How "Sweet Dreams" caused me Nightmares!

I read this Sweet Dreams book when I was 14,15.

...and I remember I cried and I cried. Read it many times.

There's something very sub-continentish about our ideals about love. The concept of pleasure in pain; The pain we experience from love lost. We romanticize about it. We find baykhudi in hijer. Our self-actualization doesn't start until someone comes and literally kicks us in our metaphorical balls. We love drama and tragedy. Happy endings are just not for us.

May ishq-e-kainat may zanjeer ho sakoun

Mujh ko Hasar-e-zaat kay sher say rehaiee day

So we read Meer-Dard, Mir, Ghalib, Faiz,
and we wait to be torn apart.
The Joy we find, in the misery we experience. All in the name of love.


So my 14 year old heart was touched. When Paul Strobe (the hero of P.S I Love Yoy, Book No 1, in the SweetDreams series) died, I could almost not bear the suffering of Mariah...and at the same time I dreamt of loving like that. Uncontrollably.

Hakh!


Uncontrolable love.

Hijer


Mehboob ki aankhain, Mehboob ki zulfain

Somebody should have intervened. Told me how that stuff drives a person bat-shit crazy.
To the point where making a coherent argument seems equivalent to climbing Everst on an empty stomach...and how you loose your self respect. Your ego. Your dignity.

How you become bitter. Or the way pop culture sees it, you develop "commitment issues"...

How you talk about the power of positive energies and optimism, yet you know that you see everything more critically. Deep down inside you become a cynic and you remain one.

That stuff, "that thing called Love"... its not what dreams are made of. Its what makes up a Nightmare!