My Mills and Boon Obsession

 All the idea of men and romance came from the books I read from the school library. Nancy Drew, Famous Five, The Scarlett Pimpernel, Pride and Prejudice, Black Beauty, D. H. Laurence etc. I used to love the books by Daphne Du Maurier. The setting for love was always European. Further in Mumbai, I started reading Mills and Boon, after eleventh grade. All men and women fought. Man was always tall, dark and piercing eyes. The Man always spoke less. He always had a huge house called some Windermere or Aberdeen or some such British name. All houses had huge gardens, view of the sea or on banks of a lake. There were beautiful flowers in the garden. There was a distance between the hero and heroine. I referred to the lead characters like that, courtesy Bollywood. The girl was always alone or in need or in some dire circumstances . But her spirit was intact.The Man was always a man and never a boy.  The fights and the sarcasm between the boy n the girl was the best part about reading a Mills and Boon. There was always a story, it wasn't just boy meets girl. Later the newer authors took the easy way out and added a lot of bed scenes n absolutely no story and no fights. 

We are so influenced by our books. I am actually surprised that I did not go looking for a man who owned a castle or a ranch or a villa. I learnt geography through Mills and Boons. The Australian outback, the American prairies, the gloomy weather of the coasts of England, the French wine areas, the architecture in Italy and Sicily,  the Grecian weather. I can relate to each place and the feel of those places where the story was set. The girl was always super young like nineteen or twenty one. The boy was always thirty types. I could never figure out this age gap. There was never friendship between the two and definitely no trust. What was, was lot of chemistry, jealousy, anger, revenge and hidden unseen love. How do these stories work in real life? Passion in loads but what about companionship? I loved reading them and still enjoy the books by earlier authors. The historical romance series was really a lesson in history of the era gone by.  Thank God, all of us who thrived on these books, did not look for that in real life. None of our marriages would have worked in that case. What is this about the girl not having decent clothes and the boy takes her to the best boutiques and she suddenly has the best designer wardrobe in town. All the men had private jets and yachts. All this was so removed from the reality of a girl working in a corporate and living in a hostel. 

Nowadays, youngsters have no time for such romantic musings. Everyone is so self obsessed thanks to the mobile phones with their state of art camera and the world of social media. The small nuances of a phone call are lost in all the piles of  Insta stories and Reels.  Before I sound like a wailing Mom, let me stop. Let me watch the buildings come up, let me see the trees come down as each new building comes up, let me watch the calm sea and the cacophony of seagulls mixed with the clang of the construction sites . My area has got a lot more FSI ( floor space index) now. The cultural centre of Mumbai is going to transform. Except one, new buildings look garish. It is always about me and not the world outside. The old gives way to the new. The old buildings need to go, to make it more convenient for the old people living in it. May be if someone thought of little greenery. Let the trees on the footpath remain. I walk on those footpaths. Let the little bit of me remain as I race to cope up with the ever changing reality.