Though the term ” Pastoral Romeo” was more befitted to this story. But the time period of the story, in deed, belonged to that span, when every village had had a panoramic scenario of its own kind. To begin with the title, in my own opinion, the story of ‘Romeo and Juliette,’ in itself belonged to the period, when England in itself was destined to live a pastoral life. Although some patches of “town areas” type locality, certainly had to exist. As far as the common middle class spectrum of our India is concerned, here two popular “terms, Romeo / Majnoo” have far so been in vogue, about lovers’ category. Here lover specifically stands for male category.
The terminology in a farcical sense – In fact, both the terms been derived from the episodic long lasting love stories of old era. But here these terms don’t carry the weight as seriously as they should have been. These are used in a trifle sense or ridiculously for a boy given to flirting. Might he be serious in the matter, but even after, the name tagged upon him, to let him down. Like Romeo, “Majnoo” too has earned the same popularity as a brand name, in our subcontinent. Majnoo in the episodic love story, being himself as the paramour of “Laila.” In our social context, the sarcastic use of term “Majnoo” is tagged to a youth in a habit of running after girls as “love sick. ” Likewise, “Romeo” too is applied as a sarcasm for frivolous lover and philanderer.
It seems, as if, the the love sentiments of Romeo/ Majnoo’ are ridiculed by people. May this be a kind of frustrating the voice. We may say, with the change of time, in a ‘space of generation’, such changes in definitions we often experience. Be it derisive or other wise. As per the trending definition of the bygone era of this story, Romeo title got conferred upon a youth, who remained clad in pant, shirt and boots. Simple, in western attire, that was not so common. Majnoo was a country version of frivolous lover, attired in country side attire. Meant, wrapped in traditional shirt, pajama etc. In accord to the prevailing definition, the category of Romeo/ Majnoo has ever been extant in every period.
Flag bearer – The truth is, they are the consistent ‘flag bearer’ of Romanticism. Whenever I recall about my teen aged friends of the past, I found some of them befitted for this category. In fact, they had two categories. One belonged to shrewd, lust chasing category. Their sole aim was to fulfill the lust desire. Another category was of serious, sentimental type youth. The main lead character of the story belongs to this class. He was of the mental set up, whenever chanced to get introduced to any eligible girl, he surrendered his heart to her. And such occasions occurred repeatedly in his life. The only condition required for such surrendering of heart was, the girl be beautiful, attractive one.
After all, this type of “heart throwing” boy was supposed to be a choosy one. He could not afford to surrender the heart to a simple looking girl. If seriously be peeped into the matter, it revealed, it was a “love cum lust type phenomenon.” But with a desire to convert it into a permanent relation, as marriage. This type of phenomenon, ever occurs in green age. In today’s world, a new term is coined for this category as ” puppy Love.” A unique feature he had got. Whether girl concerned, was acquainted or not about his amorous feelings, he was destined to surrender his heart to her. In most of the cases, it came up as the “one way traffic” love affair. It seems, we all in our teen age are destined to experience this, “one way traffic” type love for some one.
The lead character – The main lead character of the story, was one of my cousin brother in the pedigree line of maternal side. He was of my age group. One of the emotional kind of boy falling in love randomly. As it happened, in that period of time, when ever some occasion of marriage ceremony take place, we happened to come across to each other. There is a ritual in Hindus’ marriage ceremony. If you are from the side of groom, you may get the auspicious opportunity to become the part of a “marriage procession’. This depends how closer you stand in family connection. So we often happened to accompany each other in this type of marriage functions, as per being related to the same clan.
Old customary ways – Although, we stayed at separate villages, but the affinity existed. We were “cousins” in relation, as well as friend. The village of my this cousin was densely populated. It was the trend of that time, some relatives who settled in cities happened to visit village with families, in summer vacation sojourn. It was natural, such families too brought with them teen aged girls as family member. At that time, the ethics of pastoral life were observed strictly. The entire village considered as a family. This helped make visit of such girl guests, from this house to another house frequently. That was the time, when summer vacation of school going students ran for two long months.
In between this long term, in the densely populated village, as per the custom, two or three marriage ceremonies got solemnized. Just imagine about the long lasting marriage function’s ceremonies of the bygone era. That continued for so many days to come. A season of festivity was observed whole through the village. Since every preparation was made at local level, the participation of entire village was needed. This helped to maintain merriment moments of the ceremony. At least every such function covered a span of one week period. There only, my this cousin brother, would surrender his heart to some specific girl. And if girl was supposed to be a guest from the city, his one way traffic emotional bonding be of higher dangerous degrees.
Naivety of cousin brother – The girl, in her natural way, being frank with every one, happened to intermix and indulge in chatting. In fact, she used to chat in the way, as if, conversing with a brother. But her every such gesture, helped to conceive an opinion in the mind of my this cousin brother, in another way. It seemed to him, she was inclined to make a heartily bonding with him. It was akin to the situation, when your eyes are harnessed with “Romeo” type colored glasses, you are destined to presume such misconceptions. As I mentioned before, my this cousin was extra emotional. He had had his own definitions and explanations of love. This conceptualization never had to get realized on the ground. It was the sheer instance of ” one way traffic” love affair.
On this summer vacation being finished, the girl was but to retreat to her home stay back, in the city. This would tern up my this cousin brother into an offended and desolated “love lorn” boy. Often he isolated himself from the company of the rest of the village boys. He was found visible sitting, at some deserted place under the shadow of a tree. Sitting there as love lorn, singing some sad songs of some Hindi movie. Often songs conveyed the meaningful sad contents. They were of such kind, ‘You didn’t dare to break the silvery walls of wealth for me, but preferred to break the heart of an impecunious paramour.”
That was the period , when my this cousin brother and I were the students of tenth grade. That meant we were of about fifteen years old. Because of this romantic inclination of mind, he took four attempts to graduate the Tenth standard. In between this period, he too grew up to the adolescence. With this growth in the age, the ascension of degrees of romance too kept on growing inside him. ( The end of part 1 of the story.) Penned by — Vinay Pharasi …..
