I love my dad. I love my mom. I love my sister. I love my husband. Period. I don’t need to constantly remind them of my love on father’s day mother’s day sister’s day and what not. Dude, it’s not like they don’t know the rest of the days that I love them. Yeah yeah, the crappy card companies invent days after days to keep their business running. But what about these suckers who lap it all up like starving puppies and do extravagant things. I am already having a hard time remembering people’s birthdays; please don’t add more days to it.
It always gets intolerable around Valentine’s Day time. You know it is the heights when your parents who once looked on suspiciously at the friendships day gifts you received ask you what is the plan for the day and sounds worried when you reply TV! Add to it old aunties, you get the limit.
I am not exactly the romantic type. I like dinners and I like candles, but not together. I like to see what I eat. I love candle light. I think it brings out the beauty and hides the flaws. But my food doesn't have to look pretty and I would like to be notified of the err..mm flaws, if any.
The advertising guys have so commercialised everything that extravagant anniversaries are the norm. My friend R went on a cruise, A goes for Europe trip, D got a big diamond necklace, which she promptly kept in her locker, for fear of loss. I have nothing against travel, I love going places, but at my convenience. Well, I have nothing against people celebrating; I have awww-ed at my friends too. But, forcing it on me is what I have a problem with.
My mom got seriously worried when she came to know of my anniversary plans. We had decided to do away with gifts after a few disastrous gifts to each other. I mean who uses jasmine scented perfume, unless you want to smell like a maami doing her rounds bargaining at Mylapore? Even she would prefer getting the real deal at the roadside for Rs.10. Now my mom uses it as room freshener on pooja days. So now I have discreetly given him a list in all price ranges from Snickers chocolates to Chanel No 5 (Yes, that is about as far the range goes, I am not a big fan of diamonds or cars- Isn’t S lucky?) in case he ever gets this uncontrollable urge to surprise me. Well, I have had my share of gift-disasters too, which I will conveniently save for another blog. It is my blog after all.
Coming back to my anniversary, we decided not to gift each other, but gift ourselves something which we both wanted. Off we went to Landmark and got - Ta Da - A play station! S happy me happy. We spent the whole day happily taking turns playing resident evil. So what if we missed our dinner reservations and had to eat pizza? We got to destroy zombies using super cool weapons and save mankind!
The only side effect was answering the anniversary wishers’ queries on what our exotic plans were. One aunt told my mom “This is the problem with love marriages, their love would have already faded by the time they get married” So is it OK if the love fades 2 years after marriage?
So I already have my lines prepared for next year.
To Mom – “We went to Tirupathy to offer thanks to Lord for keeping us so happy in love and to pray that our marriage remains so romantic forever!”
To friends - “We went on a road trip to Goa, where we stayed at this top secret reclusive resort which is situated atop a light house, where we had this super cool orchestra playing music especially for us and were woken up in the morning by flowers showered on us by soundless helicopters. Pictures? We can’t share the pictures silly, it is too private.” Hmm... Maybe I can persuade the guard at Marina beach light house to let me on top and take a quick picture of the sea and me and pass it off as Goa?
