Who’s laughing at Romeo & Juliet?

Of late I’ve come to notice a rather disturbing trend here. My cousin brother broke up with his 3^rd girlfriend in a matter of just 2 months and how does he do that? By updating his relationship status on his Facebook profile, it’s just as simple as that! That really astounded me big time. Loyalty, chivalry, fidelity, passion, – all now seemed like virtues of people from a lost world, say like Atlantis for something. Where has all the world’s passion gone? Where have these virtues disappeared to?

The dawn of the digital age, is perhaps to be blamed for this. Back then, the very term ‘love’ used to make our hearts flutter, there was something magical about that very term. And hey, just because I said ‘back then’, please don’t date me back to the Jurassic era or something. I’m talking about only a few years ago, say around 4-5 years ago or so, when technology hadn’t yet taken over mankind the way it has now, by storm. Today every second person you stumble upon, comes with a smart phone that is ever connected to the internet & the social networking sites. With this being the case, our youngsters today are so prone to getting into relationships, even before understanding that term correctly. Relationships are happening very fast and are dying an even faster death. Youngsters today cannot tell the difference between lust & love, and often mistake one for another. Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Whatsapp, etc are now connecting people like never before. Nobody from the past, is lost forever anymore. I recently stumbled upon my classmate from kindergarten on Facebook, how incredible is that!

Anyways, there used to be a time when relationships had to be carefully nurtured, in order for it to grow & thrive. The ones in love would long for just a glimpse of their loved ones. They’d wait endlessly to meet their loved ones, say, outside their college, at the bus station, by the roadside to get glimpse of their loved one who would peek out of her window stealthily. Their next meet would seem like years before it finally happened.  A love letter that ran into several pages or a photograph of a loved one, was treasured forever & stolen kisses were indeed the sweetest.

Today, a video chat is all it takes to establish a connection. Pings and instant messages that rarely communicate feelings, have today replaced letters of love. These pings & SMSs are all gone & are deleted before the next sunrise in order to make for some memory on the phone. Nothing lasts forever these days, not even love, for it comes with a very short validity time. With this being the case, where is the question of passion filled love letters or stolen kisses, when one night stands have become the order of the day?  Almost every college kid that I’ve come across today would have changed at least 3 partners before even completing just 2 years of college. You are looked at like an alien or some lunatic if you have stuck on to the same partner for more than 2 years. They term you a ‘Loser’,  a fancy word that a lot of youngsters like using these days. For them, even partners should be changed in accordance to the latest fashion & trends. If it is currently ‘in’ to have a ‘coy’ boyfriend or a girlfriend, then that’s what they have, but, when the trends change and if it is considered ‘cool’ to have a ‘wild’ partner, then that’s what they set out to hunt and get themselves for. They are now changing their partners as often as they would probably change their profile pictures on social networking sites. Guys and girls today want everything that is fashionable and that includes a trophy partner cum arm candy too. No wonder then, that Guys don’t passionately chase girls anymore ( I mean, in the good sense & in a romantic way), they are not even trying hard to woo the girls, ‘cos there are so many of them on a platter to choose from, waiting desperately to make them their boyfriends. Sensing this new trend, even these sites offer a wide number of relationship statuses to choose from like- it’s complicated, in an open relationship, separated, confused, in a love triangle, quadrangle, etc.

While some get into relationships just because its a ‘cool’ thing to do, some do it ‘cos they are desperate to prove a point to their friends and peers, some others do it just because they’ve got nothing better to do, it’s like – ‘i’m so bored! so why not get myself a boyfriend or a girlfriend’ types. And even before they realise, they are both headed to splits villa, in the shortest possible route that would take them there!

Weird parties that we had never heard of before, have now come into existence like ‘the break up party’, ‘the single again bash’, and ‘celebrate divorce’ parties etc., to celebrate a split from your partner or spouse!!! Good God, where are we heading, abandoning our ethics & morals? I’m not exaggerating when I say that these days, I haven’t seen a single, young relationship that has lived to celebrate its 2ndyear anniversary. People tell me that they split with their boyfriend or girlfriends, as casually as how they’d tell if they missed their bus, a bus that is available every 10 minutes.  This is something that I can never understand. Passion is nonexistent in relationships these days.

Shakespeare would have become a butt of these youngsters’ jokes & ridicules had he written his classic -‘Romeo & Juliet’ now & had he been around today. Thank God, he left the planet long before the rise of the digital hysteria. As if short term relationships are not enough, our youngsters these days want to try their hand at multi-tasking. And how do they do that? By two timing or sometimes three & even four timing their partners! Smart, aren’t they? At this rate I’m seriously beginning to suspect if the genes of our future generations would get altered forever. Altered to be unable to recognize or understand love, fidelity, loyalty & their meanings;  lines like ‘love you forever’ which they’d perhaps come across in some very old books. ‘Love’ and ‘forever’ according to them, just don’t go well together.

’til death do us part’

There used to be vows like- ‘till death do us part’. Today the same needs to edited to read or say ‘till a Tweet or an updated Facebook status do us part’! It is but a sad reality today. I wouldn’t be surprised if in future, people would look in awe, amazement and total surprise with their jaws dropped down to the ground, at the exhibit photographs of couples who lived together forever (till their deaths), like how we today look at the fossilized remains of a tyrannosaurus, mammoth or some other long perished species.

Meanwhile, I see- love, passion & romance; on their last legs, bidding us a sad adieu standing at the edge of our earth’s surface. But I am not reciprocating to them. No, not yet, for I don’t want to let them go. But at the same time I hope our youngsters don’t knock them all off the edge!

Long live the three! And please be around for as long the earth is…