Karachi Kahani ...Love Is A Many Splendor Thing Or Is It?

Once upon a time we thought love was a many splendor-ed thing. There was romance in it. There was joy and then of course there was sex in it. Sometimes hidden, sometimes fleeting. Sometimes obvious, intense, with passion. This was way before the age of advertisements, commercials, plastic hearts. Big red, plastic balloon hearts of the Valentine sort. The sort that have neither a cool , sexy, silky texture. The sort that neither have the sensuous , velvety touch to light your fire or inflame your passion. but the cold, unfeeling plasticized feel that throws cold water on your desires. Desires that sometime one tries to light up like the already dulled ashes on a cold winter morning. Stoking gently ,the icing hearth. finding some semblance of a small chingari. Or the quickly snatched kiss in a dark elevator while coming up and down in an I I Chundrigar office building. Maybe this may lead to a more passionate commitment. But then, now the elevator is always too crowded. No more the lonely moments or joyful encounters in the dark. Only one works in the entire ten floor building. One works sometimes, the third one always out of order. Just like our characters in life, these elevators in Karachi. Love has also become dull, imaginary and plasticized,Valentinized. Snatching it away from a 9-5 moment. Finding it in a very tired weekend night. Saturdays have become synonymous with the much awaited relief from the urban jungled, fast paced I I Chundrigar cage. Well sort of .A quivering anticipated wait to find the moments of love. Away from the mediocre  cold , cold existence of an urban existence. A hot passionate embrace, a soft full mouthed kiss. Maybe sometimes the fragrant touch of my beloved's  dopatta pallu on my face for a fleeting while. And the dreams live on. The dreams of love as a many splendor thing . Love with romance that is now dying . Thanks to the ugly dance moves of the reddened Indian movies.Love with passion that  now comes with cheap, quickly snatched urges. Thanks to the vulgar almost non-lyrical songs blaring out from our China made MP4s.
Love as a many splendor thing that was once the forte to be written by Lord Byron.