The Diary of Dreams

May 20th:

She stared at the empty page in front of her. She reclined into a more comfortable position on her bed and stared at the diary again. It was early morning and she could see the faint rays of the sun beginning to seep in through the curtained windows. She tried to recall the dream she had last night, but couldn't seem to recall any. Did she then not dream at all? She flipped the pages of her diary. She had maintained a dream diary ever since she could remember and yet she had nothing to write in it today. All of her last posts spoke of him.

Anamika had met him in her second year at Law school. One rowdy hooligan he was, always hanging by at the bus stop with his usual gang of cronies. He had an air of some gang leader about him. But one fine day he had decided to come and talk to her. May be he wasn't a bad person after all. Slowly feelings changed and she found herself falling for him. Was this what was called "made for each other"?

But shit happened. They got separated due to her work reasons. She was really upset about it and blamed herself for it, but he made her see reason. The first few months were unbearable but she got used to it. She would actually wait the whole day just so that she could hear his voice or one message from him would set her alive. But an LDR is not called bad for any reason. The frequency of him calling/messaging decreased slowly over time. He used to come to meet her once a month but later even that became a rarity. She knew that no amount of time and distance could shake her feelings for him but did he feel the same? For almost two years they hadn't met at all. Things were different now.

She looked at her hand. The diamond set in her ring was glinting in the early morning light. She was engaged now. She hoped he had acted sooner. It would have saved her a lot of pain. But she was happy now. Her fiance was still asleep. She closed the diary with a sigh. The Diary of Dreams.

She got up and quietly went towards the kitchen. Breakfast in Bed seemed a good thing.

The Memoirs of a Relatioship

May 19th:

He stared down at the blank page open in his diary. He scratched his head with his pen and then took the diary up in his hands. A small smile played on his lips. He slowly crossed over from the desk and flopped down on the bed, switching on the bed side lamp as he went. Today he would rather read the diary rather than write in it. He started flipping through the pages and came to stop at a random page. A single torn page was carefully folded in here. He took out the torn page, now yellowed with time and carefully opened it. A drop of tear momentarily appeared at the corner of his eyes before falling down on his lap. The page was a torn fragment from another diary, her diary.
Shobhit had met her when he was in his third year in Dental college. A cute little doll she was then, always so meek and eyes that spoke so much. He liked her from the moment he laid eyes on her. He used to hang out after college just to get a glimpse of her. Soon bravery found him and he mustered enough courage to go and talk to her. Time passed and friendship turned into a relationship. They seemed so "made for each other". He was in love.
Eventually he landed a job in Bangalore and had to go away. Promises were made and tears were shed. The first year went smooth. They used to talk and text a lot. He would even take out time to visit her once a month. Slowly even that died out. He had learnt to bear the pain and so did she too he hoped. Now it had been 2 years that they had met. He had decided that it was about that he made his final decision. He would pay her one last visit. This was one month ago.
Shaking himself out of the flash back he had gone into, he re-read the page again. She was a dreamer, that one. A couple kissing at the Eiffel Tower. He recalled that she also liked roaming around a lot. Her dream was a world tour. Dreamer indeed. He stole a look at the now sleeping figure of his wife-to-be. Smiling down at the page now, he wiped away the second drop of tear. He was happy to have taken that decision a month back. He carefully placed the torn page at the last entry in the diary. May 19th:, he looked at the blank page again. The he slowly closed the diary and momentarily held it in his hands. The Memoirs of a Relationship.
Putting it aside he switched off the bed lamp, kissed the now fast asleep form next to him and went to sleep.

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.