The Valentine's Day Rose..

When:      Many years ago.. around this time of the year.
Where:    A girl's hostel, (where most stories like this often begin!)
What:      A crumbled ball of paper found in the terrace of e-wing, unwantedly floating around a simmering  pile of fresh ash.... meticulously opened by a curious " Some girl " only to find the following, scribbled away-

"Could this be happening,
What have I just found?
My feet is staggering
My head is spinning around...


Was it your smile for me,
Or that coffee in the cup ,
The earth's floating down below
And I am up.


Up, where you took me
Higher than I've been at all
Frightened at a bottomless pinnacle
For it could be a steep fall


Maybe, it is a leap of faith
That is why they 'fall'
The thing that just happened to me,
Love is what its called."


"Some girl " looks further around.. Finds some half burnt letters and cards... dried up flower petal... charred ribbons... Did someone just break up? Who? Ms. One-guy-per-day or Ms.I-can-get-any-boy-any-day or someone else? Someone genuinely serious? 'Cos that would be sad..


"Some girl " smiles, eases off the creases and carefully folds up the almost-crumbled-poem paper and places it neatly inside her book.


Nope, this is not the story of that poem or of the person who wrote it.


This is the story of "Some girl "...


Back in her room, with the book back in the shelf.... she is walking towards the hostel mess for an early dinner. The crackling cool February breeze whistling through her hair, she walks the 'road of self-pity'.... why so? Because all the way to the mess, she keeps bumping into girls with roses,chocolates, teddy bears and what not... courtesy some love-struck boyfriend and you know girls.... they LOVE talking about it! "Some girl " was not that lucky... This year too, like every year before, there would be no roses. Maybe "A" boy will call her.. "R" is busy, but he may drop in a message. But, no roses. Definitely, no chocolates. And teddy? No chance in the next hundred moons...


So there she walked, feeling all sorry for herself... Running into the mess door unseeingly and sitting throughout dinner with an awkward silence hanging like a guillotine over her head.. 


The cook of the mess ( a very friendly old lady, married with two kids, bless her! and always in a cheerful mood) was a bit taken aback by this new avatar of "Some girl ". What has burst her perennial bubble of enthusiasm and joy?


So, she asked- " Ben ( she calls every girl that, means-sister) what happened?"


Answer- "Tomorrow is Valentine's day. I have my last exam of the semester that day. In the afternoon, when I walk out of that examination hall, every girl I know will be getting a red rose, except me. They will all go for a movie and I will come back to this deserted hostel mess to the food that is left for me and eat it in a pitiful silence. The price I pay for being a good girl. Absolute lack of company on Valentine's day." 


Cut to the next day..


When:     Valentine's Day ( of course! )
Where:    The very same hostel mess


It was just as predicted. A lonely walk back to hostel and an eerie all pervading silence. She was probably the loneliest girl in the planet for at least those 20 minutes down the de ja vu-ious "walk of self pity". She pushed at the half shut mess door and left it ajar. Pulled up a stainless steel chair. Dropped her bag carelessly to a side and then, she saw it... A scene in front of her two myopic eyes, swinging funnily between what she expected and what couldn't possibly be.


A plate full of food.....................expected.
Covered with another plate.......... also expected
A stone on top of that second plate.......possible
A pristine red rose with its stem pressed under the said stone.... now, that couldn't be!


She touched the petals a couple of time... Pinched her arm and drank a glass of water to ensure that she was neither delusional nor dehydrated. 


When, both these possibilities got excluded, she plucked the courage to lift the stone and hold the rose she had asked for, unconsciously this valentine's day.. Who could it be? She looked around. Suddenly all happy... A secret admirer? Is someone hiding behind that door she just left ajar? Turned around 120 degrees and decided.... No! Then? Is someone going to call her cell right now and scream - "surprise! " What followed this rose? Hope sprung eternal.
She had to get her cell out of her bag. Now. 


She stood up and dropped the stone in the process and there rolled open a small chit of a paper which instantly answered all questions and shattered all her newly formed doubts and hopes-


"Hepy Velantine, Ben"


As of date, the single red rose remains pressed in the same book as the once-crumbled-poem paper... Both together as a memory of an almost-velantine-day and in anticipation of company on some other Valentine's day...