Heer Ranjha, Sassi Puhnu, Laila Majnu, Anarkali Salim, Shah Jahan Mumtaz, Romeo and Juliet, etc. They are all love stories that we have grown up listening to as examples of what true love is actually supposed to be like. Each one about the most powerful emotions there are – passion, madness, loyalty, immortal devotion.

This is what a lot of people set out to look for when they search for love; each story etched in their minds as solid examples.

Nearly all the popular songs out there are about love. Movies too.

Love literally makes the world go round.

Love Love Love.

But really?

Is that really so? Or is the reality more like what Plato said – Love is a grave mental disease.

From all the stories, let’s look at Romeo and Juliet shall we?

Romeo suffers from depression because he was in love with… not JULIET… but a girl called Rosaline. He was such a mopey head that his cousin decides to do something about it. The wingman that he is, he makes it happen for Romeo to sneak into the ball to see his love, ‘Rosaline.’

But woah. Hold on a minute. What actually happens is that he sees Juliet instead and says, “Damn Gurl! You fine! Rosa who? Bomchikawahwah.”

You get the idea.

Juliet’s cousin Tybalt finds out that Romeo sneaked into the ball and wants to kill him (because simply throwing him out would be so namby-pamby!) but Juliet’s daddy steps in and says “No blood in my house. It’s very hard to get the stains out.”

Romeo sneaks back in again (Stubborn git! Couldn’t wait one day!) and the most romantic scene in the whole story takes place. When he looks at her, whispers words that fly in the wind and likens Juliet to an angel and the rising sun and wishes to be the glove that touches her cheek.

Swoon or puke, take your pick.

Then comes the famous “O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?” She doesn’t know he is there, but she still asks him to deny his surname, forget his father, family, everything for her and she’ll also leave her family. Basically, the story of every Bollywood movie out there from the 90s.

*Cue in song ‘Humne ghar chhorha hai, rasmon ko torah hai’*

Romeo obviously listens and says, “You ma Bae, I’ll do it Boo.”

Fast forward to the ‘next day’ and they get married in secret. (Did they not watch Frozen? Marrying a guy you just met? Tsk tsk.)

Tybalt is still ticked off that Romeo sneaked in and so challenges him a duel and ends up dying in the end.

Romeo and Juliet consummate their marriage and now become one person, one life, and one entity. Bomchikawahwah but still in secret.

Another dude wants to marry Juliet but she pretends to be dead by taking medicine that puts her in a temporary coma. Everyone thinks she is dead.

Someone (Balthasar who clearly was not a doctor) tells Romeo that too. “Your bae is dead!” So what does Romeo do? He takes poison and kills himself.

Juliet wakes up and goes ‘Uh oh… I make big oopsy” and then takes Romeo’s dagger and kills herself with it.

The End.

One weekend, 6 lives dead. This could have been ‘Hangover – the GoT version.’

Does anyone realize here that Juliet was 13 years old? And all we know about Romeo’s age is that he had fine goat like hair on his chin. So he could have been anywhere from the age of 12 to 70 since even Zakir Naik still has that kind of hair on his face.  Then again, all the men over 18 had to serve during that time so since he was not, he must have been less than 18 as well.

She was 13. Kids that age can’t decide what to wear to school the next day and here she was, deciding on who should leave their family so they could hook up.

I think Shakespeare, the amazing writer that he was, wanted everyone to know that there is another side of love when he wrote this story – it’s called stupidity.

You know what would have happened had they actually remained together.

Reality!

Romeo was a fickle moron who fell in lust, I mean love, with one after another based on the woman… I mean child’s… I mean girl’s appearance. He was in love twice in one night within hours of each other… quite possibly on the rebound.

Romeo and Juliet would have been the couple, where the husband stares at other women when out and the wife smacks his head with her oversized bag.

This is Romeo and Juliet, one of the greatest love stories ever told.

'Love is like an hourglass, with the heart filling up as the brain empties' -Jules Renard