Valentines Day: Then and Now

This really is a race against time to finish this post.. Given that it won’t have the impact unless it’s 14^th of Feb J No money lost or gained if you guess the reason, of course the “Then” and “Now” is a comparison of how people change. No prizes for guessing the “people” either!

I’m not sure how many would be able to relate with this experience of mine at the particular day, but I’m pretty sure there would be a lot who would have been on the giving or receiving end sometime in their life, the occasion is immaterial.

Now that I’m done with the pleasantries (Why does it always take forever! I wonder…) Let me now get down to the matter in a very factual way (Got the joke?? No? That’s alright.. I didn’t expect anyone to either)

So I’ve witnessed three valentine’s with my fiancé (Can I call him that already? Oh to hell with the formalities, my blog I call the shots!) and there has been a marked dip in the effort he’s put on the day ever since we got together. I know what a lot of you might be thinking, why should he be the only one putting in the effort? Why not you? Hear me out first, Will you?

I so clearly remember for our first one, he was so excited that I thought he could move a bulldozer with his energy! NO seriously! At the time he shared his house with three other friends. He had taken upon himself to make me dinner. Aww… Isn’t it? It will be even more aww.. when I tell you it was a working day, and one kitchen for four men has already been established above. Add to this that he couldn't cook to save his life at that time J But so determined was he to accomplish this task that he cut office for I think close to three hours (Don’t be jealous.. We compensate by working after hours :D) Completely ruined the day for one his friend and his wife. He roped in his friend’s wife to help him with the preps. That poor couple, they had only recently gotten married. So recent that they hadn’t even gone for their honeymoon!! And here is my hyper-active monkey happily jumping in and out of the kitchen, hopping around them with his culinary doubts.

I can’t stress this enough how surprised I was at his skills of influencing them to help him and more so their patience to put up with his antics! But he did let them free in the evening though. He did up his entire room, which was otherwise devoid of all furniture with boxes hidden under fancy bed covers to create illusion of a table (Ingenious!!) and on that makeshift table rested the surprise of the day; a proper 3 course meal! That’s an exaggeration I accept the dessert was a chocolate bar, but come on I was supremely impressed!

I know what goes inside the mind of the reader; And what did you do? Umm.. I ate it without complaining!! Jokes apart.. the food was edible, I didn’t fall sick so I guess it was nice J I made him a photo frame with our photo from a recent trip we had taken. I know ingenious again!

Then came the next year, this year too it was going to be DIY dinner. But unfortunately his sous chef had shifted to Bangalore by then. He now knew how to cook rice, but for everything else he was waiting for me to get started.. Yeah so the intent was there but there was an imminent lack of will to win (I’ve just gotten my performance review done, hence the positives and negative combined into one :D) So That year, we both cooked the food, edible nobody got sick, cleaned up and went home. Still nice, considering we did do something together. You think?    

Year three, he had proposed that we go out for dinner and given that it was a Thursday and the office gets over at about dinner time it seemed the right thing to do. But I wanted to differentiate it from our other date nights so I decided to  write him poem, a romantic one that goes without saying. I wrote it on a handmade card.. Yeah I’m good at crafts too (And modest.. Don’t forget that!). So when I gave that to him all blushing and proud of my effort, he just gives one look at it at and says, “Oh are these cuttings from the calendar I got you last year?” Yup! There is a great difference between girls and boys. What makes a girl go weak in the knees, does not even scratch the surface for boys! Note to self then: No more handicrafts! (Followed till date :D)

And this year, when he knows I’ve got nowhere to go..  his original plans for this valentines’? Going home! How men change! From what was to what is.. I had to guilt him into postponing his plans. Thank God for one of his original flatmates getting married we have some place to go. For the record, he didn't postpone his plans for me, he’s got the book fair to attend on Saturday K

But this keeps the spice in life J What good is a life which is predictable? True or not?

Post Event Update: Sometimes it's the simplest things that win your heart. 6 hours in a traffic jam, endless radio ads, a few romantic songs and the most awesome weather.. Sprinkle it with a dinner at our favorite restaurant, And he drives me everywhere with a smile on his face.. J Some things never change, never should and never would...

Happy Valentines day you all J