Today is Valentine’s day. My Valentine for the day was Pandey ji. Now I am as straight as straight could be, but when it comes to internet connectivity, exceptions can be made! I was expecting to put this post up yesterday night, but my broadband which was playing truant for the past few days finally went completely down with the phone going dead. And Pandey ji from my telephone company is our answer to anything being wrong with the phone/broadband. The better part of the day was spent with Pandey ji and me trying to find the source
of the problem (in the exchange, on the way, outside my house, inside my house, between outside my house and inside my house!)…finally we were tired and Pandeyji decided to change the wiring itself completely leading into my house. Pandey ji managed to complete the circus and the sound of the telephone dial-tone was music to the ears. You see…this ‘internetwa’ has become a necessity of life!
Anyway, coming back to Valentine’s day. At least i had Pandey ji (and i was more happy to see him turn up today at my house than any ‘cute’ babe). Junta who have their valentines fall into 2 buckets. Either they go all out to celebrate the day (and its mostly the guys making the plans! talk abt gender equality?) or they say boss i dont believe in Valentine’s day (which is basically aur kitna kharcha karoage!!)
Readers of this blog who are quite familiar with my non existent love life over the years would know that there is not a chance in hell that I would know the price of a rose. No longer my friends. The price of a rose (taking into account delivery costs) on Feb 14 is anywhere between 25 to 40 bucks! Before you jump to conclusions, let me explain…
You see, a good friend of mine is out of country for some time. And he requested me to see to it that his wife gets flowers from him on V day. He specified the type, colour & contour which I guess have been his signature gift to her over the years! Knowing fully well that he can trust me with doing the assignment, but that I would not know how to go about doing it, he kept another common friend in the loop to assist me with the proceedings. The incentive for me would be that the key learnings from this assignment could be leveraged in future endeavours
Anyway, first figured out the place where these kind of flowers would be available, and then went across yesterday evening to the place to select the stuff, place the order and give the address where it needed to be delivered on V day. Now after I did that and came back, I get a mail from our man asking me to put a poem that he had written for her, along with the flowers. Called up the florist and tried dictating him the poem, but the guy seemed kinda struggling to note it down with all the business that he was doing around. Then tried smsing it to him, but the poem was longish and after all, a poem has to be written in a certain way!
So what to do now? I thought i would go and deliver it to the florist myself and sat down to write it. But my handwriting is not that great and after writing it, I myself realized of course you certainly cannot give a loved one a poem in someone else’s handwriting! So I pasted the poem in Word, did a little formating with the cutest font available to rub out the ‘formalness’ of the printed word. Now of the printers that were available, one was jammed and the other had a faulty toner where the ink came smeared across half the page. So back to the drawing board to manage the typed poem in exactly the space where the ink held good on the paper! Then with crazy traffic on the way and requesting a fellow colleague to take a slight detour on our way back home, managed to deliver the note and instructed the florist how it needed to be placed with the flowers and the accompanying card!
The mushiness quotient in the shop was extremely high…guys and gals looking/feeling/starring/smelling flowers like what never before..having achieved my objective, i made a quick retreat!
Now my friend – i know as per Mastercard, there are some things in life that are priceless…but hope that was more Bang than the Buck for you….and a little Karma in the Kitty for me! J
P.S. : My dear readers – As per traditional ‘folklore’, do you know what does taking the last sip from a shared glass of say a soft drink entitle you to? I bet a soft drink on it!
Reams of Dreams in a Tale of Heads 