Perhaps you've noticed that no self-respecting dot-com will be seen in public without a dating-mating section. There are entire websites devoted to promising you that you'll find true love - or at least your dream sado-masochist orgy mate - in just five quick clicks of your mouse.

Our hearts crave for dollops of moonlight and roses. We aren't ready to hang up our foolishly hopeful, hopelessly fanciful little longings even at the doddering age of 'After 30'. Diehard optimist, Ratna Rajaiah logs onto the Internet and finds that the world is crawling with middle-aged romantics looking for true love

"When I get older, losing my hair,
Many years from now,
Will you still be sending me a Valentine,
Birthday greetings, bottle of wine?
If I'd been out till quarter to three,
Would you lock the door?
Will you still need me, will you still feed me,
When I'm sixty-four?" - The Beatles.

Is there romance after 30? You're thinking - isn't the answer obvious? I mean, there is a time and place for everything, isn't there, and if you haven't found love when both the waist and the age are still under 30, then when? All the same, the question still passes through the mind, like a restless breeze through the trees. And, one that has haunted mankind since the dawn of time. Ever since the Neanderthal man first felt his bald spot and watched his fat, frumpy wife grumpily slap the breakfast - fried brontosaurus eggs - in front of him. Ever since the Hindi phillums' chocolate box heroes of our yesteryears were sucking their middle-aged bellies in, to play college kids long after they had celebrated their 40th birthday for the fifth time. And it's the question that all those who cross over into the twilight zone of 'After-30' - and alas, we all will - ask. They sadly shake their heads, bite into their soggy bread pakora, sip their tepid tea and mutter to themselves, "Is there romance after 30?"

As far as romance goes, the dil never stops saying, 'More!' And, if you don't believe me, ask the Internet. There are entire websites devoted to promising you that you'll find true love - or at least your dream sado-masochist orgy mate - in just five quick clicks of your mouse. Yeah, yeah but that's for the millions of garma-garam blooded, romance-crazed 'Under 30's'.

Which is what I did. And found that the world is crawling with grizzled 'After-30's' geezers looking for....er, what are they looking for? Romance? Well, in a manner of speaking, going by some of the email ids. For example, what would you say to a gent, who calls himself 'boobsmaniac' (aged 50 and, in case you didn't get it, his brief but searing biodata is titled 'big boobs lover') is looking for? Then there was 'willmakeu2wet' (aged 30), 'wet69' (aged 35), a 'hotparag' and the gent, to whom my heart went out to, with the wistfully yearning sobriquet of 'whenwilligetmyhoney' (aged 38).

So what, you scoff. One website doesn't make a whole nation of 'Over-the-hill-30's' craving for romance. I mean, let's face facts. The average marriageable age in India for a woman still hovers around 21, over 95 per cent of women are married by the time they're 35 and divorce, though rising steadily like the nation's blood pressure, is still down at single digits. So by 30 - we'll push that to 35 - you're done with romance, found your soulmate, better-or-for-worse half and have now moved on to other things. Bacchey-kacchey, Saturday night housie, agonising about hair tints, your cholesterol and what to do with those Wipro shares.

And romance? Ah, it's there somewhere, fading like the upholstery on the drawing room sofa, often forgotten like that vegetable chopper that promised to mince anything from the onions for your do-pyaaza to your ma-in-law's pinkie, a trifle moth-eaten like your college year book and not even a very good fit like your shaadi-ka-sherwani.

Ratna Rajaiah is a full-time middle-aged person. In whatever spare time is left over from this absorbing and exciting occupation, she spends gainfully as a freelance writer and columnist,convincing herself and others chronologically challenged like her, that there is romance after 30.