Ode to Mills & Boons

I have been an avid Mills & Boon (hereinafter referred to as 'MB') for the past 12-13 years. I got introduced to them by my aunt who was herself an avid reader in her college days. She had some old ones still lying around and I stumbled onto them. I got hooked onto them. Initially I hid them and read since I wasn't too sure whether or not they were approved reading for a 11 year old, and didn't want to take a chance. I convinced my aunt to get me some more. Very soon my mother discovered that my reading had a drastic curve from Enid Blytons to MBs. And after that I would proudly display what I was then reading. Made alot of trips over the years to the book stalls at Golpark (Kolkata) to buy old MBs for 20 bucks (well my pocket money was limited). I remember smuggling MBs into school and hiding them under our text books and reading. We almost got caught also onetime when my friend got excited at a "scene' while the teach was teaching. I remember passing the relevant pages around. I also remember how some girls (from conservative families who were not allowed to talk to guys) would xerox the relevant pages for future reading since they didn't want to read the whole book.

When I got to hostel I bought an MB in my first week itself since I was homesick and bored (was still getting used to the place - and besides I need to read for sometime before I conk off), and that's how I met one of my closest friends - RB (actually now RM). We bonded over MBs bigtime. She showed me the shops where I could continue getting my 20 buck MBs (which would deduct Rs. 5 as reading charges if returned within a week). Needless to say I was one of their most loyal customers. Once I shifted to Gurgaon, however I couldn't find any such book stall. Took me sometime but I soon found a lending library with one entire shelf (from ceiling to floor) devoted wholly and solely to MBS.

My poor Hubby had a big shock when he saw his 'intellectual lawyer' wife happily curling up with an MB and getting lost in the world of charming tycoons and dashing bosses and suave doctors and TDH Mediterranean men. I devore them all - right from the doctor-nurse romances to the boss-secretary ones to the tycoon series. The Hubby continued to needle me for sometime on my true love for MBs until he discovered that most of the women read them.

Yes I know that there are also many women who are not fond of MBs and dismiss them as boring trash, mindless romance with the same boy-meet-girl-they-have-fight-they live-happily-ever-after plot etc etc. I have had major arguements where I have defended my love for MBS passionately. If people think I am a dumb blonde if I read an MB so be it (after all as a Gemini I have multiple personalities hidden inside me - including that of a dumb blonde).

I thrive on reading love stories, about tycoons brought down to earth by the woman they love, about doctors who in the midst of saving other lives suddenly realize they are human just like their patients, about rakes who finally fall for the woman who can't stand them, about couples getting back together, about damsels finding their knights in shining armour, about TDH Mediterranean men falling for the English Rose......The MBS keep the romantic in me alive. I used to think that romance is only in MBs until I discovered my own charming rake (now reformed monogamist) in my Hubby who made the world of MBs come alive for me.