Who doesn’t dig a good romance? From cinema screens to televisions, from webseries to books- they can warm our hearts or wring them, or bring on the warm fuzzy feelings. And it is not just fiction to which these love stories are limited- the real world has its fair share of romance- some tragedies, some happily ever afters- all worth a read.
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A Walk To Remember-The True Story Behind It
The Sparks Family (Image Courtesy: moviepilot.com)
The Nicholas Sparks novel, A Walk To Remember features the endearing Jamie Sullivan as its female lead, a terminally ill patient who finds true love before she passes away at a tender age. Sparks has opened up about how the character is largely based on his sister, Danielle, who was only thirty-three when she was lost to cancer. She had had her own romance, and been married, before her untimely passing, a story of romance that transcends the confines of mortality.
2. Mahmoud Darwish and Tamar Ben-Ami: An Israeli-Palestinian Love Story
A young Darwish Image Courtesy: Pulsemedia
The occupation may end, and the toddler may not remember the time of the siege,
and he would grow up a healthy boy,
and study the Ancient history of Asia,
in the same college as one of your daughters.
And they may fall in love.
And they may have a daughter (who would be Jewish by birth.)
Even while exhorting the Palestinian right to self determination,Darwish, Palestine’s national poet, held up the ambiguity of predetermined identities. This was a consciousness that made sense of his romance with his Israeli Jewish lover, Tamar Ben-ami. A bittersweet tale of star crossed lovers, this is an account of a love that can transcend all barriers.
3. John Nash and Alicia: A Beautiful Mind
Image Courtesy: Everett Images
The movie “A Beautiful Mind” based on John Nash’s life reveals that, just as significant as his battle with paranoid schizophrenia to his life, is the romance between him and his wife Alicia-who stood by him through his struggle, who was divorced from him, but reunited years down the line, before their death together in an accident in 2015. Some romances are so beautifully, yet tragically penned in the real world, that one is left marveling that destiny is indeed the most skilled of authors.
4. Poets In Love: Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky
The Beat poets central to defining a generation, the romance between them lasted a lifetime-since their meeting in 1954 to Ginsberg’s 1997. The homoeroticism inherent in their relationship was often erased by the more conservative elements in academic discourse.
5. Love In Hopeful Places
This same-sex couple featured in Humans of New York defy both ableism and homophobia. The caption, quotes the woman on the left, photographed on a wheelchair:
“We met on a dating site twelve years ago. I sent her a message saying: ‘I want to let you know up front that I’m in a wheelchair, because I can’t hide it.’ And she wrote back: ‘Why? Is it bright yellow?’”