"Letters to mom, about love":My entry for the Get Published contest

The story

A usual love affair of an average small town boy when he comes to a big city, becomes unusual when he finds himself torn between fulfilling parent's wishes,society's expectations   

and his own ambition when he falls in love with a girl from another small town.On one side, this girl has learned worldly ways,street smart and has been to metro cities before.The boy is more like a kid who sleeps early,hate partying, shares his problem very little and finds solace in solitude.

There are very few in the hometown of this boy who believe in his ability except his parents.

There are also very few in this big city who can understand the feelings of this boy except that girl.

A simple love story is the combination of all possible complexities.

This time, an attempt has been taken to define the raw emotions involved in a love story with the help of seven letters which were written from a hospital bed, a hospital meant for HIV Positive patients. 

What makes this story real?

While going through many projects in my academic career, I have met some persons who always wanted to let their story heard to the world.They surely belong to a different class and have had some experiences which I never had but there were some mutual experiences which made me ponder over it.This story is a salute to their passion for life, when young men and women are committing suicide after just one break-up or just because they could not achieve their true love.I hope this story may let them understand the value of true love and importance of life.

Excerpt:

First letter.

Dear Mom,

A big hug to you !I am miles away from you and trying to write a letter to you. I mean, come on! who writes a letter these days when you have access to mobiles, emails, Facebook  ...  and look what an irony !I am writing a letter on love to you. Who can understand love better than a mother?

Although the concept of love, known to you, is a bit different from the depicted romance in novels and movies, yet the essence of love remains same in every relationship. What changes is only our point of view.....

Being a small town boy, I would have never dared to fall in love with a city-bred girl. When dad wanted me to prepare for Civil services (I knew it but he never said it explicitly), I chose an alternate route to big city for management education...or possibly an alternate route to my freedom.

With a limited amount of money, which dad used to send me, I managed to date this girl. Felt guilty many a times for spending this hard-earned money of dad...but shrugged it off my head....just for the reason 'cause that girl made me feel good?! Lied many a times .Cheated. Now when I have invested a considerable portion of my money and time in such affair, should I be worried about its outcome? Should I bow down against destiny? Or fight against all odds?

When a boy advances to become a man, he stops discussing his life decisions with his parents. On the contrary, I could not think of you as someone with whom I could hide something. Even if I had tried, I would have been caught within your experienced eyes. But I know that even after knowing the facts, you could not have scolded or slapped me…this extreme belief of yours in my abilities…belittles me.. makes me nervous and makes me feel guilty about the whole thing. The thing which is called love…

Some or another day, when you will be able to understand the beauty of English language..I’ll let you read this…this agony, frustration about the inability of mine to do something about my life…this self-destructive behaviour…and why I let this happen?!

But this story is not about my failures…it’s about how I started loving myself… how I started believing in moments… how I learnt to live the life with exuberance…

But it’s also about how a boy wakes up from his fairytale world and sees the real world that envelops him....

This is my entry for the HarperCollins–IndiBlogger Get Published contest, which is run with inputs fromYashodhara Lal and HarperCollins India.




Vote me at  http://www.indiblogger.in/getpublished/idea/530/