So there I was, with a bouquet of assorted flowers, most of em red, and most of em roses, standing outside my class waiting for her…. People with inquisitive looks passed by me, no one dared ask me for who, they just looked at me and smiled. Some kept a watch, they like to know which size sandal will end up on my face.. 
. “How did I end up in this mess?”, I thought to myself. I’m normally quite sensible, but for some reason the love fever caught on, and well, here I am outside my class with a bouquet, hoping that she would turn up before the professor does.
Rewind back a few days earlier. I was in love with her, as usual. Being 16(Ok, 15… ) can be overwhelming. Also it was frustrating that you like someone for a year and do nothing about it. You know that she will be gone soon, and heat is on us for the 12th boards. I was getting desperate.. I need to do something to get her attention. I was approaching point of no return, if I don’t act now, she may never know.
“Hey dude, give me some idea for the Valentine’s day, We have been going out for a few months now, she will most definitely expect something”, My friend hopeless at love friend interrupted me .
We were at the SIES “Underground” canteen, a place that reminds me of mortuary, thanks to absence of windows, a place I rarely visit, this was one such rare day.
“uhhh, Say what?…. err, get her some flowers and choclates, chicks dig em”, I replied, half here, half in my frustrations.
” “How cliched”, that will her responese! Im sure man. She is expecting something better, if there is one thing about her, she always expects something outside the ordinary! I cant think of anything better, HELP!”, he blabbered.
He is even more hopeless than I thought him to be…
“Common dude, u will think of something! “,replied the other friend, in a vague attempt to calm my hopeless friend.
Here I’am at war with myself on how to tell her, and this bugger is only worried of how to impress his girl friend. To me, his issue is trivial. Im sure he thought likewise about me, everyone thinks his issues are the greatest, everyone else’s is solvable…
“Wait a minute!” I exclaimed, a bit louder than I intended.
All my friends at the table, all 4 of em, stopped dead at their tracks, whatever they were discussing.
“You got a plan better than flowers and Choclates ???” , the hopeless friend, with wide ‘n’ bright eyes.
“No, I will tell her, with Flowers on Valentine’s day!” , Eureka, just about every guy on the planet gets the same solution for the same old problem.
“Oh, its about u and ur chick”, hopeless friend, lost all hopes on me.
“Do you have the balls to do it?”, asked another.
“I have seen her look at you once or twice, I think she might actually say yes!”, said another.
“She likes me! She is waiting for me to make a move!!!”, I thought to myself.
“Yes, but guys please dont howl or make a scene” I pleaded.
“I will not be there at college that day, We might go for a movie and hang out Bandra or somewhere “, Hopeless friend, doesn’t look all the hopeless now…
“Yeah we promise”, said my friend on the behalf of others.
“Wow! they agreed to it, there is something fishy about it, Im sure they are gonna mess it up! “, I thought to myself.
So anyways, I started my careful planning for what has to happen in another 48 hours. So I was decided on flower, A single red rose… Naah! thats to cheap. A bouquet of flowers. I first thought up on a bouquet of red roses. “But what if she doesn’t like red roses? what if she doesn’t like roses??” I though. Well finally decided on an assortment of flowers.
“So do I just give flowers? What the hell am I gonna say???” Thought to myself, “Forget what u r gonna say, the real question is will the lower part of the face even gonna function?”, she, afterall made me go “Pzzzt,ffdasa zzzmogfl”. “Shit!”, I just realized that my plans are gonna go in water.
So the rest of the day went on feeling disappointed and upset that the plan maynot take off.
That and gawking at her and going “pzzzzt, ffdasa zzzmogfl” at the class.
So its already night, and Im at hope, just done with dinner and at my room. Sitting and looking out of the third floor window out to the road in the night. Looking for an inspiration or an Idea…. Then the obvious struck me…. “Why dont I write it? If I can say it, I will say it, else I will just read it out… Or if my tongue decides to dance to a different tune I can hand it to her, she can read it herself, taking advantage of HER 12 years of education !!”, I thought to myself.
Great now I have a plan and 24hrs. I was so busy making a plan that can work, I forgot to account for one factor, ME! I forgot if to check if I had the guts to pull it off. I don’t know, I never thought about it till about 2 hrs before the actual plan.
So what do I write ? Its got be good, its gotta be poetic and sophisticated, Great! Only one problem. I never wrote single piece of anything that remotely resembles anything like literature in my entire life.
So I got cracking on it, I had about 18 hrs left for the plan, and zero experience on it. So clueless on how to write 4 lines to represent my love, I powered on….
So, how do I approach this? One thing I knew I was good at was the way I can visualize things. A vivid and creative imagination was (and still is!) my prized possession, So why don’t I use it to my advantage ?
Ok, so I got flowers, interestingly her name represents a flower in her language. Perfect! So after some thought and effort I finally got 4 lines that I liked.
Like the flowers, that add colours to the greens,
You add colour to my life, filled with grays.
Like the bees that are drawn to the nectar,
I’m drawn to you, mesmerised by your beauty.
Yeah it was all “flowery” and childish.But thats exactly what you would expect from a kid.. :). Plus thats the best I can do with Math professor yapping about, and no inspiration…. coz she bunked the math session for whatever reason. Something scary struck me, what if she doesnt turn up tomorrow? I know for sure that she was single, but what if she doesn’t turn up ? I can be screwed then! I got snapped out of that thought, thankfully, but I cant recollect for what reason, it was due to the Math professor, but cant remember what he did!
So now that I have something written, which of course I will never have courage to tell it on her face, I thought I will write in some decorative paper. Got that from Archie’s. Now all I needed was a bouquet of flowers, which I will have to get it on 14th.
So, everything was ready, now just need to follow it through. I was already at home, so I wrote out these 4 lines from my Math book, to the nice Archie’s paper, very carefully in my best possible handwriting (which means legible, thats about it!). So now its all set, just need to get a good night’s sleep and look fresh tomorrow.
Needless to say the night was restless, barely got some sleep. It wasn’t butterflies in the stomach, it was freaking jack rabbits in there.
So dawn next day, got up, got ready, Loads of Deo and off to the college.
So once there, I get the first bad news, Thanks to other youngsters, all raging with the same emotions as I do (Hopefully not for the same femme as I’am) has emptied the all the neighbourhood flower vendors, who are not complaining.
So what do I do ??? I mean, I planned on a nice bouquet of flowers with various variety! Now I cant even find a single flower in the neighbourhood. So I run towards some place away from my campus and managed to get some 10-12 flowers in various colours, most of em were roses, coz, well roses sell the most on this day, and his collection was full of em.
I had huge sigh of relief, just about then all da rabbits in my tummy made themselves felt! I thought I was gonna be sick, I got the stuff, now I need to pull this off! Where am I gonna grow balls for that now? I was too deep into this now to pull away.
So now, I wore a brave face, and marched back to the campus. I hoped nobody noticed me, but the day belonged to Mr.Murphy! Just about every guy and girl I knew spotted me, most of em guessed for who all this is gonna be for, a few who never knew thoutht it will be a good idea to find out, so they positioned themselves in places where they can “Observe”. As though it was not enough that I have to face her, now there is an eager audience to find out what I was up to!
“How did I end up in this mess?”, I thought to myself. I’m normally quite sensible, but for some reason the love fever caught on, and well, here I am outside my class with a bouquet, hoping that she would turn up before the professor does.
Those rabbits are now multiplying in my tummy! The term “reproducing like bunnies” made a lot of sense at that moment. Seconds felt like hours, this is getting more and more embarrassing. I was making an Ass of myself and in front of whole freaking college! Where is she now?
Well, I waited, it was getting dangerously close to the lecture, and she is nowhere in sight! One of my buddies ran up to me, Dude, prof is on his way.. You can do this some other time, the day has just started.
Disappointed, relieved but still worried, I walked into the class. Must have been a major disappointment for my audience. Anyways, prof walked in, and a lil later there she was! with her gang… a lil late for whatever reason. I was relieved coz she is here today, so all my efforts wont go to waste. But I was a nervous wreck, coz I now need to do this.
So all of a sudden, some of her friends started talking to some of the ppl in class, a few were giving me stares, “Oh Shit!”, I thought, “I hope they didn’t find it out, if she gets a wind of this, this may all go very very wrong!”. The ones who gave me stares didn’t tell her anything, I think, coz she never turned back..
Now I definitely need to pull this off. If I don’t she will think I’m coward, coz her friends will tell her eventually!
So after 40 excruciating minutes lecture was finally over, and our English ma’am walked out. So this was my chance!
I picked up my flowers and virtually non existent guts, walked up to her.
“Hi!” , I said, breaking her attention from her friends.
“Hi?”, She with a pleasant smile, Guess she didn’t see the flowers in hands!
All her friends had their attention squarely on me. So did the people in the neighbourhood.
“I just wanted to give this to you! I think you are as nice as them”, I said, almost about to faint….
“Nice? ” I thought, “Nice? WTF? Thats the best I can do??? Nice… wow!” , I was pissed at myself, “Atleast you didn’t go pzzzt,zdfsd,mmmogf, That was my optimistic side kicking in….
She was bit ovwewhelmed, you can look at her and tell that this is the first time somebody has done something like this for her…
“Thanks!”, she said with a lil blush…..
“God, she is damn beautiful! I can keep looking at her all day!!!” , I thought to myself. “Hey, looks like no sandals for me!!”
“You are welcome”, I replied and walked away, having no clue what to do next.
“I should have stayed a little longer, figured out what to say next!” , Dawned upon me, very very late.
But I was still on the verge of a blackout, however now I’m relieved, I finally did it, and with no sandals on my face! I could hear a few giggles from that end of class, but I didn’t dare look at that side. My friends were patting my back, for the courage to pull it off. I was more or less prepared to go home and sleep.
The rest of the day was pretty much uneventful, or I didn’t care to notice what events were going on.. She didn’t speak a word, I guessed it was due to the shock. As we were leaving from the college she looked at me and smiled. The enchantress smile, the smile that makes the rest of the world and its burdens fade away. Suddenly all the efforts that I put in was worth it. If I die today, I will die as a happy man!
I realised that she smiling meant that it can be a yes tomorrow (because she cant call me today, she doesnt have my telephone number!! ).
I was all excited, and ready to jump up and down in joy!
So on 15th, I was all ready and at college unusually early, in case she turns up early…. She did no such thing. She came at the usual time. I looked at her and smiled, she smiled back, but something was wrong! It looked like a forced smile… this is not going good..
So after the first lecture, she walks up to me with a solemn face , or was that a sad face, I dont know, I cant decide.
“Hi”, She said,
“Hi”, I replied.
“I need to have a word with you, can we step outside for a second”
“Sure!” I replied.
We walked outside, not knowing what to expect….
“Thank you for all the flowers and beautiful words…”
I just smiled, I was at loss of words….
“It was wonderful, no one has ever done anything like this before, it felt good…”
So it worked! I thought to myself.
“But….”
“Oh.. ohhh”, this is gonna be bad!
“We are in 12th and exams are right around the corner, you know we cant afford to be distracted during our 12th” , She continued, ” I love my parents very much, I dont think I want to disappoint them at this point of time, you are a nice person, But I want to make sure that I get good marks in my 12th”.
“Sure, I understand!”,. What else can I say? I felt like burying myslef, I should have told her in 11th itself.
“Thank you!”, Thats the last thing she said, and headed back to the class.
I was stunned and shocked, there was nothing much left to say… I didnt lose her to another guy, I lost her to the 12th boards….
It took me a few days to recover, we smile at each other whenever we pass by. And eventually after 12th, bot of us part our ways. Both of us knew that things could have been different if only I acted sooner!!
Disclaimer: Some of the characters in the story was fictitious. And the story itself was also fictitious. However the If I had a little more courage then, I would have done this for her. Too bad, I didn’t.
After a slew shitty bikes Yamaha has finally decided to bring its well known ‘R’ badge.
Week after week, working in office was getting on to me. So we guys needed a break. Whats worse, the Coorg trip we planned for this weekend go scrapped due to some family obligations, one of my roomies had on sunday. So we guys planned to go for a movie on friday. Since Narnia was the only movie running at this point (Having seen Ironman twice on the big screen!) 
