True Love 101

It was a bad hair day and I was in an absolute jumble. The day was about to end and I still had a chockfull of unfinished tasks on my to-do list. And for the umpteenth time since I brazenly ventured into a strictly-no-carb-diet, I miserably failed in dodging that sinfully-luscious choco caramel cake. Drats!

I was pretty worn down by adult life and the gazillion other concerns that accompany it. So, I desperately needed some silly laugh-out-loud stuff to put me in momentary nirvana. So when my kids implored my husband and me to watch Shrek 2, I said, "Shoot, let’s go! "Without batting an eyelash. Besides, the delicious whiff of popping popcorn in a nearby food stand was quite compelling.

So there I was, with my husband plus four kids in tow, armed with buckets of popcorn (honestly, not butter-free), ready to roll down laughing in hysteria over the spoofs of Shrek and his new bride Fiona. And true to form, Donkey’s position as the "annoying talking animal" gave me loads of chortle until I ached in the gut. (I hate to admit it, but I do possess a weird and shallow sense of humor.)

Since I’m already in the subject of weirdness, let me tell you about the uncanny cuteness of Shrek 2. It is a sequel to the odd romantic adventures of the movie Shrek .

Shrek is an ogre grudgingly "employed" by an obnoxious little fellow to save the life of Princess Fiona, who is trapped in a tower guarded by a ferocious dragon. Despite being clumsy and a tad bit dopey, Shrek, with the aid of his Donkey friend, succeeded through sheer luck in saving Fiona while all the other knights-in-supposedly-shining-armors failed. Initially, their acquaintance was purely on a business level. Shrek’s job was to deliver Fiona to this guy whose chief aim in life is to become a full-fledged

monarch by marrying a princess. Fiona, on the other hand, was hoping to find her one true love and thereby live her fairy tale story. The plot thickens when this unlikely pair of ogre and princess find themselves growing on each other. But a weirder twist happens when Shrek shockingly discovers that Fiona was an ogre too.

Let me cut it short at this point. The two finally find their strange fairy tale endings in each other’s arms. Did they finally get to live their happily-ever-after story? So goes the tale of Shrek 2.

Shrek and Fiona’s marriage was put to a test when Fiona’s father, the king of Far Far Away reluctantly accepts Shrek as his son-in-law....and the antagonists are actually the most unlikely characters–a snooty Prince Charming and a Fairy Godmother with an insatiable taste for something deep fried and smothered in chocolate. I won’t tell you the in-betweens and the outrageously funny snafus in the middle of the story. (It’s my lame attempt at cajoling you the watch this silly movie in case you haven’t seen it yet.).

Suffice it to say, however, that in the end, Shrek and Fiona’s love for each other triumph over adversities.

I normally cringe at romantic flicks and I’m too jaded to watch movies reeking with mush. Perhaps, I’ve seen too many real-life sweet stories gone sour and I’m way too smart to be deceived by the flutter of the heart. But Shrek 2 went beyond the mawkish-fairy-tale side of love and subtly showed that Princess plus Prince Charming is not necessarily equal to Happily-Ever-After. And no, not even Fairy Godmother and a love potion can make that magic work. Because in real life, magic in marriage happens when two people decide to die to their own desires and live for the other. The greater the involvement in another’s life, the greater the demand for sacrifice. It demands time and losing your independence and sometimes your dreams. Marriage is meant to be a partnership strong enough to stride through the hard moments and rankles in life that would normally divide any other union. That’s marriage in its loftiest plane. And that’s only possible if you put God’s love and kindness in the picture.

Although I doubt if my children with their young minds saw further than the silliness of the story, I was still glad they were watching it with me. Shrek 2 ,with all its zany lines and idiotic gags is actually a short lesson on True Love 101 in an unthreatening way.

There’s something about cartoon-fantasies that I immensely enjoy. It gives me that fleeting pleasure of leaving Earth and its worries even for just a snippet of time. It transports me to a place where rainbows end and stars meet, where donkeys talk and ogres are funny. But Shrek 2’s beauty lies in the fact that this movie packed with "unlikelys" unwittingly brought Earth back to me. I got more than what I bargained for.

So what if the house is a mess and my cooking sucks and my hair is frizzy? Shrek 2 reminded me what real love is and made me appreciate that I have a husband who values my prettiness in a warped way, who loves the ogre in me and finds me attractive despite those darned curves in the wrong places. And four wonderful children who believe likewise.