“Shah Jahan ne Mumtaj ke pyar me banaya Taj. Arey Bewkoof tha Shah Jahan, Jitne paiso mein banwaya Taj, Uske byaj mein aa jaati, roj nayein Mumtaj.”
(Shahjahan made Taj Mahal in love with Mumtaj. Fool he was because the money he spent on making Taj could get him every day on its interest a new Mumtaj.

Recently Mukesh Ambani (Reliance group) recently gifted his wife an airbus worth over 240 crore on her birthday to prove his love for his better half and also proved that his love is definitely rich enough than other men. Women expect a lot from their men when it comes to gifting. They will drop millions of hints to make men see what they want as a gift and yet most of them fail. Like if you failed to gift a set of diamonds your wife has been wooing in the jeweller’s window for days, would you still claim to love her.
 
Emperor Shah Jahan had actually created a problem for millions of men in the world. Women get put off by their men because she expects them to build a Taj Mahal as a token of love for her. Shah Jahan spent his unlimited royal wealth which only he could afford and which amounted to mocking the feeling of lesser mortals who did not possess the means to spend for exhibitionism of love.

Men were much at relief in 60’s and 70’s when demonstration of love was a taboo and the feeling of love was held so private that its public expression was a sacrilege. But today it is hype that you are in love and the gifts you exchange and discuss among friends becomes the parameter of how much you are loved. Gone are those days when many a young lovers buried their unrequited passion deep enough in their hearts for the love of a nation or for the family. Today, when there is no restriction or inhibition to fall in and out of love as many times as the urge takes over and when there is no compelling commitment to stay hooked to a relationship, the lure of diamonds, cars and farm-houses or the prospect of an overseas settlement are perhaps about all that can sustain a relationship if not for lifetime but surely for sometime.

Just as friendships made over a bottle of liquor end as soon as the bottle gets empty. Alliances made on the terms of gifts or money terms will surely end soon. A person who cares more for your wallet more than you is with you only for the time you have the wallet. For the common man, however it should suffice to remember the time-honored dictum that best things in life including real love and real passion come free of cost.