Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Pop kiss this valentine !!!!

Not very long ago, when I was still studying in college. Every evening I had to take care of a private circulating library. My dad had bought this library for a cousin of mine. He got a job somewhere and my dad kept that going, as he didn’t want to give up what he had started. I used to hate doing that. It used to be open only between 6 and 8.30 in the evening. I used to be really awry to be in the library from 6 to 6.30 by which time my dad would come back from office and relieve me of my duties. Usually we were a big gang of friends then, around 50-60 to be correct. We all used to meet up and loaf all evening on bikes. I could never relate to the library, as it was something I never accepted I would continue. So I would be counting minutes and finding reasons not to go there.


But things were about to change thanks to a lovely damsel.

I used to know her mother who used to come by daily to pick up some film magazines. She was such a sweet lady. One fine day she came along with her mother. She was just like freshness personified. She was arguing with her mother on a novel for great lengths. That was surprising I thought, I used to read a lot of novels myself and was an ardent reader of reader’s digest, which was her personal favorite too. It all started slow but slowly I used to stick around for a little late everyday just to get to meet her. But she always used to come with someone in stow and it looked like her mom always sent her out with a bodyguard of sorts. I never used to bother initially, as I used to be a very shy person and was known to everyone in the area where I stayed as someone very studious and intelligent types. There was an amount of respect in all towards me. So I couldn’t get involved in what all despised.

One fine day after she returned a book I found a pink sheet of paper, the ones used in writing pads and it was carefully placed so that it would be noticed and it was smeared with an expensive fragrance. I thought maybe she had used it as a bookmarker and I kept it aside and returned it to her the next day. She quickly said it was not hers, I could notice a speck of fear in her innocent eyes. She was worried if the gardener of her house who used to accompany her noticed it. I was perturbed by her answer, but again found one more of those in the book she returned that day. They kept on coming for a week and I had a collection of those in no time. Every day I saw her it was as if her eyes were trying to ask something and she wanted to say something. But thanks to the bodyguard it was just too much to comprehend in too less time with too much of information crisscrossing through the eyes. She just said even walls have ears in a very low voice and left.

That night I took them all home, I didn’t know what to do with empty sheets of paper, but her voice kept ringing in my ears “Even walls have ears”, then it suddenly struck to me that she was trying the old method of writing letters. I used a candle and lo behold there were the letters in front of me written in soap and visible only to me and destroyed as soon as I read them.

She was really doing a great job, playing well within her limited options still managing to send a letter to me. I was amazed at her thinking and really flabbergasted at her repertoire and choice of words.

Then we switched to the books style. She would mark the words in the book with a pencil and I would have another book with the answer. The ingenuity of the approach broached very well. I was having fun at doing such things. All of a sudden I started waiting for the response and was taking pains to write the answer etc.

Still we couldn’t meet and talk anywhere, we both used to find time to talk to each other at the Indian institute of world culture library. We would visit the library there over the weekends and behind those book shelves get some private time for each other.

She used to cook things, get me things she cooked for me to taste. Life was at its magical best thanks to her fondness and beautiful presence.

In early 1994 she sent me a coded message, it read across 20 pages, a character in every page and once I could write it down it read, “will you be my valentine“

I really didn’t know what it meant, I had to go through a lot of friends and read quite a bit of literature to realize what she said.

We both planned to go out on a outing for a day. She had lied at her place about a special class in the morning. We decided to meet near the railway station.

I was there early in the morning; she came there a bit later. She was wearing her favourite Levis jeans and a white top. She had presumably had a head bath and her hair was still wet. So the first valentine was a trip to mysore. We had a gala time together.

There was no fear as we didn’t know anyone and there wasn’t the constant fear that we might bump into someone we know. That is still in my memory as it were yesterday; it was as though she had kept all her passion and emotion pent up, which was just to be released on that day. Sitting next to her on the door of the train, seeing all those paddy and sugarcane fields pass by, I was filled with joy that was unknown and unheard of till then. I had never believed that a person could matter so much that just by her presence someone can weave magic that is pleasant and one wouldn’t want to end. We were like long last pals who didn’t want the day to end. She was a lethal combination of good looks backed with loads of trust, simple yet elegant, lovely yet mature, in sum total she was answer to all questions.

During our times we didn’t know much about valentines, didn’t have access to communication methods like people have today. A lot of communication was through the eyes, reading between the lines, all sounds classical now, but still I am nostalgic about those times. Wish they had continued the same way. Now everyone is accessible on their mobiles, asking someone out is just an sms away and families are far more liberal and broad minded. But given a chance one would love to go back to those times. But for her maybe I would never have learnt to read the eyes, communicate using the eyes nor comprehend happiness or sadness just by observing people. She taught me so much. So when last week one of my friends said I was highly intuitive I remembered the reason I tend to be intuitive. So its valid when I thank her for making me what I am today.

She always used to talk a lot about valentines… She had read in a mills and boon about a long lasting sensuous kiss which the author had termed a pop kiss. When the guy kisses the girl, the kiss is so sensual that her left leg goes up pop in the air. She said one can make out just by looking at the girl, a blushing face, a face red with the lovely pain on the lips and eyes which still want to close to relish the experience…

I don’t know if she ever got a pop kiss but I would hope and wish all my friends get to experience a pop kiss this valentines.