Either I am growing old or things are getting bad - whatever the
reason, it makes me wonder why the world is changing so much. Perhaps I should
narrow it, down to why values have done an about turn.
Let me cite the example of a Mills & Boon
romance. When I was a teenager, these books were our staple dessert after a
meal of Pearl S Buck or Daphne due Maurier. Our parents frowned on our reading
what they called ‘sentimental stuff’.
But the books weren’t so bad. They followed a
steady formula - the good looking man who was boorish and insolent, the lovely
lady who could not stand his arrogance but was secretly in love with him; the
ravishing vamp who tried to monopolise the gent with her blonde hair and
plunging neckline made it very nail biting.
True love ran into pretty heavy weather till
almost the last page when truth would dawn. The man confessed his love which
had sprung almost after the second page and the woman went saucer eyed and
squealed with delight as she had beaten him to it by discovering her love in
the third para. All was well and to seal
the happy occasion, they embraced and kissed. All very wholesome and according
to the book of rules.
To-day’s version of the same romances is a lot
more permissive. The man and woman
declare their passion in the sixth para, vow to be each other’s possession and
by the end of the book, have done everything except get married. Graphic
descriptions of their passion punctuate the narrative and the romance just about rises above pornography, thanks
to the introduction of roses, moonlight and gentle rustling of leaves!
Yet, these books are avidly read by young
teenagers and little wonder that they consider it quite the acceptable thing to
‘give themselves wholly’ to the one they love.
Which brings me to this latest trend in
the media. A popular TV serial shows a young girl who tells her mother she’d
like to go through her pregnancy and keep her baby despite the death of her
fiance. Her rationale is that the baby is a part of her love which she’d like
to cherish. Leaving aside her mother’s fear of society, she says she cares two
hoots for that because though she wasn’t legally wedded to her fiance, she was spiritually
his.
Now, why not do away with the expenses
and headaches of a proper wedding when a ‘spiritual’ alliance costs so little!
What a boon to parents who will not have to give a dowry.
Honestly, this is getting ridiculous. It’s all very
well to show that women are no more than slaves of social norms but does one
have to go to the other extreme and wipe out time-tested and value-based codes
of behaviour? It’s a pity that the Constitution does not provide for guardians
of certain fundamental values.
At the rate we are going, marriage will dwindle down
to a visit to the temple, exchanging of garlands and then rushing to the labour
ward to give birth to a child conceived months ago.
I would rather have my lost world back.
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