‘Aashiqi sabr-talab aur tamanna betaab
Dil ka kyaa rang karoon khoon-e jigar hone tak.”
– Ghalib

Roughly translated (by somebody else)…
“Love demands patience but lust is relentless,
What to do with the heart till it bleeds to death!”

The two days in a calendar that I dread like the plague are her birthday and our anniversary. Not because I forget them. The school of hard knocks – also called Life – long back has taught me that the easiest way to forget your spouse’s birthday or anniversary is to … simply forget it once!!

The problem is that I am not the one who believes in grand celebrations and gifts and parties and special dinners and all that to celebrate birthdays and anniversaries. A quiet drink together? Yes. But nothing more. I have always marveled at all those Facebook posts I get from my friends with sparkling photos of them surrounded by innumerable friends in dazzling dresses with a cake thrown in here and a candle over there on such special days.

And I have wondered – with no less measure than my marvel – what made them wait for a day decreed by some random Gregorian way of counting an integral number of times of the sun going up and going down repeatedly to show such love. Why not pick a completely random day? Or two days? Heck, how about every day?

If a silver jubilee of a marriage has taught me anything it is that such clinical assessment of sanctity of revolutions of the sun is not going to get me anywhere.

Fearfully, I admit her birthday is around the corner.

I can almost sense the tension growing from the pervious night.

“Will he get me something this year, at last?”, she will wonder, more hopefully than realistically.
“How weird is it that our mind believes that one thing one day somehow outweighs the value everything else done all the other 364 days? Have we all reduced our feelings to Hallmark card templates?”, I will philosophically wonder.

Both quietly.

Both waiting for the storm that is welling up not too far.

I will spare you all the details but the conclusion will not surprise anyone. Somehow I will be at fault. Somewhere, I will get a lecture that I do not care about her.

“But, I was the one who suggested that you go back to India
to be with your mom a month after you came back. It was I who told you that I will take care of the daughter in spite of having a job in a different city. How come that does not count?”
“I did not ask you for that”, she will righteously declare.
“And I was the one who searched online for two days and got you tickets. And arranged for all our travel in India. I even called up the driver to be at the airport to pick you up when you arrive at the dead of the night. How about that?”
“I did not ask you for that”.
“I even went to the extent of arranging you to be at the 24-hour restaurant in a five star hotel so that you can relax, eat and refresh while waiting for daylight so that the driver can take you for the ride home. How about that, huh?”
“I did not ask you for any of that”.

Normally, I would walk away trying to compute how is our brain wired that unasked for events carry less value than the expected-but-not-gotten ones.

Normally, like I said.

Not this time!!!

You see, her Highness after relaxing and refreshing in the aforementioned hotel, messaged me – a full half world and ten and a half hours away to call the driver – who was merely hundred yards away downstairs in the garage to come and pick her up from the lobby.

Might I mention, like always, I did what she asked me to?

I can’t wait to pick her up from the airport on her birthday when she comes back.

With a broad, all-knowing grin and folded arms. (Even I know it would be rude to tap my shoes and go Tut Tut along with that).

But no gifts.

“Did the driver show up when I called him?”, I will ask innocuously.

Ha! Ha! No more of those “I did not ask you to”, this year. Game, set and match.

I have to think about something else for next year now!!

If I am still married.

To the same woman, of course!!!