Do you tell lies? And say that it's forever?

Winter break, dear reader, is a wondrous thing in the life of a B-school student. Especially so, if you're a 2nd year B-school student. The days stretch before you and you find you have nothing to do except check Facebook with zeal and upload your term photos with even more zeal. Ofcourse, if you happen to be one of those who haven't sorted that bit about "impending occupation" you will have nights with nervous sleep but really, even you will admit that there's so much time and not enough to do. Not that doing anything is necessary. Indeed, after being done with 6 week hectic terms, where one is chasing one team meeting after another, plotting violent ends to said team meetings, meeting deadlines galore - one is quite glad to be not doing anything. It becomes a time then, to stop, breathe and smell the metaphorical rose. Its a time to reflect upon things, indeed, take stock of the world and get out, however briefly, of the B-school bubble and ponder wordly things. If you are me, you will do that and more. Like studying the lyrics of arbitrary songs and gleaning philosophical meaning from it.

Yes, given that I had so much time, I found myself asking what Def Leppard truly meant when they said "Love Bites" not just that, it even bled they said. It seemed a pertinent question given that the whole world except me was in Love. Numerous Relationship statuses changed, pink hearts emerged and you were led to thinking that Louis Armstrong was not chasing utopia and that it truly was a wonderful world. Or was it?

I may not know a lot of things but I do know Love. Well atleast I knew it. I also know that nothing is as misrepresented in this world as love. I've never been able to fathom why all the material on this topic is primarily concerned with falling in love. So much so that, the world at large is in love with the idea of falling in love. It is the only pursuit. What about maintaining it? what about the dark side of love? why doesn't anybody talk about it? Thanks to movies and other media, we have constructed an ideal of what love should be. We are told that its happy and things will fall in place once we are in love. Anyone who has been in a relationship, will tell you that finding love is just the beginning of things, and its maintaining it that is a bitch.

The only movie that comes to mind that broached this topic - the dark side of love - was 500 days of Summer. Which didn't do too well at the box office because ofcourse it didn't have the stereotypic happy ending but for me the move had a realistic portrayal of Love in our complicated era. She didn't know what she wanted, and he was too enamoured with her too really see that she didn't love him as much as he did. My biggest pet peeve is that nobody warns you about the dark side.

No one tells you about relationship dynamics and how you're always striving to maintain the delicate balance of conceding and receiving. And what about compromise? and how you don't always get what you want because now you're in a team and are expected to take one for the team. Most importantly, no one ever talks about how self-diminishing love can be. The more you imbibe each other's interests and habits, the less individualistic you each become. Is that not a cause for worry? Is it not a bad thing to be guilt ridden for wanting something for oneself when it may not be in the best interest of your relationship? I've been there and wondered why there is no handbook on dealing with Love.

I may be rambling but what I'm trying to say is that we are taught to believe that finding love is the ultimate jackpot but may be its not. May be its not the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Its a whole lot more complicated than what our rose tinted glasses allow us to see and may be, just may be, it is not so trite as changing that relationship status and getting that pink heart next to your name.