valentino memorablia

PS: All characters inthis blog are purely fictional. Any resemblance to any person living or dead is prely coincidental.

Another year passes and so does another valentines day, knocking and the world going down for a day with eyes drooling with love and women as usual waiting on top of their porch and penthouses, waiting to be wooed by the men from Venice aboard their gondola’s. Ah! The exasperated sigh of a lonesome man like me who has perhaps never tasted exotic wine and spent an evening with a fine and wholesome lady of stature, class and looks, just await for the best days of my life in anticipation, looking out through the window on top of the tower. Alas! I don’t even have long hair like Rapunzel, in the bedtime stories, locked on top of the tower by her evil step parents, rescued by a prince. Unfortunately, keeping aside the gender difference of Rapunzel and mine, I await year after year wondering what is so wonderful about this one day in the year when you are supposed to be, not by will or choice but by social obligation, to be in love.

I look through the windows, clearing the mist and looking at the world, drool with love on their eye lashes. The excitement is in the air, like a lightening and a waterfall from a cloud burst that has struck permanently from the sky to the earth and is perennially present till eternity. All seems to be a fantasy land. Call me a pessimist but some how I feel left out of the charade all together. While at times I convince my self that I’m above the rest of the maddening crowd and its better to be single than to mingle like the merry men of Robin-hood, and convince myself that it is a matter of choice by way of which I exist the way I do, yet there are pangs of loneliness and guilt for keeping my self locked in the cellars of loneliness, depriving myself of the worldly pleasures and earthly desires. Some where I do wish perhaps there should have been there some one. It is not self contempt or applying first aid to my self inflicted wounds, rather, it is a mere fantasy that even I can afford to live for an instance, though it might look like self pity and remorse, yet giving me the joy of flying without wings.

As I rest on a rocking chair like grandpa’s do in the library next to the fireplace with their pipe in their mouth and brooding pensively, I go back down the memory lane and recall a small instance of valentines that I try not to forget. A normal day in the life of an insignificant soul like me, lost in the oblivion and just hanging around with a special one whom I particularly wanted to say a lot to but perhaps couldn’t as I had emerged from an accident involving the heart a few months before. They say a broken heart takes a lot of time to heel and this new lady in my life was turning out to be the way of fast recuperation out of the ER. A day when the world is feeling special and yet I didn’t and felt weird if I started feeling that way. Somehow past had made me all the more conscious on this one day. Why? Because everyone in the world knew what this day was supposed to be and so my feeling would have taken as a mere wave of over-emotionalism. I felt so naked and vulnerable, cos somehow I knew the girl I approached already knew what I had in my mind and so I took extra care to be just day way I am.

Returning to this particular day, I spent the entire day with this lady and doing nothing special as the world would ordinarily do. Just making sure to be extra cautious, not doing anything out of the league that might hint her that I had something in my mind. For one, I didn’t want to lose her if she got the wrong idea and definitely not considering the bad phase of my life I was going through after my last break up. This girl was my only friend and perhaps more, but I just didn’t want to risk it.

But then this lady was not ordinary as well. She was really special and as it turned out, all the typical mediocre and routine things we did that day turned out to be all the more special and extraordinary. As the day was approaching an end, we recollected the special times we had in the past few months of our acquaintance and how time always seemed to run short when we had all the things in the world to talk about and yet, when we had the time, time froze in eternity as we simply lazed on the grass in the warn sunlight, basking like newly born cubs, devoid of the world around. We walked all day and then made each other read our diaries for one particular day that we wanted to share. As the day approached to an end, we jus didn’t want to let go of the time and wrote thing to each other, in a mortal attempt for immortality of the instance of time. Finally, the day came to an end and as I walked to say goodbye for the day, we decided to venture in towards the college building. Just to prolong the moment that seemed so golden. A moment when neither of us had to say anything as we had done through out the day. Just a silence between us. The silence of reassurance and a bond that was from the heart and an unbreakable faith. It was so surprising how at times after spending years with a person, you might not know him and how a stranger suddenly become so close to the heart as if you’ve known her all your life.

So as we walked towards the college building, which was empty by now. We decided to take a walk to the first floor, just on the pretext of checking out the library and having a sip of water from the water cooler n the first floor. Mind you, there was a water cooler on each floor, but the one on the first floor was inexplicably special, call it an emotional bonding, specially during after college hours as it gave all the privacy and solace to the couples. So we thought, why not just take a round before we come back and say goodbye for the day. As I climbed the stairs with her onto the first floor, and the sun setting down and the point of time when its little dark but not pitch dark. We walked innocently, holding our hands and just not letting go of each other. A few occasional hugs at the water cooler and a few pecks on the cheeks, before I realized my vulnerability. A few hugs and a drinks of water later, we just didn’t want to let go. A hug that became tighter and longer and fiercer as I tried to pull myself away for an instance, fearing that some college staff or guard might discover us in a compromising position like this. So eventually, I tried being bold and with a tight peck onto the cheek that turned into a wicked cheek bite, I separated and walked with her hand in mine, towards the exit. As I walked, a myriad of emotions engulfed me. Desire, loneliness, not wanting the moment to end and also a fear of coming so close that it might hurt later. All this preoccupied my mind as I walked until I casually started checking out the latches of the lecture halls that I was passing. Just casually until, I found one open. I stopped, took a step behind and pushed the door a bit to find it open. For that instance the naughty me took reign over the normal me, with a wicked smile. I’m sure if I had a camera, I would have resembled the devil himself, with two horns on my head, a long tail and a spear in my hand.

Unquestioningly, I looked at her, who by now was a bit dazed at what I had explored and scared of the consequences and yet desirous of what she wanted a few minutes back. A quick gesture of the hand to ask her to follow, but I could see her mind going through the dilemma of what to do. I walked into the classroom, like an anxious teenage kid and looked out for her, asking her to come in quickly before any one else knew what we were upto. Suddenly my hormonal system seemed to be going into a frenzied chaotic activity, beyond any explanations. And as she walked in, it seemed to be something that we were waiting for. A special moment for both of us alone and cut off from the world. Just the two of us with no society and no qualms. Just a moment of truth. As we walked in and bolted the door, words were an unnecessary tool for the emotionally challenged people. When an action itself could speak millions of words, who needed words. As we walked towards each other, and embraced, time froze till eternity.

No it wasn’t a typical Hollywood flick like situations where there were wilds sparks flying in the air, or like Sharon Stone said in Basic Instinct to Michael Douglas, in the discotheque with a dusky voice “lets get out of here”. It was simple quite moment that belonged to both of us.

A slow embrace and slow dance with the music in our minds and feeling of belongingness. A moment that we didn’t want to lose. As we stood, with my arms around her waist and her hands across my neck, playing with my hair, I realized this was perhaps one moment that I’d probably never want to end. Of course I also realized the height difference between the both of us as I had to stop below to reach her. Nah! That is a an exaggeration and I’m sure she would be furious as she reads this. Well no I didn’t stoop down but yes looking into the difference, I had to put my arms around and raised for an instance onto the air, and then eventually she stood over the slightly lifted slab on the ground, reaching my neck. As I felt her breath on my face and her face on my mine, gently, rubbing her lips and cheeks on my face and forehead, teasing around and I rubbed my slight beard on her shoulder, I could see the exotic look on her face, that made me hold onto her forever and preserve the look for ever. Perhaps it still is ingrained in my mind. Soon we were holding each other tighter, feeling each others body pressed hard against each other, speaking of the insecurity and the loneliness we had been facing for such a long time. A basic need emerged that needed no words of solace. As we looked at each others eyes, the naughty me kept taking control and nibbling here and there till I got a reciprocatory bite on my cheek, as if taking revenge of my past actions. At times my hands wandered here and there but were suitably punished with a pinch or a slap.

It grew darker outside but we didn’t care. Just holding on, caressing and cherishing the moment of togetherness. A few love marks for each other to make ourselves remember of the time when time froze. Seconds transcended onto minutes and eventually to an hour and more, before we heard the loud whistle of the guard outside, which seemed to bring us out of the fantasy void and the delusional trip that we were taking on each others arms. One final kiss and we opened the door to the outside world and as I walked to leave her that night, I knew something had changed. Something that I would never forget. As I walked that night with her out of the room, the world seemed to have changed. For an instance, I was drooling with my hangover. Suddenly nothing else mattered. I realized some thing so basic. I had just had my first valentines day which I would probably never forget. Neither did she. The fact that her hair pin was stuck on my head when we were entwined. Having forgotten it, I walked into the hostel and the mess, with people looking at my unkempt and shoveled hair and giving me giggles and smiles, which I initially took to be a sign of world being in love that day. She on the other hand walked into her hostel, unaware that one of my gifted love marks were right on the left side of her neck, visible to the entire world except her, until she looked at the mirror.

And for one more instance, time froze for ever, even while we were away from each other.