Valentine's Day & Me

This morning, I woke up and said in a soft whisper to my wife - "Happy Valentine's Day!" and immediately my 9-month old son decided to empty his bladder on me. That is when I decided to reminisce about a few memorable Valentine Days of my life, because clearly, I wasn't going to have a memorable one this year.

The small town, where I grew up, had two famous schools - Don Bosco School for boys, and Little Flower School for girls. While some of the guys and girls with a more liberal outlook (and parents) could meet from time to time, we baboons could hardly get a date. And when we did manage to get one, oh what a date that would be! The first point of preparation would be to find a suitable gift. Now, I don't know about the rest of the folks, but my mother used to manage my pocket money with the strictness of the Gestapo, leaving me hardly anything to fend for myself, let alone get a gift for a girl. Also, much to my misfortune, both the demand side (the girls had expensive choices) and the supply side (Archies Gallery was more expensive than the Louvre Gallery) were not in my favour. I would, more often than not, be compelled to choose a 4" X 6" greetings card, saying 'Will you be my Valentyne?'

After getting the greetings card, I had to summon all my creativity to write something on it. I had asked one of my friends for some ideas, and he had told me that he usually writes the lyrics of some famous song. So, on my first date, I wrote the first two lines of 'Chup Chaap Baithi Ho Zaroor Koi Baat Hai' on the card, only to be abandoned by my date midway between our rendezvous. I was later told by the same advisor friend that he meant 'English' songs, and that the particular song that I had written was being used as a melody in an advertisement for sanitary napkins.

The next item on the agenda was the perfume. After being educated about the difference between a gentleman's perfume and a lady's perfume on the first one or two dates, I realized that stealing my mother's perfume wasn't such a great idea. I switched to the neighbour's son, whose family had a garments shop in the town market, and who never cared to study because he knew where he was headed, and who had an impressive collection of perfumes (and everything else).

After all the preparations, when the auspicious time did come, I could hardly speak. I have stage fright even today, but this was something different. I remember I always used to choose a restaurant for my dates, because having a toilet nearby used to be my primary necessity. The girl would often start the conversation. In those days, "what is you favourite movie?" used to be an often-asked question. I don't know why my dates would get so pissed off with my choice of favourite movies. I ask you, dear reader -  can "Baiju Bawra", "Udan Khatola", "Patal Bhairavi", "Shaheed Bhagat Singh" and similar classics be branded as bad movies, by any definition?

Anyways, those were my Valentines Days. Coming to think of it, I'm quite happy with this Valentine's Day, which I'm gonna spend with my lovely wife and lovelier kid. The day is about love, after all :-)