Love didn’t come easy then

Vinod Khanna

Vinod Khanna

Falling in love was never easy during the days of yore, as it is now. The mobile phone generation can scarcely understand how love-birds managed even a small glimpse of the lover during puritanical times. Boys and girls lived in water-tight compartments. Trying to get to know each other was fraught with dangers posed by raised eyebrows and wagging tongues. Parental controls were strict.

But it did not mean that people never fell in love. Even in the times when conservatism was at its zenith, none could stop Sohni from crossing the swollen river on an earthen pitcher to meet Mahiwal waiting at the other end in the dark night. Messages were exchanged through pigeons, and later through common friends.

However in our times, the primitive method of messaging got updated with the advent of the postal department. Love letters were freely exchanged and meetings fixed. You loved two persons simultaneously — your lover and the postman. One liked to receive the letter from the latter’s hands lest it fell into the wrong hands. The contents were shared only with the closest friend, who would always be a great help. Only those friends qualified as agony aunts/uncles who had burnt their fingers in this dicey game of love, or who themselves desperately desired to graduate from the ‘University of Love’.

The process of sending a letter to fix the time and place for meeting, and then, awaiting a reply in confirmation involved many days. Patience was the name of the game, but at times, it became depressing when the letters got lost in transit. Wait would become intolerable and one sought refuge in sad Bollywood songs sung by Talat Mahmood or Suraiya.

It was on one such secret mission that I clandestinely boarded a train to meet ‘someone special’ who was in another city. The confirmation for the meeting had not been received, but I sent another letter, thinking that at least one of the two would reach her. I applied for sick leave and boarded the train, carefully keeping the prying eyes of insidious informers at bay. I had barely thanked God when an elderly man in a white salwar-kameez and sporting a kulle-wali turban entered the coupe and started making himself comfortable on the opposite seat. Since I did not know him, I thought I was safe.

He smiled at me and started asking inane questions. I told him that my parents had migrated from Lahore; my father was from Lahore and mother from Pakpattan. ‘Oh, Pakpattan!’ his eyes sparkled. ‘Who was your maternal grandpa?’ I blurted out the name, without thinking of the consequences.

He jumped with joy and embraced me. ‘Oye tu taan Sheela da munda hain!’ I was caught red-handed.

After alighting at our destination, he insisted that I have lunch with him. I did not yield. After he let me go, I was already late. My ladylove must have waited and returned dejected. I roamed about the venue for some time before boarding another train for the return journey, humming, ‘Hum se aaya na gaya, tum se bulaya na gaya….’

I could have given a fortune for a mobile phone then!