It happens as the session begins. "He" sees "Her" posing on the classroom's wooden bench, nonchalantly flipping pages of D.H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers.

She doesn't pretend to be reading. Rather, her rolling eyes twinkle with adventure as she acknowledges his bold, admiring glances by running soft fingers through silky tresses. The "affair" begins. She invites him to a dance party. He talks her into a ride uphill in his dazzling Matiz.

They're off to a good start, but as Old Bill (Shakespeare, not Clinton) observed centuries ago, "the path of true love did ne'er run smooth". After a couple of fights, and a few "memorable moments", they part, no reasons, no regrets.

"Love" nipped in the bud. "Lovers are picked up more often than denims are chosen," says Jassi Singh, a DJ with a discotheque and a correspondence student. "And are discarded even before the fashion changes."

A few years ago, rapid-fire, readymade amours were less common. As Ranjay Vardhan, founder president of the Broken Hearts Rehabilitation Society, puts it: "It took months to break the ice, weeks passed before anyone would chit-chat in the class. You nervously waited to be introduced to her. Or for that departmental trip to Kasauli where she abandoned her assumed coyness on the half-torn seats of the university bus".

Cultural Mafia president Uma Kant Mehta reminisces: "Slow and bumpy was the road to entanglement. Even for the Don Juans enrolling in the legendary English Department with the aim of becoming part of The (ahem) Romantic Movement. Or the young beaux in the library sticking around to master the Book of Love. Damsels fresh out of GCG or MCM had the desire to fly, but no guts."

In those Doordarshan days, love was every kid's fantasy but a reality for very few. You had fewer "cousins" and many coffee-cup pals. The rare billers-and-cooers, head over heels in love, carried on all through the course. Sometimes, they were united in marriage ... mostly marriage forced them apart.

No more. Love model 1999 is on the fast lane. No commitments. Easy come, easy go. Little wonder, everywhere you look, you see her open denim jacket fluttering wildly as she perches on the pillion of his twin-seater flying machine. Her tender arms around his waist, head on his shoulder. More daring but, from a Jane Austen view of life, less romantic.

No longer does the rose of romance bloom over frothy coffee cups at the Students' Centre. The addas for aashiqui have also shifted. "Coffee pairs do not sit on the Stu-C steps for hours together anymore," says Dhiraj Nanda, a library addict. "Kiosk-14, Law canteen, even Hot Millions and Down Under are the latest happy hunting grounds for lovers."

Explaining the trend, Nitti Kapoor, a young psychologist, says: "Life is short; enjoy today, trusting least to tomorrow, seems to be their motto. They believe life ends where domesticity of married existence begins." Love's once strong bonds have been replaced by mere "flings". No longer heard on campus are yesteryear's stories of lovers destroying their career, even lives, for lost love. In this age of non-commitment and extreme career consciousness, love seems to have lost its force -- both sweet and destructive. Adieu, Cupid...