There was a time when love itself was rebellion. Falling in love meant defying the family. Challenging society. Whispered meetings, secret letters, stolen glances. The whole affair had the flavour of a Bollywood drama. As the old dialogue goes: “Pyar kiya to darna kya."

From the desert whispers of films like ‘Koi... Mil Gaya’ to the glowing fingertip of ‘Extra-Terrestrial’, cinema has long hinted that we are not alone. In ‘PK’, an innocent alien questions human rituals, holding up a mirror to our own absurdities. Hollywood counters with the haunting vastness of ‘Interstellar’ and the quiet arrival of the unknown in ‘Arrival’. Literature, too, has dared to imagine cosmic neighbours — from ‘The War of the Worlds’ to ‘Childhood's End’, where the sky is not a ceiling but a corridor.

Around Agra Cantt railway station or along Yamuna Kinara Road, you must have seen small children picking scrap plastic. Every few minutes, they lift a chemical-soaked rag to their noses, as if that toxic vapour is their only relief.

For a long time, intelligence scores, commonly known as the Intelligence Quotient, kept rising across generations. This trend is called the Flynn effect. But, in recent years, researchers have observed something different. Younger generations, especially Gen Z, are scoring lower than Millennials and Boomers did at the same age. Why? The reason isn’t just one, but it is a mix of changes in lifestyle, education, and environment.

Lavish gifts, intense declarations and constant attention might feel romantic — but experts warn these Valentine’s Day behaviours could actually be signs of control rather than love.

In the morning mist, as the Taj Mahal emerges like a secret unfurling its silken veil, marble silence probes: Is love still that fathomless ocean, or shrunk to a smartphone glow? Where Mughal emperor Shah Jahan once imprisoned passion in stone, today, in its very shade, WhatsApp pings, missed calls, and dating apps weave fresh bonds. The question lingers like dawn dew: Can this newfangled romance endure through centuries?