Those Dreamy Tales!

Ah! Those dreamy tales! The long-lost chord takes me back to wintery evenings after school when I snuggled in my little room with hopes, dreams, and anticipation in the little powerful package I had in my hand.

Most of the Mills and Boons I borrowed from my classmate whom I regarded as my guru and I’d have done anything for laying my hands on the bundle of pleasure she had to offer. We were three waiting hungrily for the guru to lend us one novel and I’d have gnawed with my head and teeth to get hold of it first! What a beast I could be. Once I got hold of the little package there would be humming in my heart while I attended classes in school and I’d be waiting with bated breath for the dreamy romance to unfurl. Back home I’d hurriedly give a newspaper wrap to cover up the slightly showy illustrations of a man and woman kissing or staring intently, not at all commendable for a thirteen-year-old and the first couple of hours read comfortably. Then with darkness, it was study time so the novel was hidden under the bigger practical notebooks and savoured on the study table.

As I was thirteen when I got my first Mills and Boons and as it is with me my memory is excellent at recalling trivial details while I miss out on the major facts related to home and work. The novel’s name was ‘ West of the Waminda’ whatever that means! (I just searched on Google for the book that still exists after thirty-two years) Obviously, it was a run-of-the-mill romance saga almost below average. But the dreamy me could visualise the Australian farmlands, the girl Ashley and the hero Dane and all these I’m just recalling from memory. Because when you read, you paint the picture in your head…the guy was obviously arrogant and rich. But the thirteen-year-old me did not mind! She was swept in by the romance and that part where she was drenched in rain feeling the droplets and the hero gets out of his plush car watching. Most likely they kiss after that. Like other girls of my age, I had no idea what a kiss was like apart from brushing of lips! So, in the subsequent novels I read, I was stuck in the kiss part actually what happened page after page! Guess with STAR TV and stuff gradually I could guess what the pages were filled up with after they kiss because Hindi movies weren’t as explicit then.

Still, the guy was almost decent in the first novel. The second one I read I do not recall the name but we were smitten by the hero Mark Bannerman! Absolute brute and snobbish, chauvinist and whatnot but we girls swooned over him not to mention that he had an island of his own! The girl was the usual coy one, most likely named Juliet who came to work on dolphins on that Island! That the guy almost forced himself on her did bother me sometimes but the overwhelming romance and so-called love did cast a blind spell and I almost squealed with joy when she was in his arms on the last page hugging him shyly! Well, all the books ended on page one-eighty-eight! I mean really…and I always read page one eighty-eight mid-way just to have the feel and dispense with the suspense!

Later I felt I loved the geography and topography of the places I read, be it the Prairies of Argentina, forests of South Africa and one about the Caribbean Island I was besotted about! I could visualise the islands and grasslands, the sea and the creek, the moonlight and the rain, the farms and the vineyards…they all accentuated my romantic world! Ah, how I sound! But then we grow up our horizons widened, I was reading more, lots of Bengali literature, feminists, and modernists. Taslima Nasreen kind of evoked the dormant feelings I nurtured and very soon the arrogant macho man seemed idiotic… somehow the young mind was at the doldrums between ideals, rebels and mushy romances!

That happens, I guess! The novels weren’t magic land anymore and the storylines seemed weird especially the plight of the woman! The magic land was bidding adieu along with the macho heroes and those beautiful lands of love across the world. The rebel heart was on the lookout for a sensitive hero and an independent woman and the weird storylines gradually seemed dated!

All said and done I had a virtual trip to distant lands, drooled over the over-the-top romance, and the canvas of my brain was painted with snippets of romance! Who can forget Mills and Boons! I read them for a few years and then moved on, though occasionally read once in a while and one fine day I stopped altogether!

They painted my early teens with rainbows and romance and mush and those Mark Bannerman and Danes wink from the pages of yore! Dated, hackneyed yet undeniable was their presence!

Soma Bhattacharjee

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