Love, the romantic kind, is a cliché these days. I flinch inwardly anytime I have to describe my marriage as a "love marriage." Not that it's unfashionable. Quite the contrary in fact. Fuelled by movies and books, love as a movement is at its peak. Always the media's darling, you can now find love at every local Archies shop.

Children in today's schools and colleges grow up paying attention to love and "relationships" when there is so much more to enjoy in the world. The Bombay discotheques have a special afternoon session for the junior college crowd. They all come in pairs - unformed figures squeezed into clothes meant for adults, acting out their particular stereotype. The girls have exaggerated emotions and laugh a lot. The boys are dominating and humorous. In the unreal world of the young, love is when a pretty girl meets a handsome boy. Where is the place for the others - the plain or simply inconspicuous girls and boys who do not fit gender stereotypes? They grow up thinking they will never find reciprocal love, and often fall into the unrequited love routine. Most often because they just need a role to slip into.

I have nothing against the young. I will not compare them to my generation and pretend things were perfect in my time and that all of us were wise. I know what it is to be in these kind of shoes, when everything is pre-defined to slot you into a category - the clothes you wear, the friends you have, the places you go to.

I also know how my worldview changed when I started to work and meet people. Less defined by appearance, I realised that the so-called fat and ugly can also fall in love, the good-looking ones could have arranged marriages, the shy could be CEOs, the fast-talkers could be failures. That you could wear absolutely anything you wanted if you were comfortable with yourself. Not that there were equalities. Far from it. But there were also many people who looked beyond the obvious and the superficial. I came to realise that the dreaded arranged marriage was a practical institution and worked exceedingly well for many people. Love marriages were also like that - worked well for some, bombed for others. I found that Valentine's day and love had less to do with cards and gifts and more with time and understanding. That having fun together did not mean you were in love. I realised that men whose looks fit my image of a dream man could be irrepressible bores. That if you really liked someone, they seemed beautiful.

I wish I had known when I was young what love really was. Of course, I don't think I would have listened to anybody. I would have clung on to my peer group's assessment of things. But perhaps if I had known the real nature of love - that it must be as much rooted in the mind as in the heart to truly succeed - perhaps then I would've not wasted time battling imaginary conflicts between intelligence and charm, beauty and goodness. Perhaps.