CONFESSIONS OF A MILLS AND BOON HOARDER

The entire book reading community was till recently talking....well at least in hushed tones, about the fifty shades of grey. Everywhere i went it was being discussed and i was feeling a little left out so i decided to read it too. Suffice to say that single-handedly Miss E.L.James has hacked at the roots of romantic literature and used it for firewood. For someone, who grew up in a world where Mr.Darcy was the ultimate dream man, it came as nothing less than a shock to realise that well the world and its women have moved on and how!! Call it what you will but fifty shades made me wish i was colour blind and reminded me of another genre of books that saw us through teenage and later. Mills and boon.

This world is kind of divided into two kinds of women. Those who read mills and boon, and the ones who hate the ones who read them. Oh no there is a third kind too....the closet readers. They have read it but what with their new found intellectual snobbery they like to believe it was a bad dream and that it never happened!

Well I have read these books and still like to and I have no qualms admitting that though they went a long way in screwing up my idea of a perfect man, i read them voraciously and hoard them still. I mean how was i to know that drop dead gorgeous looking Greek tycoons are a myth?? That these ruthless magnates with hearts of little boys were a figment of some warped woman’s mind?? Not only did they not exist Greek men by the time they amassed their fortunes were wrinkled and married half a dozen times already. Or that no man, Greek or otherwise, likes ordinary looking plain Janes? That’s exactly what the heroines in these books were....besides also being weak-willed, emotionally distraught, and clumsy as hell.....but hey guess what the hero loved all these qualities too. With a startling lack of self respect they willingly submit to the high handed attitude of the hero...I guess the fact that he is ruggedly handsome, powerful, stinking rich wouldn’t have something to do with it. Obviously not!!!....it’s true love that makes her so willingly subservient and how dare you suggest otherwise’

Anyway as always its rich man meets girl next door and after many trials and tribulations they live happily ever after. Ok fine I admit there is no story line here....if it’s there at all ... (agreed agreed it’s rare but known to happen)...it’s pretty flimsy and been repeated like a million times already. But there was something about these books that made us all believe in true love and happy-ever- afters....until of course the real world came crashing in and put paid to all the efforts!!!

ONCE IS A MISTAKE......

Once is a mistake...twice is your choice

We all have regrets and as we grow older we often look back and wish we had done things differently. Taken a different decision...had more gumption and spine...been more assertive...maybe even selfish? When we all know that life is fleeting and our time here short why do we get hedged in by pressures on us by family society and friends? Is it because we are brought up being taught that our only aim is to please others? Isn’t it equally important that we make ourselves happy too? What is our purpose here...is it to simply fall in line with what’s expected of us or is it something bigger?

What do you think is harder?  Undoing a wrong? Asking for forgiveness? I feel it’s neither. The hardest part is admitting that what you are doing or did was wrong, that it was a mistake. The hardest part is stopping oneself from doing the same thing over and over again. Stopping the barely there justifications. The oh-it-feels-right feeling which lulls you into complacency. The hardest thing is accepting that when you repeat a so called mistake it becomes your choice....your decision.

It’s so easy to always put the blame elsewhere when things go wrong. It’s easy to play the victim and treat the world as a big bad place. What’s not easy is telling yourself that irrespective of the circumstances the ultimate decision is always yours and by the same yardstick the end result good or bad is your responsibility.