Gaurav Ojha 

Breakup Song from the Hindi movie Ae Dil Hai Mushkil interestingly challenges the age-old idea of breaking-up as a regretful experience, after which an individual goes through periods of thoughtless pain, confusion, carelessness, dissolution or even falls into a sheer sense of desperation. Maybe generation-next has a different idea altogether, just as the female speaker in the song who rather lucidly embraces her break-up as a kind of bitter-sweet celebration or as an opportunity to reconnect with her old friends once again.

Interestingly, even the male voice in the song cheers-up the female character by saying that you have taken the right decision to break-up your relationship as it appeared stuck, lifeless, and boring. Indeed, repetitions in love bring in boredom that leads to break-ups. And, as all the shallow-hearted lovers would agree, what is the purpose of continuing when there is nothing exciting or interesting left in the relationship to share together, those same places, same faces, same jokes, and same old thing time and again only add up in dullness.

Recently, I had an encounter at a coffee shop with a postgraduate man, who was going through a brief phase of melancholic break-up himself. As he was preparing himself for another rush, he suggested to me that, these days the experience of falling in love is a white-water rafting adventure.

Comparing love with the excitement of rafting seems bizarre, from the beginning itself love simply keeps on going downhill. This analogy assumes loving relationships as something unstable yet joyously throbbing; it has no destination to reach, it is all about how much bumps you get in the middle, all those highs and lows, and as the adventure ends you step out of the boat and leave. After everything else in between breaks-up are like a brief period of rest. And playing around with what a great philosopher has said you can’t jump into the same river twice, it’s not exciting; you need another set of curves and bumps for new thrills.
Since break-ups are part of love life; it all depends on how you deal with it, just like a college student who explained to me about his own coping mechanism. After a brief heartache, I always remind myself that I have good enough nets, nothing to worry even if a fish jumps out of it, as there are plenty of fish waiting for you to catch in the river. These breaks-ups are like small hurdles that you encounter while riding on your love-bus.

Break-ups remind you that sometimes you have to change the course of your love, check-in your pocket, yes people are indeed selfish, you can’t go on boring the same person again and again, never mind compromises here and there and also rethink your expectations a bit. Finally, when in a break-up remind yourself that people come and go, they are like passengers on the bus, if one leaves another will take-up the seat. Only way out is to take break-ups lightly.

Gaurav Ojha is a faculty of communication; critical thinking and marketing research at different educational institutions. He can be reached at ojhagaurav84@gmail.com