5 Fictional Characters, I crush!!

Handsome or not, rich or not, right or not, who cares. These fictional characters have descended straight from the minds of genius authors on paper and into your heart. If an author can make you crush someone who doesn't even exist, it has to be something. Despite all the great learnings and stories from books, sometimes someone just appeals to you and warms the cockles of your heart!

Howard Roark (The Fountainhead)

You can never forget your first crush and this one was mine in the literary world. I read fountainhead before I read any MBs, Austen or romance genre. Ayn Rand insisted on how a world should be, but all I understood is Howard was how a man should be. I read with great excitement wanting more and more of him in the thick and preachy book. What a man I thought!! What a lucky woman this Dominique! A teen me, dreamed of him every night and discussed with my girlfriends as he was real and somewhere waiting to coming into my life. I went on and on about how the book was so right and how this is wrong and that is right. Finally my brother convinced me to snap out of the Post Fountainhead phase which everyone goes through looking at the world from Rand tinted glasses. So objectivism wore off, but not HOWARD ROARK. May be he does exist.

 

Mr Darcy (Pride and Prejudice)

Rude, arrogant and proud. Any girl who has read or seen or heard about P&P, has fallen in love with the not so perfect Mr Darcy and imagined herself as the confused and complicated Elizabeth Bennett. Every teen romance, chick lit, chick flick, MnB, has rehashed the Darcy-Liz love-hate story a zillion times. Also all the Darcy characters in Anuja Chauhan's chick lits or shopaholic, Twlight and Grey series. Girls just love it, they want to be treated badly, (no that's not the correct word), unladylike to feel like a lady, arrogantly to feel truly loved, confusingly to feel really wanted. Is it simply about the charm of Love games or women are just complicated! Period!

 

Mr Grey (Fifty Shades of Grey)

I stand guilty. Despite hating the guts of the author, the plot and the book to be considered literature, I developed a crush on its protagonist. Yes the guy with 50 shades and more. Probably it's the bad boy thing. Every girl at some point of her life has crushed or loved a man, for simply no good reason, instead for all the bad ones. On the contrary Mr. Grey shows some great qualities in the course of the trilogy, loyalty, honesty,  passion, smartness, articulation, loving and protecting loved ones. But I still liked him for all the wrong reasons – you get what I am saying, right!!

 

Jay Gatsby (The Great Gatsby)

He spends the nights staring at the green light at the end of her dock, across the bay from his mansion, hoping to one day rekindle their lost romance. The passionate, vulnerable, romantic, nostalgic, all-consuming kind of love. That's the love we all want in life, that one perfect love, that first love, that which cannot be forgotten, that which dooms one and all. The story of Gatsby breaks my heart and it goes out to him, because I understand it's not easy to love. But if not love then what is worth living!

 

Byomkesh Bakshi

Back home, I crushed on our desi Sherlock Holmes. Smart, sharp and articulate this man solved crimes like peeling pistachios easily and delicately. I would have equally crushed on Sherlock Holmes if he was introduced to me before. Hence, first come, first serve. It's as much about intelligence and sharpness as with an ability to amaze you with tricky conversations which attracts me to these private detectives doing public service not for public but to nourish and satisfy their unlimited brain power. Although it was more of a crush on the actor Rajat Kapur who played it on TV. If Byomkesh was alive I would have just followed him around as he went about investigating.

So who are your literary loves!!