have become so skewed that we have no clue most of the times about what we want.
Loyalty is looked down upon like some out of style commodity. Monogamy is for the losers who had difficulty finding even one partner. The cool people prefer multiple partners.
Ambitions rule the roost and they are selfish. Having ambitions is good, but that doesn't have to kill your relationship. It is selfish to think that the relationship could be sacrificed if both partners are ambitious. Why should there be an either-or situation? Why can't two ambitious people fulfill their individual goals and still stay together to build their dream world?
Around me, I see more and more lonely souls. Yes, I can connect with them because I am one of them. Burnt many times, broken, healed, broken again. Lonely in big crowds.
Old fashioned, sensitive, sensible people. Unable to fit in with the entitled, selfish, new age go-getters. Unable to sacrifice human emotions in exchange for short-lived, fake, superficial successes.
We keep dreaming for a rosy morning, when this darkness will fall away. When people will truly open their eyes and see the world for what it really is.
There is too much need for social acceptance. There is too much need to fit in and show how happy you are. Even when you are dying from inside.
We might be desolate, forlorn, depressed and lonely. But we will create a fake world of social media pictures around us - parties, trips, cool jobs, promotions, travels, group hugs, "besties"...
Fake. Meaningless. Pointless.
We will show the world that we are celebrating life. Why is there so much need of what the world should see? How does it matter to the world?
Behind all the celebration pictures, the reality is that we are all alone. The peers, colleagues, the schmoozing is all posed. Once the perfect selfie is clicked and posted, we turn our backs on each other and start bitching.
We don't invest in togetherness anymore. Look around. The couples who post less on social media are the ones with really successful marriages. When will we sit and take notice?
When break ups used to happen in the previous generations for reasons based on caste and religion, it was genuine. The people concerned had tried every possible thing and failed and then decided to part ways. Not so with us, no! We give up at the very beginning.
Yes, I want to be with you. But I refuse to convince my family to accept us. So we will have a "no strings attached" understanding as long as it lasts. Phir, tu tere raste, mai mere raste. Convenient, isn't it? Quite justified. Slow claps.
No, we no longer know what we want. We no longer care to look beyond our own little bubble. We are so short sighted and pompous, that we don't even realise how pathetic our existence is. We don't need to know anything outside our puny little, self-entitled world.
We will shut out people who truly care about us and then day dream about how we could have lived the perfect life if they were still around. We will run away from growing up and committing to responsibilities and then get jealous of those who found true love and happiness. We will shy away from facing real life's googlies and prefer to shut ourselves in and day dream about our own perfect reality.
This is what surrounds me. It makes me wonder what the next generation will be like! Do I want to be around to experience it?
What if, I could find more people who live in the real world? What if, more people wake from their self induced slumbers? What if...
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