"Hum na rahenge, Tum na rahoge, Phir bhi rahenge nishaniyan…" An entire generation of filmgoers would reach for their hankies at the sight of a trembling Nargis inching closer to Raj Kapoor, trying to take shelter from the sweeping rain under the same black umbrella.

For this immortal pair (both onscreen and off screen), the chemistry leapt out from the screen. Shree 420 was one of the greatest hits of its times because this volatile romance set the screen afire. This was long before Archies and Hallmark started marketing Valentine Day cards to hand around to twenty people you love. You see, in those days, one man loved only one woman and went to his grave with her… or without her. A Devdas would vomit blood on this way to meet the only love of his life, Paro. A Nutan would gladly serve a life sentence for killing her lover's wife - then, unrepentant, meet him on her release from jail, still in love with him. First love was forever love.

There was glamour too, oodles of it. Very few can forget the universally famous scene of Raj Kapoor kissing the back of Nargis's neck while clasping a (stolen) necklace around her neck. It was sensuous, it was torrid enough for the generation… it was love.

On the other hand there was the all-consuming and all-destructive love that Guru Dutt carried for Waheeda Rehman (onscreen and off screen), leading him to his real life and reel life destruction.

Love in the fifties was a full-time activity. It was expressed through coy looks, stolen glances and in very bold cases, a dance around the broadest tree trunk. Nargis and Surayya would be wringing their hands, bobbing velvet kurtas and matching striped ribbons in the pangs of love. Agonies were intensified when a stolen glance told them he cared too. But if unreciprocated, all hell would break loose. A victim of unrequited love would almost always die waiting for her lover; die of something as unmedical as a broken heart.

The Devdas would be as brokenhearted but would usually have an entire army of friends to advise him out of tricky situations, usually hilarious. Tragedies were when love was unrequited; comedies were when they lived happily ever after. Love was totally illogical, free of social commitments or even evaluations, a complete profession and a life's calling in itself. It was almost as if, if someone asked what he or she did for a living, the reply would probably be, 'I love.'

Then there were those Bengal-based films that made love even more intense, deep and illogical. This is a new variety, not unrequited, just unspoken. Tragedy was when the object of affections didn't catch THE LOOKS and respond positively. Often the lover remained unmarried, in a lifetime mourning (often unshaved, unclean and drunk too).

Shows what an exalted emotion love is!