What with the recession and the squeeze in economy nobody had any feeling that the Valentine’s Day was round the corner till the indefatigable idlers of Ram Sena announced themselves on the scene. They have promised to create nuisance to match that of the lovers on V-day.

The Ram Sena has threatened that it would forcibly marry off couples found dating in public. In one word, this is brilliant. The best anti-advertisement to love indeed is marriage. For, marriage brings in its wake father-in-law and mother-in-law.

I rest my case.But if this somehow doesn’t deter lovers, then Ram Sena men are better off by raking up the stories of legendary lovers who have been the stuff of several insufferable books and plodding movies for many years now.

Lovers, without putting too fine a point on it, qualify to be the world’s stupidest persons simply on the basis of the gifts they exchange. These gifts are generally priced exorbitantly knowing full well that when in love the brain stops functioning. Exhibit A: Teddy Bear dolls. I can’t even begin to figure out what is cuddly about these dolls for college girls and young women. A young man in love cannot get anywhere without investing sufficiently in such dolls and knickknacks. Exhibit B: Coffee shops and body sprays.

James Cameroon showcased the nuttiness in a invidiously smart way in Titanic. When a mighty vessel is sinking, the most natural thing in the world to do is to grab a lifeboat and try to get the heck out of the place. But the characters that Dicaprio and Kate Winslet played were busying themselves in love. The captain of the ship, it could be argued, had rammed the vessel intentionally into the iceberg just to escape from the two love-struck rollicking themselves like raccoons.

Since we have time on our hands, let us get elaborate here and try and dissect some of the famous lovers in history.

Shajahan

One look at Taj Mahal and its marbled extravagance, you cannot help wonder whether Shajahan was mourning the loss of Mumtaz or actually celebrating her demise.

No wonder Shajahan’s son, Aurangazeb, thought his dad to be terminally senile and confined him to a dungeon, which may or may not have been built with marble. History is silent on this. The unrestrained opulence of the building confirms, more than anything else, that there was no recession then and the building rules were pretty lax. If the equivalent of the CMDA had been there in those times, it is debatable whether the Taj could have gone past the foundation stage. The lack of plumbing in it would have gone against it. There would have been no point arguing with the building officials that it was meant for a dead woman. ‘An splendid erection for a dead woman?’ the officials would have had fits laughing. And you cannot blame them.

For all those who clamber on to the romantic bandwagon, saying that the Taj stands as a shining symbol of rosy love, it is pertinent to point out that Mumtaz was Shajahan’s third wife who died while delivering their 14th child. If Mumtaz had lived now, the odds on her bobbitting him, and walking out on him after showing the middle finger is pretty high. But going by his mental state, Shajahan would probably have built the Taj for his 15th wife! Shajahan, in a poetic justice, was reborn as a trashy Vijay movie.

Devdas

It is inconceivable as to why Anbumani Ramadoss has not chosen to enforce a ban retrospectively on this Bong who was the Vijay Mallya of his days by being the King of Good Times. All Devdas did in life was drink and fornicate. If this doesn’t upset Anbumani, then he should not be Anbumani?

Devdas’s story in a nutshell is: He fell in love with a girl, but as she was married off to someone else, he hit the bottle and spent all his time with a courtesan, which is a word that historians are partial to when describing a hooker. If you believe there is soft love and sensitive romance in this, then you are also likely to believe in multi-level marketing schemes. Devdas, if you come down to it, has been made into many movies because it allows a drinking man to sing and dance with a sex worker, who can be pretend to be a sincere lover. How very cute!

Romeo

This is the story of a man who commits suicide after thinking her lover to have been murdered. The woman, who is thought to have been killed, wakes up and upon finding her man to have committed suicide, quickly follows suit. There is romance here somewhere, but I can’t put a finger on it.

Right from the start, it is clear that Romeo is some kind of, well how do I put it, a nut. When he climbs to the balcony of Juliet, he tells her, ‘With love’s light wings did I o’erperch these walls. For stony limits cannot hold love out, And what love can do, that dares love attempt. Therefore thy kinsmen are no stop to me.’

English does not seem to have been his favourite subject in school. With such lines, he kept generations of students away from Shakespeare. Perhaps, it is his English that eventually drove Juliet to suicide.I would like to tell you more about Majnus and Ambikapathys. But I am hard-pressed for time as I have to go out and buy that Teddy for my woman for the V-day.I see a problem for the Ram Sena hordes: How will they marry me to the woman to whom I am already married?

Moral of the story: Lovers alone are not stupid.

(This is a column that I had written a few weeks back).