The Best Love Story

The best love stories have the biggest complications, and that is what makes them so endearing. They are made bigger by the fact that true love survives it all. That they are not just the inheritance of the Chopra's or Miramax Films. but more common, more everyday, more just-around-the-corner and yet elusive.

They haunt you even after the music has passed its crescendo and died, when you are scuttling out of the darkness, your fingers unconsciously hugging yourself, while the sweeper-boys wait in the aisles to clean up the litter you leave behind - popcorns, paper cups, some loose change, maybe more. What they cant collect are your bum-impressions on the velvet seats and the dark marks on the armrests where hushed tears were wiped. What you will overlook is the greatness of love, when it comes to facing its hurdles.

They linger after you have turned over the last page, exhaled that long drawn breath, run your fingers over the back cover and warmly pressed the spine in your palms. When the fresh smell of the print has faded, and the pages show edges roughened by passages read more than once. What those words can't articulate are the goosebumps on your skin, and the slight spilt second smiles that play truant on your lips while you live the saga within. What you can't collect is the pain that has to be paid as a price for every letter of the word romance.

They replay in your head after that story telling session is over and your friends then-excited voice has segued into the colorless hum of silence. When you can just close your eyes and recall every word as it was said, painting each vignette of the story in a different shade of love. What that evening will not contain are your sighs of yearned vicariousness, where you wanted to be the protagonist and just possess that story. What you will not remember is that those who lived to tell the tale sometimes do have a different version of their own.

Every story can be great, one has to be willing to pay the price, of living it for oneself, of facing the encumbrances and yet having the courage to hold on, while others will let go. To risk it all for one, the one that you are saving should be worth your everything. You can have that great love story. My question is, do you want one for yourself?