Two young lovers are strolling in the park; slowly, hand in hand, they walk up to a tree and stand underneath it. The girl in skintight jeans and shirt is smiling and caressing her hair. Her made-up face shows how long her expensive beautician must have taken to conceal her flaws. The boy, also dressed in a cool dude outfit, has a bit of make up on his face. The girl's head is bent on the tree trunk and the boy is relating to her his untold passion and desire….*click* Some boy who appears to be a loser is desperately trying to impress his dream girl, but he seems to be a loser in everything. However, as soon as he drinks from his magic "love potion" cola drink, instantly the chick falls for him and her ex-boyfriend suddenly becomes a loser…*click* A boy stumbles with a girl and falls. Both the girl and the boy look at each other, and voila! Instant love. All they need next is a love song in the background and an ice cream that says love hearts…*click* A girl sitting casually on her bed throws her sandal at the chirping cricket outside her window as it is disturbing her 12:00 to 7:00 chat with her lover…*click* A lot of people are having fun at a party. In a corner is a beautiful model clad in a chic dress. Enter a so-called handsome guy and takes out his latest model mobile. The chick immediately falls for him and he dances with her all over the dance floor…

With my mind saturated with the artificial sweetness of this forced love, I switched off the T.V and went on the net. I checked on my horoscope and found out that my soul mate was desperately trying to communicate with me, and I should give unto his whims and enjoy my nights (excuse me??).

Checking my Facebook and Orkut profiles revealed that a dozen boys have found me 'hot' and 'sexy', so they are 'in love' with me. They have filled my profile with all the sick shameless stuff they can find. *sigh*

I made another desperate attempt to run away from so much love and tried to ease my mind by listening to the radio. The DJ was reading people's messages like 'please tell my sweetheart, the love of my life that I'm dying without her' and 'say it out loud that I love someone and dedicate this lovey dovey song to her'…

Suddenly my cell phone rang for the gazillionth time and I checked it to find that some love sick freak was trying to befriend me by sending passionate poetry about parting lovers, withering flowers, lonely nights, full moon, lost travellers and all that nonsense.

Everywhere it's all about pyar, mohabbat, chahat, ishq, nasha, judai, aashqui, jaaneman, jaanejaan, jaanu…

The only thing that you hear all the time is love, passion, desire, romance, flirt, obsession, burning, bleeding, hot, sexy, fiery, embraces, caresses…stop, stop, STOP!! Don't you think it's enough! What is wrong with you people? Don't you have anything else to do? Is love the only thing left in this world? Are these lovesick ninnies the only ones that are alive? Where have the saner people gone? To put it simply, I'm so sick of love. These days, love is the cheapest thing available. Every toddler to grandma is falling in it. The interesting thing is that, here in Pakistan, mostly the people who keep falling in love are the cheapest among the population, all those 'vailay', good for nothing, immature boys fall for every second girl they lay their eyes on and why not? They are ogling at girls all the time like there's no tomorrow.

The same goes for girls! All those Indian soap sickos, movies, afsanas and cheap pornographic novels inspired readers carry all the love sickness secretly in their hearts and are first to succumb to this sham love. It has clogged their minds and erased all rational thoughts. People are so desperate here that if they can't do all those romances in the open then they secretly write it in the form of text messages, poetry. So overflowing are their hormones that you find this lovesickness in every park, restaurant and hotel. I know what I write about is taboo in our country, but I ask you if it's so offensive then why is it not so invisible? You hear, see, and feel it everywhere.

All right, let's imagine a situation out of our everyday life. A boy is watching a movie 'Love Story' packed with sensual scenes. At the same time he is messaging his 200th 'bachii' (girlfriend) about how much he longs for her physical presence so he could lay his head in her lap. This boy is also listening to his iPOD playing songs with lyrics like 'nasha tera nasha, judai, meri bahoon men aa' with all the cheap vulgar explanations. This boy then goes out and starts ogling at girls at the mall. When somebody tries to stop him from this immoral activity, he simply blows the other's brains out with his gun!

Is this what we have become?

This love situation has come to a saturation point. Our minds can't take so much. It's noxious! It's creating frustration. No wonder an innocent little school going girl is picked up and abused on the way. Females are not safe out on the streets. They either meet losers on their way listening to all kinds of hideous comments, or they encounter people who silently keep ogling them till the females start getting irritated, which provides fun to the oglers. I have also seen boys on their bikes out on the road at night just for the purpose of harassing any female they find. My God! Have we lost our morals? Look anywhere, our dramas, songs, literature, advertisements etc portray girls as showpieces and boys drooling over them. With all the advertisements ending up with the same message, with every soap serial beginning and ending with a love story I don't even want to mention our movies. It's frustrating the way our directors copy all the Indian nonsense and extra 'masala' to make the movie spicier.

The poison is fed into the minds of our youth. They, in frustration, end up doing things I can't mention here. Indian movies are another thing, there is nothing in them except love, love and more love. It's all about a girl and a boy falling in love, and doing all kinds of ugly things in the name of romance.

I watched a scene of an Indian movie then switched the channel to another station and came across an Iranian movie and I was astonished by the contrast!! In the Iranian movies there is no such thing as 'sensational scenes'. There were no hoards of dancing boys behind a boy and a sexy half nude girl! There was no music, no glamour, and no love story. Just a plain and simple movie about the life of a man and his family, and believe me it was worth watching.

Even in Us magazine, every problem in 'Trust Us' is related to it, every second greetings in the 'Greetings' page is not a greeting but some anonymous lover with a fake name wooing his/her love!

Tell me, if there is so much love in our world then why are the people becoming suicide bombers? Why is every second person suicidal? Why is the world in more danger despite all this love and passion? With all this lovey dovey stuff going on and the cupid hitting every second guy, why are we worried about our safety? This is all too confusing.

I may appear callous, but I think I'm better than those who are in love. At least I'm practical and don't think that the world is all about lovers. With the petrol prices running sky high and electricity, gas, flour getting out of reach, the last thing one thinks about is 'love', but afreen hai in lovers pai. They still think about only one thing, which is plain desperation.