Thank you for the overwhelming response for TechnoparkToday’s Valentine’s Day Story contest – 2009. we have got total 12 stories, and out of that our panel selected the winner – Gift Of Love. The winning story is submitted  by Arun.

Gift Of Love

Love is one of the best things that can happen to any living being. Apart from being the best, it is also the most powerful feeling that can bring about an absolute change in anyone’s life.

This Valentine’s Day – the last one of my bachelorhood and the first one after I found my better half was the reason for a lot of excitement and anticipation. However, somewhere in the midst of the challenging career of an entrepreneur, I seemed to have lost the tempo of my youth in the matters of heart. After much thought about the best that I could get for Indu, my fiancée, I concluded that she would love something more intimate and evocative than costly gifts. So a day before the ‘V’ day I winded up work early and set out to the Archies gallery at Bay Pride Mall (Ernakulam). Meanwhile I called up one of her best friend – Jayavidya* to seek her help in confirming the name of a book (A collection of poems by Persian poet Hafiz) that my fiancée was longing to buy.

I selected a ‘singing’ greeting card from Archies – The song “I’ve had the time of my life” from the movie ‘Dirty Dancing’ was our all-time favourite. I also got a handmade dazzling red heart. I winded up my shopping with some wrapping paper and a valentine bag (for the book). As I came out, I got a call from Jayavidya confirming the name of the book as ‘The Gift’. So I started a hunt for the book across book stores in Ernakulam. I called up a few leading book stores to save time, but kept getting negative responses. Finally one dealer blurted out the words I was waiting to hear – “Yes, we got it”. My heart jumped up with joy and I reached the store thanking my stars. Well, she gave me the book ‘The Gift’ alright, but it was written by some ‘Ramachandran Nair’ and was a prose. Grrr!!! I gave the most pleasant frustrated smile at her and walked out. I was lucky to get a nice auto-driver who took me from book-store to book-store. At some stores, I was taken aback when they recognized me as one dealer (DC books) whom I had telephoned, seemed to have made calls to most of the book stores asking for this book. The hunt continued- Current books, Paico, Akshara, and so on… Finally after around two hours of running around I reached H&C book store that did not have the book, but promised to get it early next morning. After explaining the situation and the fact that I was supposed to leave for Trivandrum to meet my ladylove the coming morning, I walked out with a heavy heart to be greeted with a smiling auto-driver.

The cheery chap motivated me and told me not to lose heart and spoke about his college day romance. Suddenly it felt as if my problem was not just mine, right from this auto-driver to at least four book store salesmen were hunting down the book for me. Even the tramp on the sidewalk sipping his tea seemed to smile at me. The world still hasn’t lost its heart and magic after all. As I got down at my destination, I got a call from DC books, they said their Kottayam head office had the stock and I could pick it up from there if I couldn’t wait for another day for them to get it. The auto-driver smiled a hearty smile when he heard this and gave me that “Didn’t I say so!” look. And what more… he was surprisingly reasonable in charging me for the two hour long trip n wait.

I had designed something special for Indu – it was a Valentine poster, which had a full-length screen shot of our engagement snap in Orkut, complete with the comments from our friends. Got it printed at my printers, who were really amused and impressed with the idea. I rolled up the poster and wrapped it like a toffee wrapper with the frilled ends.

That night, I planned my trip to Trivandrum via Kottayam in order to pick up the book. The next morning-Valentine’s Day, out of common sense, I hunted out the contact number and called up DC books Kottayam to confirm the availability and got a negative response. Sad, but relieved that it would have been worse if I had travelled there to get this response; I travelled to Trivandrum to meet up with Indu. As I reached Alleppey, I get a call from H & C, telling that the book was waiting for me! I did not know whether to pull my hair out or jump up and down with joy… I told them that I really appreciated their efforts but they were just a few hours too late, as I was already on my way. I could make out the disappointment in his voice too – they must have really made an effort to get it for me, but then luck and life has its own plans. I promised to pick up the book the moment I landed back in Ernakulam.

As expected it was a pleasant surprise for her to get these novice Valentine’s gifts from me. The twinkle in her eyes said it all. She was like a college teen who had been given her first love letter and gift, and indeed it was her first. I felt good to give her a piece of the teenage days that she had probably missed. All said, she shocked me with her gift – The Bhagavad Gita, which she said was the best book on management under the sky and which will guide me in my new venture – ‘A Corporate Training Academy’. She also said gloomily, that she wanted to get me a new laptop, as my old one had conked and was taking forever to be fixed and how she couldn’t buy it as she couldn’t arrange the cash on time. All I could do was hold her hands and re-assure her that it was not all about the gift itself, but the thought that counts. Deep in my heart I could relate to her feeling, it was not about getting that book worth a few hundreds, but the thought and desperation to get it that made it priceless.

I returned to Ernakulam the next day and I got a call from Indu that evening, informing me to pick up my ‘gift’ – the new laptop from a particular dealer in Ernakulam. I was speechless, how could she arrange all this? Agreed that she is an intellectual and even admired at her work place, but she is pretty dim in the way of practical life and getting such things done. Well, I learned my next lesson – Love makes us do the impossible. As I type this story on the gift of love, I look at the book that sits on the table next to this laptop and think of the moment when it reaches Indu.

Love is not about looking at each other, but looking together in the same direction. So what if the gift that we both wanted to give did not reach us on the d’ day, its value has increased manifold as we realise that love is not just about red roses, greeting cards and a once in a year affair called Valentine’s Day!