To Be Young and In Love

I’m 22 years old now. Had I been in college pursuing any other degree, I probably would have finished my degree and might been a working man. That is, if I had been fortunate enough to escape the youth unemployment crisis that currently plagues my country. Instead, here I am dragging myself from 7 am until 4:30 pm, sometimes up to 10 pm everyday including some Sundays between the corridors of a hospital and the lectures of my professing teachers at University and everything in between – like the jam-packed public buses of Sri Lanka and the incessant tropical rains that are a daily part of life here in order to earn my medical degree.

But amidst this hectic schedule, there is one thing I always look forward to everyday – to see the smiling face of my beloved sweetheart on Skype! She is hundreds of miles away back home but not a day passes by when we don’t speak to each other, even for the briefest moments possible. Ours is a fairy tale, a modern day love story, a story that we continue to write with each passing day. We first met online having “befriended” each other on a “social” networking site – the holy site that sanctified the letter “F” after centuries of its infamy. The first time we saw each other was not in person but over a video call on Skype! And it wasn’t until nearly eight months into our relationship that we finally met each other in person. Just over two decades ago and this story of ours would have been on the shelves of science fiction or the subject of ridicule or marked as insanity. Today, however, it is just another story that doesn’t so much as raise an eyebrow.

We, of course, belong to a different generation altogether. Right up until our parents’ time, marriages were the domain of the wise and old only. Unless you had a few grey hair up on your scalp, you were deemed unfit to have any say in such matters. My parents first met only after their grandparents had met each other, consulted the holy astrologers and ensured that their horoscopes were “matched” with heavenly approval for their union. A whole procession of relatives led by the elders had to accompany my father to go and ask for the groom, my mother in marriage. If both of them liked each other then, I shall never know. “So how did you find Mom?” “Was Appa (father) handsome?” are questions I can only dream of asking my parents. For no matter how friendly we are with our parents, some things are never discussed in my culture. I sort of like it that way. I have imagined a thousand ways of how my parents must have first set eyes on each other, and each time I imagine a different picture of their first encounter. Of course, having seen them over the past several years, I know that they love each other endlessly and have tremendous respect for each other. Nevertheless, I sometimes wish to know how they express their love for each other. For me, they’ve been the greatest example of true, unconditional love. Yet I have never seen it laid out in words or in so-called romantic gestures. I have simply seen and felt the love, love of epic proportions that even the most beautifully scripted romantic movie would dwarf in comparison.

So, to say that times have changed would be an understatement. “Time has completely reversed” might be more appropriate if only my statement didn’t sound so paradoxical; suffice it to say that it is a different era now. Ours is an age of 4G internet, of smartphones and apps and an age of unprecedented change in the history of human civilization. Naturally, our relationships and the way we connect has transformed too. If one were to think of it, in many ways, it is truly magical what we are experiencing today. We are no longer bounded by the traditional limitations of space and time. Had it not been for technology, I may have never met the love of my life, or perhaps we would have never known of each other’s existence, let alone fall in love like this. Unlike our parents, we didn’t match our horoscopes or let our families meet first. Instead we went to our parents and told them of “someone we had met”. “When we were your age and our parents said it was time for us to get married soon, we would blush and hide in our rooms”, my father reminisced. Well, I also did blush to be honest but I had to let them know somehow.

Each time before I post one of my poems written for my sweetheart on Facebook or a photograph of us together, I think of my parents and their stern faces of disapproval at such public display of affection. I have never seen my parents snugly hug each other even at home in front of us kids, let alone publicly. So I do hesitate for a moment sometimes, but then my love-drunk mind takes over and says “Well, come on buddy, you are only saying what you feel, honestly and freely.” It’s not like I want to be a rebel or something, it’s just that I am young and in love. And one can be young only once! Being hundreds of miles away from my love compels me to find new ways of expressing my feelings for her.

So as we mark our 1^st year anniversary of togetherness today, I find myself pondering over the way modern romance is transforming with technology and changing times. As I do so, I want to thank my dearly beloved, the love of my life and my better half, Dolma for her unconditional love. I wish you a very HAPPY 1^st YEAR ANNIVERSARY dear and I dedicate this piece to you and to our love. And I want to wish all my fellow lovebirds out there the very best of luck in your journeys as well, and to all those who are still looking for their special someone, just keep looking and have faith, you’ll find your soul mate just like I did, sometimes in the most unexpected of ways!