The pertinent question

What would you rather be? Someone's first love or the last romance? If you are a man, wrote Oscar Wilde, you would prefer to be the former. Women, he wrote, had a more subtle instinct. All they want is to be a man's last romance.

In La La Land, you could end up as an achingly beautiful melody. If you are a Karan Johar- Yash Chopra character, you could be both but may not live to tell the tale.

First love is sacred. It has its place in the scrapbook of our souls. Just as the first kiss, first dance, first high, or first time making love. You never forget your first boss or your first pay cheque (heck, I even carried it around in a transparent file to a coffee shop).

If all the magical firsts happen to you as a teenager, it would have added a confident spring to your stride, made you feel taller even in your flats, fuller, lovelier, sexier, and happier. Much later in your life, you may look back wistfully at the first time you felt chemistry with someone. The fire that makes poets out of the most boring of men, lovers out of losers. If you fall for an artiste, you will want him to write songs for you and long for you when you step out for a minute. If you fall in love with a writer, you want to be the finest story in his epic. The luckiest amongst us, turn into a swan song.

How would you like it if at the end of La La Land, everything fell into place? It would be oh-so-ordinary. No magic in the predictable, right? The glances exchanged between former lovers, who left a story to its illogical but beautifully messy end, are so much more interesting than a happily ever-after. Throw in the best of sex in this mix, and you have a heady cocktail indeed. There is so much more poetry in what is unattainable than what is always yours. Strange, we pledge eternity during courtship, but secretly we want the bittersweetness of separation. We speak of forever, but do we really want that?

Some couples keep the magic alive in their relationship by being unavailable to each other for a while. No, they are not swingers, but evolved souls who respect personal space and trust each other enough to stay away without losing sleep.

A dear friend has been in a beautiful (and not steady) relationship with a high-profile media professional for nearly two decades. They were not each other's first loves. But she is most definitely his last romance. They chose not to get married but are perfectly synced as homemakers, fabulous hosts, and friends. And they ooze enviable chemistry. "The secret to our relationship," she had told me once, was "keeping the unpredictability alive."

At a party, over a few drinks, she had shared her mantra: "Never be an open book. Never take each other for granted. Let him never forget that every time you dance, it could be your last dance together. When you make love, make him hold on to the thought that you may be gone in the morning. And then, watch the magic unfold, every 'effing time."

Every time I look at her pictures clicked by her lover, I see it. His yearning for her, even after living with her for 20 years. Her playfulness, even when she smothers him with her affection.

We all remember the songs about the girl who walked away. No one remembers the good wife.