It was just a little story. Something you could easily flip past as you drank your morning cuppa and scanned the newspapers. Printed at the bottom, the article had a nondescript passport-sized photograph of a couple exchanging garlands. These were not the people you saw on Page 3 or Page 6 – or anywhere near that hallowed space colonised by the very young, the very rich and the oh-so-happening. Here, we were on a rather dull, left-sided page, with Mr Everyman and his bride of a few moments staring hesitatingly into the camera.

But what an extraordinary story! It was one of those life-affirming stories that restore faith in love, in happy endings (eventually) and in life in the long run when fate, perhaps exhausted, allows obstacles to be finally swept away. Ashok Sharma, 63, and Asha, 58, were getting married 40 years after they first decided to: they had planned to marry in 1969. The two had fallen in love when she was 10, and he five years older. As in most tragic love stories – Romeo and Juliet, Heer Ranja or Raj Kapoor’s film Bobby – their respective parents didn’t let them. Asha vowed to never marry and never did. Ashok capitulated and had an arranged marriage, followed by two children.

The twist in the tale of the star-crossed lovers: after Ashok’s wife died in 2007, he set out to look for his old, and I suppose, only love. It took him over a year to find her. When I read the story I was reminded of Yash Chopra’s film Veer Zaara in which the young lovers are finally united after decades, when the ravages of time and the grief of separation have buried their youth beneath deepening wrinkles and grey hair and laboured gaits.

Been there, done that
You must be wondering why I am relating this story to you, the sort that only happens in the movies. Well, the day I read the newspaper article about the Sharmas I happened to go to a ‘ladies only’ dinner. This was not my usual gang of female friends. Normally, we get together a couple of times a year to put our collective feet up and just wind down. That night, in this rather archly charming home in New Delhi, I knew only the hostess and had a nodding acquaintance with a few of the others. Most of them were in their late 30s and 40s.

It was the contrast between what romance (well love, actually) meant for the Sharmas and what it signified for this gathering of 10 that got me. For the Sharmas it was all about the first stirrings of love, first loves and the fidelity of emotions. Not to speak of the enduring nature of love and passion. For the nattily turned out women that night, most of them exuding the confidence of the brands they sported and the interesting professional lives they led, enduring love was only for the birds, and the foolish.
Or, the foolishly optimistic.

It turned out to be an entertaining and male-bashing marathon session, with the dominant voices against the very idea of marriage. They had been there, done that and wanted sustainable lovers. But, only on their terms: they would come and go as they please and lead separate lives, with a separate set of friends. The two worlds would occasionally intersect. Those talking the loudest had been married, were now divorced and wary of marrying again. Yet, interestingly, they were good friends with their exes. One of them even threw a divorce party. It was all quite amicable really, she said, once marital ties had been dissolved and ‘I do’ had become ‘I don’t’.

Back presents
For a while the much talked about recession had a sobering effect on Delhi’s dolce vita. Diwali may have been a bit subdued this year but it didn’t take long before partying regained its panache and tempo. The party is over, long live the party. Take the recent birthday bash of cricket icon Kapil Dev. He took over the ITC Golf Course in Gurgaon for his day-long party to celebrate his daughter’s 13th birthday and his hitting the half-century mark. There were individual tents, with the bar opening well before noon. Guests could also choose their tee-off time and partners to play golf.

Well, not everybody gets to play pasha of a golf course. The increasingly buzzy playing field for one-up-manships is return presents. Competition is getting quite lethal at the birthday parties for children. Delhi mothers and fathers are tearing their hair out trying to do one better. Or, even stay above water with the Jones digging deeper into their pockets. For their daughter’s birthday party a couple gave leather bean bags as return presents. They were not only for a handful: these days you have to call the entire class of your offspring, and then some. A friend complains that the return present her six- year-old daughter was given at the birthday party of her classmate was exactly what she had taken for her.

Adults don’t want to be left out of the ‘return presents’ syndrome. If you go to a wedding sangeet or reception you are likely to come back with them. Current favourites are silver shells or Ganeshas. You could also get pot pourri in lovely, crafted leather boxes or other goodies in zari pouches. Laments a Tamilian friend who moved to Delhi some years ago: “We were given jasmine flowers or haldi kum kum at weddings. There was pooja and coconuts. Now silver-plated little coconuts with a red string tied around them are being sold in jewellery shops.”

And, whatever happened to the dear old ladoo? Once ubiquitous for any kind of celebration ladoos are being eased out by chocolates or eloquently wrapped fancy cakes with porcelain figurines striding them.
Mera Delhi Mahaan

Madhu Jain is an author and a journalist. She writes for several publications and is currently working on her second book. She also curates art shows.

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