Anniversary

Been meaning to write this for quite some time now. The following is the narrative of my anniversary (12th Oct 2009) .

I guess it started off about a month in advance. People call it "The Honeymoon Period". But I simply had to make this day as awesome as possible. After all you just have one "1st Anniversary".
Hence it began.

The Planning :
Well to begin with I needed a gift. But therein lied the biggest problem. I suck at gifts (sigh). So I tried figuring out what could be the best possible choice. And somehow every idea I had seemed worse than the last. From soft toys to jewelery to accessories, I thought about all of them. But darn nothing good enough (or in budget). Hence taking the easier way out I decided that my gift would be 1 whole day being spent with her and making it as much fun as possible.Yup. Sound about right. But as the days slowly crept by even this idea seemed shitty. Dammit what do I do now? I could feel panic gripping me. 29 days to go and i had no idea of my super special gift. The idea struck me in my ADBMS class (thanks Mangalore for being so darn boring). A calender. Simple yet nice. She would like it, yes. I mean what better way to show the passage of a year. And then I sat down to chalk it out.
With my imagination going seriously wild I planned on and on. Within minutes I had it prepared in my head. It looked wonderful (indeed). But then came problem #2. Raw materials (:O). In my imagination I hadn't considered this. Now what do I do? I needed pictures and relevant ones. I mean I couldn't go pasting up any crap in any random order. Ohk this keeps getting tougher and tougher. And once again the solution presented herself in the form of her dear friend. Voila! Why didn't I think of this earlier?
Sept 15: (almost a moth to go) I start getting the first batch of pics. Ok ok keep them coming. Pulled a couple more from here and there and within 10 more days I had quite a few of them.
Oct 2: (10 days to D day) We happened to hit a trip to Lonavala. Ah! What better excuse did I have than this to get me some pictures. Of course couldn't let her know then. Had loads of fun and even managed to get a few clicks here and there without attracting much attention. Anyways now armed with a good arsenal of pictures I sat down to make my calender. Now this was the tricky part. Selecting appropriate pictures and placing them with appropriate months. Luckily since I had sort of planned this out, I mostly knew what went were but once again I wasn't satisfied. But still I kept at it and finally I was ready with my 1st rough draft. This is when I called in my chic mentor and showed the damn thing. Criticism. More work. Draft 2 through 5. More criticism. Draft 6 ---> Hmmm, nice.
Oct 6: (6 days) Done. Finally I'm done. Now I just needed to figure out how to spend the day with her when Problem #3. There was a company coming the next day and I had to sit for it. So anniversary had to take a backseat. Anyways keeping the long story short, I cleared the company interview and got placed. Yay! Divi was positively jumping with joy. Best anniversary gift ever she said. Wow things finally looking up huh?
Oct 10: (2 days to go) Due to some reason I had just found out that Lavasa was an awesome place to go and I had unconditionally included it in my trip. But i didn't know the way. Again angelic surprise, a wild trip and problem solved. Looked like everything was falling slowly into place.
Oct 11: Plans go haywire. Apparently she had her mock pracs on the 12th. Mahn what a bummer. But not to be let down i rescheduled my plan, now accomodating her pracs. At the same time I needed a place for a nice dinner. Someone suggested Riverview. Ckecked it out, liked it, booked it. I had already informed my parents that I wud be coming back late. Then by a brilliant stroke of luck, I convinced Mom to let me make some cake and chops that I could take on the next day. This was still going on course.
7pm: I happen to come across a video of Pon n Zi. Some guy had made this for his girl. If he can why not me? I started on the video. By immense luck, I finished it within 10. Whoa! This is so great.
10pm: A friend of mine called up asking my plans. I laid them out. Funnily enough he asked me why I didn't write any poem this time also (had written one for V day). Great idea dude. But no time. Hence did the best thing possible. Wrote down a brief description of the year past with lines from a song. Now with my mouse on the send button I waited for 12 o'clock.

The Execution:
12 o'clock: The phone rings and "Happy Anniversary". The send button is clicked. The youtube address is mailed. Only a matter of time. "Wow, this is so nice...luv u".Cool! That must be the mail. "Omg, u made this for me?" Ohk that was the video. I could actually hear her voice getting heavy. The day had just begun.
Getting up at 5 was never so easy. I was up and out of the house by 6, racing down the road. Now the simple way I had planned to giv her the calender was : A treasure hunt. The clues were basically places that meant a lot to us and strategically placed around the city. I made them as such that we could start from the college and end up there at last. Hence clue #1 and it began. At a later clue by a nearby lake, I got out the cake and chops. Hugs :D. But unfortunately I had to get back to college by 9ish, leaving the hunt incomplete. While she was at her pracs, I took a quick nap and was back to continue the rest of the hunt.
Now I forbade her to open the envelopes till i asked her to and I had ordered them randomly, the last one being a pic of me and her. Now once the hunt was complete, I waited on her to change and come for dinner, picked her up and reached Riverview to a candlelight dinner. That was where I gave her the last and final envelope and shimmering eyes let me kno that she had loved the day. My plan was actually successful.
Getting back, we just hung out for sometime when her friends called her. Not knowing what the reason was, we hurried back in quite a downpour just to find the two of them with a pretty card and a rose. Wow. I wasn't the only one planning this out then.
Driving back to my home, getting drenched in the cold rain, I was happy. She hadn't said anything, but then again she needn't, her eyes had said it all and more. 1st Anniversary indeed.

Wow. Its been like two months since that day and now. 14 months have passed since I stood, soaking wet in the rain, asking her out. And still I'm up right now waiting for her to call me and wish me once again, just the same way she has been doing for the past 14 times.