Come on baby, light my fire

In her salad days, reading unrequited romances would’ve had mom swooning on the floor with a glazed look in her eyes. With one hand clutching the paperback and the other hand on her heart, she would’ve been a simpering mess, conscious of the goose pimples straining to erupt through her skin.

For example, she once devoured The Bridges of Madison County in the backseat of a car as dad and a friend drove through two states along the Pacific coast. Instead of admiring the verdant landscape or listening to fascinating guy talk in the front seat, mom sighed through the whole trip and gazed out the window with unseeing eyes to still her beating heart.

These days, however, chick lit romance has begun to annoy her, in much the same way an aunt once told her to stop filling her head with nonsense. “You know, husbands are very different from heroes,” the aunt said, noting the book in mom’s hand.

After reading Message in a Bottle recently, a soppy, syrupy romance where the male protagonist sheds tears and writes love letters, mom is inclined to believe the old woman was right after all.

Consider the following passage from the book:

They stood with their arms around each other, kissing in the moonlight for a long time, neither of them caring if anyone could see them. They had both waited too long for this moment, and when they finally pulled back, they stared at each other.

So far, so good. The couple return home and kiss more passionately as they shut the door, trembling with anticipation. One would expect them to proceed directly to second base, but it seems there's something far more urgent to be done first (no, it's not loading the dishwasher).

She walked to the kitchen, picked up the two candles from the table, and led him to the bedroom. She put the candles on his bureau, and he pulled the matches from his pocket, lighting them as she walked to the windows and began to close the curtains.

Now, there are many reasons why lovemaking should be interrupted – crying children, a nosy pet, nature's call, servant knocking on the door, mother-in-law on the phone, even power cuts in the summer come to mind – but somehow, mood lighting doesn’t seem like a valid excuse.

Some of you may claim that candles are as integral to romance as frosting is to cake, but I can't seem to envision even a hypothetical scenario set under an Indian sun.

Woman to man: “Is it in yet?”
Man: “I don’t know. I can’t see. Let me turn the light on.”
Woman: “No, no, I hate the glare from the tube light. I'll get a headache.”
Man: “Fine, I’ll turn the bathroom light on.”
Woman: “Hello, we can't keep the door open. The air conditioner is on. Let’s light candles instead. That’s how they do it in the movies.”

Pause.

Man: "And I suppose you want me to go get them?"
Woman: “Well, I'm not going through the house in the dark. There might be lizards. You get the candles, I'll put some soft music on. Kenny G would set the mood.”
Man: “Kenny G? You’re kidding, right? I can’t stand him.”
Woman: “Well, I refuse to do it to the strains of Hotel California.”
Man: “Oh, fine. Let’s skip the music then. Where are the candles?”
Woman: “You don’t know? They’re in the drawing room showcase, where they’ve been for the past year. You never noticed?”
Man: “I didn’t. And where are the matches?”
Woman: “Right there in the puja room.”

Silence.

Woman: “What happened? Oh, God, are you coming? I thought you were going.”
Man: “Er … you want me to go into the puja room in this condition?”

It's just as I suspected, candles in India are only useful during power outages.