Valentine’s Day

“Are Yaar, she’s just a girl man!”

“Dude go and talk to her!”

“Saale get a backbone!”

And so they went on and on. All of them belong to that curious species of creatures who like to call themselves friends. And they never waste any chance to point that out to you as well! (“Man we are your friends, aren’t we????”, “What will you do without friends like us???” and so on and so forth…)

To be honest, I have to admit, they do mean well (most of the time). They try to do what they think will help you out, boost your self-confidence and of course, their absolute specialty – solving your girl troubles. But you have to remember, that the key phrase here is “WHAT THEY THINK”! Because what they think will solve your problems will, more often than not, triple or quadruple them and if you are lucky just double them. And don’t get me started on the area where they are the self-professed kings and queens of all Agony Uncles and Aunts! If there was a chance that a particular girl you have had your eye on for a very long time, might have ever liked you, once these friends get on your case you better start packing your bags. For if you are lucky the girl will just stop talking to you and if you are not – well then, you better pray that the girl’s father doesn’t pack a shotgun!

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I don’t like my friends. I like them a lot. I doubt you can a find a nicer bunch of guys to hang out with. But the problem is when they start trying to help you out, they forget that either they had got lucky when they were in high school and bagged a girlfriend or boyfriend pretty early on – in those days competition was small – or they are just as inept as you are when it comes to dealing with the opposite sex.

Oh I forgot! One of my friends is quite a stud. He changes girlfriends once every six months. But unfortunately he is absolutely a tyro when it comes to giving advice. He has a tendency to assume that I am as naturally handsome, charming and at ease around girls as he is. And as you may well have realized by not –I am not. I am the guy who starts sweating whenever even a moderately pretty girl passes by, the guy who cannot talk to a girl without stuttering at least five times. I am all of five feet and two inches; I am pudgy and freckled and the best compliment I have ever received from a girl is that I look just like her brother – and her brother is ten years old!

About now you must think, like in the many stories you have read about romantically challenged college guys, every girl must think of me as her brother. I wish! At least that way I would get to talk with some girls! No such luck for me. Very few girls have ever spared me a passing glance. And the girl who said I looked like her brother left for another college in another city after passing out of high school.

If you are still reading this, then I am surprised that you aren’t yet tired of my incessant moaning. Complaining, complaining, complaining – complaining about my life, complaining about my looks, complaining about my friends, complaining about my lousy luck with girls – you must think I am a sorry case indeed! I apologise. I have been complaining a lot. I know I should be grateful that I have such dedicated friends. I know I should be happy the way I am, the way god made me and all the crap you read everyday in the multitude of emails you get from friends who think of you only while forwarding chain mails.

And to tell you the truth, I am grateful – unlikely as it may seem. It’s just that I am having a rather rough week. You see, today is 12^th February. And next Friday, just one day from now, is the happiest and lousiest day of the year – depending on which side of the fence you are sitting. It’s the 14^th of February, Valentine’s Day, the Day of Love. It’s supposed to be a day filled with romance, a day when you pay half your monthly allowance to buy a single rose for your girlfriend, a day you spend nibbling on chocolates and whispering sweet nothings in your lover’s ears, a day you can shout out to the world that you are in love. Unfortunately all the abovementioned activities are meant for all those who are in love – or rather to be more accurate, for those who love someone and that particular someone loves them back.

But what about us, the chumps who find themselves without a girlfriend come February 14? What are we supposed to do? Most of us either ignore Valentine’s Day completely and hide out at home or spend the day condemning the fact that today’s youth are being completely addled by an onslaught of American Culture and a barrage of extremely clever marketing by Hallmark and Archies – it’s a different matter altogether that most of these critics are all desperately searching for a girl, any girl to fall in love with them! And any other year I would have wholeheartedly joined the Love Bashing Brigade. But this time around, I have a problem.

You see – I am in love. To tell you the truth, it’s not the first time that I have been in love. I have loved and lost plenty of times before. The fact is I simply can’t help falling in love, however much I am rejected.

But this one is different.

There is this girl in our class. Her name is Anindita. She is the prettiest girl in our class, she is the smartest girl in our class, she is the coolest girl in our class and strangely she is also the quietest girl in our class. But before you start thinking that such a picture of perfection cannot exist in real life and I must either be daydreaming, hallucinating or lying, I should warn you that while everybody agrees that she is the prettiest and quietest girl in our class – about her being the smartest and coolest, there are diverging opinions. But whatever anyone else thinks, to me she is Venus, Dionysus, Madhubala, Grace Kelly and Katrina Kaif all rolled into one! And about many guys considering her shallow and dumb, I think they are just bitter and jealous that Anindita has turned down their overtures of love!

And that’s another strange thing about Anindita – in our 3 years of college, about 14 different guys have proposed to her (the figure is exact – my intelligence regarding Anindita is quite detailed) and she has turned down all of them. Yes, all of them! And to the best of my and everybody’s knowledge she doesn’t have a boyfriend out of college either. You might think that Anindita must be from a very conservative family. Well, then you are way off target. Since she was a kid, Anindita has studied in coed schools. And she comes to college in everything from Salwars to Jeans. Why Anindita rejected so many guys is a very hot topic around campus – and I have to admit (very grudgingly) that a few of the 14 were quite handsome!

As I have already said, Anindita is inordinately quiet too. In class, you will hardly ever hear her voice. Not that she doesn’t have friends (how can you even think that such an exceedingly beautiful girl won’t have friends?) – there are two girls, Sangita and Payel – you will always find them tagging along behind her. But even when she is with them, you can hardly make out what she is saying – even if you are sitting right behind them and doing your damnest to eavesdrop!

Well, there you have it, the tragic love story of my life – the biggest geek in class in love with the prettiest and most enigmatic girl you can find anywhere! I know I am swinging for the fence, but it’s not as if I have a choice. And here I am, a day before Valentine’s Day, doing my best to shore up my guts so that I can pop the question. All my friends are trying to encourage me and the net result? My legs are made of marshmallow, my stomach is making strange rumbling noises, my heart is stuck in my throat and my mouth is as dry as the Sahara desert!

“Man just go up to her and say, “I would like to take you out to a movie and dinner on the 14^th.”. What’s so hard about that?”

I say, “In the last 3 years Anindita has never said yes to anyone! What makes you think I have a chance?”

“That’s a good thing man! If she had said yes, she would have had a boyfriend now!”

You must be thinking – after all that I have said about how beautiful Anindita is and how much of a loser I am – that I must be out of my mind to think that a bum like me has any chance with her. Everything else considered I would have been inclined to agree with you. But I have my suspicions. Although Anindita has never spoken to me, but sometimes in class, I kind of feel her eyes stray towards me. When I turn to look at her, she quickly turns away. And in our college fest last year I gave a pretty moving rendition of Elvis Presley’s “Love Me Tender” – I love to sing, my only redeeming feature. When I came down from stage, everybody came forward to congratulate me. Anindita didn’t. Through the crowd I saw her turning away from me, but not before I saw her wiping the tears away from her eyes.

I don’t know, but since then I have this crazy idea that in some hidden corner of her heart she might have some feelings for me, she just might!

“If you don’t ask her out soon, someone else is sure to! Hell, if you don’t ask her out right now, I swear to God, I will!” – that was from Rajeev, the stud.

Wish these guys weren’t on my case so hard. I know they mean well, but I would have been much less nervous if so many people were not breathing down my shoulders while I am about to embark on the most difficult quest of my life!

“Besides even if she says no, what have you got to lose? You wouldn’t be any worse of than you are now, right?”

These guys just don’t get it! This is much bigger than some guy proposing to some girl and that girl refusing him. Ever since I saw her, I have fantasised about Anindita and me. I have spent half of my waking hours dreaming about Anindita and me walking down shady lanes lined with pines and junipers; there would be a soft breeze gently rustling through her silky black tresses and she would raise her hand to brush the hair out of her beautiful eyes. In my dreams, whenever I looked into her eyes, she would turn and smile at me. And with that smile we would have said everything we wanted to say to each other, without uttering a single word!

Anindita has consumed my entire life. Merely the hope that some day in the future she might be mine, sustains me now. But if she says no, if she refuses today, I will lose the only thing left in my life worth living for. I would rather spend the rest of my miserable life cherishing that hope in some hidden corner of my heart, than know for sure that she has no feelings for me whatsoever!

“And have you ever imagined what will it be like if she says yes? She might, you know!”

Oh man, haven’t I! I have spent hours at an end, just lying on my bed and thinking, what if, what if she says yes?

In my reveries, I go up to her and say, in my very charming baritone, “Anindita, I just wanted to know if you have any plans for the fourteenth?”

She says, “Not really.”

“Then how about you and me go out tomorrow night, maybe catch a movie and then dinner at “Silk Route”(that’s her favourite restaurant)?”

She blushes, then thinks a little and says, “Ok, why not? But only dinner, no movie.”

“Right, see you tomorrow.”

On the night of the 14^th, she arrives looking like a goddess in an exquisite red dress. I am elegant yet cool in a black jacket and blue shirt. We are shown to our table, right at the corner, secluded from the rest of the patrons. We start with wine and caviar, and then move on to the main course – a spicy but subtle Smoked Chicken in White Sauce with garlic bread on the side, followed by a dessert of Chocolate Cinnamon Mousse. Throughout the dinner I am at my conversational best, amazing her with my wit and at the same time astounding her with the depth of my intellect.

After dinner, we walk down the deserted streets and without knowing when it happened, I find her fingers entwined in mine. We come to a beautiful garden and sit down on the grass at the edge of a fountain. Conversation dwindles, both of us immersed in the magic of the moment. Then after a long time I turn to look at her – I find that she is looking at me. There is a smile playing at the edge of her lips but her soft blue eyes are glistening. Her eyes are so eloquent, hopeful yet afraid, soulful yet betraying the innocence of a newborn child. I am so close to her that I can count the lashes on her eyes and smell in the sweet fragrance of her breath.  I lean towards her and time slows down. Not a soul stirs in the world. My every single heartbeat resounds in my ear like a drumbeat. And then taking my fluttering heart in my hands, I kiss her. As I revel in the soft touch of her lips, I can feel her quivering heartbeat against my chest, her trembling fingers in my hands. Time stops for all eternity…

A sudden shove jolts me out of my reverie. It’s Rajeev – “Abe sale, kaha kho gaya tha re tu?” Man, I have never hated him more in my life!

“Really, how indecisive can you be?”

“Dude, I don’t think you have the balls to propose to her at all! I bet a hundred bucks right now, that you won’t ask her out at all this year!”

“Tell her you love her, what’s so hard about that? At best she will say yes, at the worst, she will say no, slap you, you will be thoroughly humiliated and you will have to transfer to another college – maybe even go on an exchange programme to Namibia!”

“Seriously, you worry too much man! Just tell her!”

“Ya, tell her!”

“Tell her!”

Maybe they are right. Maybe I should let her know how I feel about her. At least then I won’t have to spend sleepless nights, worrying “Does She, Doesn’t she?” any more.

“Ok guys, you win. I am going to ask Anindita out…what?”

Everybody has suddenly gone dead quiet and for some reason all of them were looking at something over my shoulder. I turned around very slowly, for I feared the worst and I found my fears confirmed. Standing just behind me was Anindita herself. Had she heard me or hadn’t she? I tried to figure out what she was thinking, but expression was inscrutable. Even then, as I waited for the end of the world, I couldn’t help but notice how beautiful she was. But I didn’t have much time to dwell on her beauty, for she was going to say something – she must have heard me! Here it comes…

“Shuvayan, I was wondering if you would like to go out with me on Valentine’s Day?”