Today is the day.
Fishing out from the mess in my wardrobe the new Hugo Boss perfume, which my friend had got me from a customs shop at the Riyadh airport, I looked at myself in the mirror while spraying it on me. Hmm… I looked handsome enough. One final dab of my brother’s fairness cream made me all set to set the ramp on fire.
I extracted the “Diamond” ring from under my mattress and gave it one final look of admiration. The reason I am putting the word “Diamond” in between double quotes is because it wasn’t real diamond, but “American Diamond” However, the lady across the counter had assured me that it was just as good, only a little less expensive. However, the rest of the ring was real silver. If things go well, I won’t have to keep this ornament with me tomorrow onwards.
Dropping the ring into my pocket, I rushed down the stairs… only to bump into Sandy, my brother midway.
“Oh I see… so today is the day?” Sandy confirmed.
“Yeah!” I said blushing. “Now please move aside. I am already late,” I added instantly to stop the conversation from heading any further.
Crossing him I started descending down, two stairs at a time.
Sandy shouted behind me, “Don’t forget to buy a red rose and please get a bottle of perfume to replace the one that you just emptied on yourself!!”
Grrr… that was typical Sandy. He wouldn’t let go of an opportunity to pull my leg ever.
I kick started my bike and headed towards Corner Breads. Corner Breads, the place where I had my first ever date with her. That place sure used to bring back some good old memories. Lost in the thoughts of my past dates with her in Corner Breads, I almost zoomed past the bouquet shop.
Screeching to a halt I shouted at the boy sprinkling water on the flowers, “Hey, quickly get me a red rose…”
He briskly picked up a rose, wrapped it in plastic and came running to me in no time. “Ten rupees sir,” he said handing me the flower. Giving him the amount in change, I headed straight towards Corner Breads.
It has almost been three years that I have known her. But it was only since the past few months that I started having feelings for her. Sandy had warned me, “Dude, never get too serious about any girl. If you get into a relationship, your life is over… gone!!”
Sandy’s words seemed reasonable enough at that time, when I spent half my day SMS chatting with her and the other half day, thinking about her. Life seemed to have gone haywire, no direction at all.
But now my mind was all made up. She definitely is the girl I want to spend the rest of my life with. And today I will definitely propose to her, come what may!
Scared of rejection I couldn’t take this step earlier. Eventually I had put off this task till Valentine’s Day. That’s when Sandy came to my rescue.
“Bro, you are not in college any more. No girl takes a Valentine’s Day proposal seriously nowadays,” he explained. “If you have to do it, might as well do it right away,” with these golden words he mustered me up for this day.
I pulled up my bike at the parking lot outside Corners Breads. There she was, looking beautiful in the purple dress, waiting at aisle to the gate. She looked at me and I waved, only to get a grim look in return. One look at my watch made the reason clear to me. I was fifteen minutes late. This delay from my part called for some serious sweet talking.
“Hello dear… did I keep you waiting for long?” I initiated the conversation.
“You are twenty minutes late,” she said grimly.
“Fifteen minutes dear, not…” I cut myself short at just about the right moment. Arguing with her at this moment to prove myself five minutes lesser guilty didn’t seem to be a good idea. She walked into the food joint… I followed briskly.
“Your dress looks good. You look beautiful in purple,” I started with the sweet talk.
“That’s mauve,” she said without looking back. “What’s mauve?” I expressed my bewilderment. “Idiot! The color of my dress is mauve,” I guess she let out a little chuckle as she said this.
These last few months that I had spent with her, increased my knowledge about women’s dresses and colors to a great extent. My color-vocabulary, which consisted of just a few words such as black, blue, brown, yellow, green and red, suddenly found new companions like bage, mustard, crimson, lavender etc. However, mauve was an entirely new entrant.
“Mauve… mauve,” I repeated inside my head as we settled down at our usual corner seat.
She looked at me irately and asked, “Are we eating something or not?”
“I’ll get… you be seated,” saying this I went over to the counter and came back with her favorite: Grilled Cheese Sandwich and Lemonade. As I placed the tray on the table the inevitable smile cropped up on her face.
“Hey dear… you don’t have to get sandwich & lemonade for yourself too every time just because I love them,” she said patting my cheek. This gesture of hers generated enough guts within me to fish out the rose from my shirt pocket and present it to her, “For you!”
“Wow! What’s the occasion?” she asked.
“Nothing… Nothing, just like that… I mean you are s-s-special to me, so…” I stammered on and could not even complete my sentence.
“You are really sweet Aadi,” with this statement I got another pat on my cheek. This time I was expecting at least a peck, if not a kiss. Doesn’t matter, at least I managed to complete half of the operation without any mishaps. Taking a sip of the lemonade I prepared myself for the finishing act – the ring.
“You know what? This action of yours reminds me of Viju,” she started keeping aside the rose. I was startled for a second. “Who Viju?” I managed to ask.
“Don’t you remember Viju? Vijay … used to work with me in my last office,” she tried to remind me.
Of course I remembered Vijay… her colleague who used to consider himself a Casanova. The one time I had met that creep was enough to make me want to shove two earthworms up his nostrils. And why the hell did she need to call that ass “Viju”???
“Ok Vijay… yeah I remember,” I said trying my best to keep an unperturbed look on my face. “So why did I remind you of Vijay suddenly?” I asked.
“Well, other than you, Viju is the only other guy who has ever gifted me a rose. He sure was a baby,” she said with a grin on her face.
“Why… I mean why did he do that??” I stumbled upon my words.
“Oh nothing special… last year, Valentine’s Day… just a friendly gesture!” she explained.
Friendly gesture! Friendly gesture my foot! That skunk had no other better thing to do than flirt around with girls. I really wish I had those earthworms and his nostrils in front of me right now.
“Hey leave that… you tell me, what special occasion calls for this rose?” she repeated her query. “Nothing much… just wanted you to have something in your room that’ll remind you of me,” I sighed.
“Shit! I didn’t think about that factor!” she exclaimed.
I looked at her with an expression which clearly asked her, “What?”
“I will have to hide this rose someplace when I go back home. My dad is very strict!” she uttered.
“Is he?” I queried.
“Yes dear! You won’t believe how angry he got when Sunny got a bouquet delivered at my place on my last birthday!” she elucidated.
Sunny was her old college friend. Ok-type guy but I knew at least three girls he was going around with, at the same time.
“So, what was the big deal? It was just a birthday gift, why did your dad loose his temper?” I asked.
“Oh! You won’t believe, Sunny had signed the card on the bouquet as ‘a secret admirer’… such a prankster he was,” she said unable to hold her laughter.
That monster Sunny! His nostrils also invited my earthworm couple desperately.
Here I was, trying to tell the lady in front of me how special she was to me… and all I ended up doing was listen to her talk about these rats that I suddenly reminded her of. Damn! Proposing sure is fun!
“Forget it, forget it… You tell me Aadi. You want to say something it seems?” finally she spared me some thought.
I started afresh, “I just wanted to ask you, were these last few months that we spent with each other, as special to you as they were to me?”
She didn’t speak. I guess she wasn’t expecting a serious talk from my side?
After about two odd minutes she finally spluttered some words, “Aadi, of course you mean a lot to me and these days sure were special. But why do you ask me this?”
I reached for my pocket to fetch the ring as I set out to speak the golden words, “I just want to let you know that you are the most special person in my life and I… I… I…”
Shit! The ring was not in my pocket. I checked the other pocket… under the table… over and under the chair. That looked-for box was nowhere to be seen.
“Tell me dear… what exactly are you heading to?” she put forth this query while I was busy checking the cushion covers.
“I… wait a second… phew! Where on earth is that…” muttering on I speeded up my search operation.
I was under the table when her voice boomed over me, “I love you too Aadi.”
Astounded I hit my head on the table.
“What???” I rose to my feet only to discover that she was holding the ring in her hand. The smile on her face at that moment could surely light up a thousand lamps.
“Yeah! I love you too… and surely you are the most special person in my life,” she said.
“How… I mean where did you find this ring?” I expressed my astonishment.
“In typical Aadi style you dropped it when you went to get the food,” she winked.
She walked up to me and rested her head against my chest. My arms went around her and the fragrance of her hair filled up my head. Wow, I was hugging her for the first time… it sure was an out-of-the-world feeling.
“You sure are one careless idiot… you almost lost the most precious thing today!” she exclaimed.
Little did she know that I didn’t lose the most precious thing. In fact, I just found it…
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