Bollywood college-love that was hardly met in reality

The charming Rahul from "Kuch Kuch Hota Hai," with his famous line, "Pyar dosti hai" (Love is friendship), made us believe in the magic of falling in love with your best friend amidst the youthful energy of college. 

Similarly, Anjali's transformation and unrequited love in the same movie showed us how love can evolve and flourish in the corridors of academia.

However, as many of us stepped into the gates of university colleges, it suddenly appeared as though our entire life was a mere illusion.

The "promised" grand love stories — bumping into people, falling of books or files, eyes meeting, time stopping, heart beating aloud, and only pleasant romantic music playing in the background with everything else just disappearing, and here, on Day One we to find our "The One"…! 

This is a lovely fantasy depicted in Bollywood and if any of us were expecting to find the love of our lives on the first day of college in reality, we were in for a big surprise.

If truth be told, all that we experienced for the entirety of our first day of college was orientations, class introductions, and most probably meeting those whom we would pass the next couple of years together. 

Movies like "Mohabbatein," with its portrayal of love defying the strict rules of Gurukul, set an expectation of finding rebellious and passionate love at college. 

The iconic dialogue, "Koi pyaar kare toh tumse kare, tum jaise ho waise kare... Koi tumko badal kar pyar kare, toh woh pyaar nahi sauda hai," (If someone loves you, they should love you the way you are... If someone wants to change you in the name of love, it's not love but a deal), instilled in us the notion that love accepts us as we are, inspiring change for the better, not out of compulsion.

The message here is uplifting but can set expectations that, however, in real-life relationships might struggle to meet.

In reality, individuals in a relationship inevitably influence and shape each other, often in subtle and unconscious ways.

Societal and familial expectations sometimes blur the lines between growth and change, and the expectation that love will never ask us to change leads to misunderstandings. 

Bollywood also hyped the college festival as the ultimate setting for love to bloom. 

Remember "Jaane Tu... Ya Jaane Na," where the shy Jai and the bold Aditi navigate their friendship and love amidst college events? 

Haven't we all expected our college festivals to be the backdrop of similar romantic revelations?

However, for most of us, these events didn't even exist and for whom these existed were marred with more about showcasing talents, managing responsibilities, and, yes, forming bonds, but rarely did they mimic the cinematic spectacle of romance.

To quote the famous dialogue from '3 Idiots' when Aamir Khan says that "You know it is true love when you look at a person, time slows down, the wind blows and the music starts in the background", and Kareena Kapoor dismisses the statement for being too ridiculous. 

Unfortunately, Kareena was absolutely correct in this situation and love does not happen like this at first glance, and no, there is definitely no music.

What we learned from our university experiences is that love is not always about the moments that "Karan Johar" movies glorified.

It's not about the dramatic confessions or chasing someone across the college campus. 

As we moved on from our college days, the realisation dawned that Bollywood's depiction was a fantasy — a beautiful one, but a fantasy nonetheless. 

Meanwhile, the real love stories we live are not any less just because they lack cinematic drama.  

They are just different, grounded in reality, and perhaps, all the more meaningful for it.