Valentine's Day

Its a fascination in today's youth.....A day when Archies and Florists profit much more than the young lover's....

Profit...When two people in love gift each other its a no-profit, no-gain situation....When a prospective lover gifts and the interest reverts with a "Yes", its definitely a profit....and when its a "No"....Its definitely a no-profit, but a much bigger loss to the Loser....

I remember...the first time I realized a Valentine's Day...14th Feb...Cute February...2003...I was in my Engineering first year......
It all began a week back on Rose Day(Feb 7th, another profit making day for the florist's and the giftshop's)....
I was a total not-to-be-wanted, not-to-be-noticed kinda.......And being the biggest pea-brained on earth....fell in love with I guess the most handsome guy of my batch...Atleast he was the most handsome to me...
I went to college and as usual no one noticed me.....I was just stealing some glances towards my heart throb...who again as expected didn't notice me...
I prayed repeatedly to God..."Please God, ask him to gift me a rose"...
Holy Shit!! Someone should have slapped me across my face and got me back to reality.....

He didn't....and I was upset(God knows why) when I returned back to hostel....More so when later in the evening, girls flaunted there Oh-so-happening day.....the bouquets and chocolates and bla bla bla....

So, one week later when it was the D-day......of proposals, acceptances, gifts and rejections....Although it was a week day, nobody was there in hostel since morning...It seems they were all already out on a date.....

I went and sat alone on my desk...The class was nearly empty and I was pretty embarrassed thinking that I was one of the girls, whom no one has asked out for today....

But what did I see?? It was him...Handsome, Stylish as ever, Red with all the running around he was upto.....He was there...In Class.....
I thanked God probably a million times...."Thanks God...that he did not go for a date","that means, he is not engaged","that means he is not in love with any other girl","He is available and I am going to grab the chance"...

Oh here I din mention that the previous evening I went to Music World and bought a Love Songs Cassette(ya, in those days we had music cassettes which are rather invisible these days) him...Thought I would give this to him and probably would speak out my mind to him...

I grabbed that cassette wrapped in a gift wrapping in my bag and was planning to take it out....
Just then something hit me on the foot below my desk....

I lowered to see what it was and found a ball......I was in shocking realisation that it was the ball he was playing with sometime back, in our empty classroom....As I picked up the ball with shaking hands and sat straight again, I saw, much to my horror, that he was standing in front of my desk, hands extended towards me....The magical smile on his face........

My heart started pounding against my chest....It wanted to jump out...I could not hear or see anything......All voices, sounds, vision became blurred and the entire world stopped rotating.....It was Temporary Paralysis.....Dunno what would it be called in Medical Terms?? :P

Did he notice that I was blushing beyond limits?? Oh!! How would he? Would blushes be visible on a dark wheatish skin?? Never mind.....

So, he spoke to me, the very first time, "Thats my ball....Would you give it to me?"

I was mesmerised...His voice sounded like 100 wind-chimes blown by mild air, so magical, ethereal.........
and his smile...doesn't he know that it can straight away murder people?

I somehow managed to grab myself.....Just managed to throw the ball at him.....

"Thanks", he said...and went away, not looking back.....thankfully or he would have caught me in the act of hyper-ventilation.....If someone could have connected a heart monitor to mine....It would have surely bursted giving away to the high peaks in my HB rate......

So that was the end of it...My gift remained in my bag...College was declared off at 11am....I came and sat in the college-bus....Crying.....Don't know why....I didn't want to leave him and go...What would I do at hostel where all my friends were off with their new BF's.....I never hated hostel as much as I did then......coz I din like the place where he was not there....

.........And that was it...My first Valentine's Day......Started with high anticipation and ended with tears..

Although not much difference even now.....Its almost the same....Still not found my Valentine.....Still sigh seeing Archies gallery passing by or all those Lovey Dovey couples on the road.....Only difference is that I do not have enough tears to shed.....

Rain Rain.........Ease my Pain.....

"Won't you come out here?....Its drizzling"...I said dancing in the first showers of the monsoon.
He smiled...the crooked smile which drove me to the craziest points.......

It was in front of the much crowded, yet empty due to the rain, Forum mall.

I went on dancing in the drizzles, feeling his eyes on me.....which ran shivers in my veins....But didn't have much guts to touch him then....since it would have set me on fire.....

Much later when I reached home and was talking to him over phone, which was almost like routine, I asked him "Don't you like rains?". He said "I do." "Then why didn't you come on when I called you that time?". He said, and I could feel his crooked smile "The ball was in your court". I sighed, probably reading much more in between the lines than was required.

Switch....3 years later....
I stand still.........Its raining.......My legs don't move enough for a step...leave alone dancing.....I see the empty road spread in front of my apartment......I want to hear the soft footstep, want to see the crooked smile....But he is nowhere......

The rains does no good to me.......It only opens the wound....open to the salty rain...open enough so that the pain lingers long after the rain dries up from the earth leaving only trails beneath my searching eyes......