Just... Love...

While watching a 2004 movie, 50 first dates, I marveled at the power of true love. The movie centers around Drew Barrymore who suffers from short term memory loss, and Adam Sandler who is her much in love suitor. While Barrymore forgets all she learns on a given day (she begins her next day with an empty slate!), Sandler is in love with her and tries everything to make her re-remember him once she gets up in the morning. This endeavor results in him taking her on daily dates, which are always first dates for her, but just another in a series of events for him. It would have been very easy for him to just give up and move on… but of course he persevered, to give the delightful movie a happy ending.
It is said that to find company for Friday night is easy, what is tough is to find the right someone to spend the whole Saturday with, and that too, week after week, year after year…!!!

True love, affection and care come in many forms. They can be seen in parents who always go that extra mile to give their children the best. They can be seen in that teacher who goes beyond what is expected from him/her and nurture a student. I still remember how my English teacher sent me a guide book for grammar a few days before my 10th Standard English Board Exam. I studied harder after I understood the belief she had in me and I did top my batch in English that year… Thank You Ma’am…!

I consider myself fortunate to have made the best of friends in my life… The time I wanted to purchase a laptop, I was completely unaware about the recent configurations, etc… In fact, I wasn’t even sure that I wanted to make the investment…! But this friend of my came with me to all the major computer showrooms day after day till I made up my mind about what I wanted and from where. Till date I believe, had it not been for him, I might still have been dilly-dallying on whether to buy a laptop or not… ;-).

An incident I once witnessed comes to my mind… I was travelling in the general compartment of a local train one Sunday evening. Opposite to where I was sitting I noticed a young couple. The girl was looking ill and was in tears. She was resting her head on the guy’s shoulder and he was trying his best to make her feel comfortable, considering the crowd in the compartment. Soon it was time for them to get down. The guy got up and so did the girl, with much support from her partner. There was a huge crowd of people waiting to get down at the next station and hence, the couple ended up standing in the passage itself.

A few minutes to the station I saw that the girl was on the verge of puking. She was trying to control herself, given that she was nowhere near the door and would end up creating a mess in the train if she puked. People who noticed her state soon started moving away from her path, lest she loses control. Suddenly, the poor girl, already in tears, started retching, right in the passage, and what do I see…? Her partner cupped his hands under her face, so that she ended up using his cupped palms as a makeshift wash basin…!!!

Gross… right? But what came to my mind immediately after the ewww… feeling subsided was that the guy had no qualms in doing what he did so as to give a little comfort to his partner… he saved the girl from the despair of not being able to vent herself in the packed compartment. Later, he very graciously accepted the newspapers and tissues I handed him to wipe his palms with, all the time with a reassuring smile on his face towards his partner… To this date, even months after the incident, it still remains vivid in my mind, as an example of true love.

This valentine’s I want to thank each and every person who has loved, cared and nurtured me throughout… Parents, teachers, friends… and if you are reading this, it means you too are a part of that list. Thanks a lot, for being there…!!!