Here is something you teens need to know and remember. The odds are always stacked against finding true love. As if that’s not bad enough, the odds of holding on to that love are almost impossible, at least a hundred to one.
It looks as if nature is conspiring against you, preventing you from finding that bliss which technically seems to be

everybody’s birthright. And by chance when that improbable event actually happens, when you find the love of your life, your own inner nature comes and spoils the party. Your anger, your greed, your jealousy destroys the fragile beauty that has blossomed. You return to the pavilion like a batsman stumped out on the first ball, facing jeers from your peers, humiliated, stunned, and unsure of yourself.
Compared to this, people in their mid-twenties have a far better track record. By the time you turn 25, you have sobered down, smoothened your rough edges, become more realistic. Your expectations from your lover are also toned down. You are more prepared to accept imperfections in the other, knowing that you are not perfect yourself. You’re also getting a bit desperate. Every suitable person you meet you scan with a careful eye, measuring them like a horse trader measures a horse in the animal fair — checking out height, weight, teeth, feet, legacy and stuff.
When you feel the deal is right, you make your bid. But this isn’t love. It’s more like horse-trading, groom hunting, bride searching, match fixing. Love will hopefully come later after the deal has been concluded. If elders were around, you would probably leave the more delicate financial negotiations to them and concentrate on looking cute and innocent. This is what used to happen in India till a decade back, and what still happens even today.
We had (still have) a society where boys and girls simply couldn’t meet and search for a partner. So the system took over and found a mate for you. The legal and social checks prevented you from cancelling the arrangement if you didn’t find love after the deal was done. You just went with the flow, and before you knew it, you became a parent and then everything changed completely, irrevocably.
The moral — make the most of your teenage years, because a decade down the line, everything will change. That still boils down to the basic question: how do you find and hold on to love? We discussed the finding part in earlier columns. Just go where you can be seen and heard by the opposite sex and keep trying your luck. It’s holding on to love that is the really difficult part.
The rest of this essay on love (which will go on for a few more Sundays) can be best appreciated if you, dear reader, are willing to become a special kind of person. Simply put, I want you to be able to introspect. I want you to be able to study your own emotional being, or else the impact of what I say will be lost, and my column will just sound like nice words strung into neat sentences.
Follow me carefully. You have always looked out at the world through the windows of your eyes. You have rarely, if ever, asked about the person looking out of this window. From now on, I want you to turn those eyes inwards inside yourself and see the one who is seeing. I want you to look at the one who is feeling all these emotions. If you can do this, then you won’t just be reading this column as a Sunday affair. You will be using this column to change yourself for the better. You will be on the road to holding onto true love whenever you find it.
It’s actually quite easy. We are very good at watching our friends and figuring out what’s happening inside their heads. We can enquire, analyse and interpret. Now, we will be looking at ourselves for a change. I’ll ask you to recall an incident in your recent past and analyse it. If it’s any comfort, you can look at yourself as another person while doing it. It’s not difficult to regard yourself as a different person, like you would regard a friend. If your name is Sandhya, you can say, “Sandhya remembered that incident, and figured out that it was a slight pang of jealousy.”
If you can actually say something like that, it’s easy for you to advise yourself and say, “Hey Sandhya, just let it go. Boys will always flirt around, even if they are in love. Just let it go, forgive him and focus on your love.”
You get my drift. Enjoy your Sunday. We shall catch up again next week.

The writer is a film director