Love Poetry on Valentine's Day

Today is Valentine's Day. Today is the day when love flows more freely than water out of a municipal tap. Today, couples around the globe express their unconditional love to each other.

As for me, the sworn singleton and the blissful Champion of Indifference, today was just to be another normal, no-fuss day. I had brought home some work from office and had been feverishly typing away on the laptop , getting a particularly stubborn piece of code to work. My style of coding is similar to a trainer trying to tame a dog. The trainer keeps yelling away "Sit doggie, stand doggie... Doggie, handshake" ... and the doggie casually looks away, wags
its tail, pees on the adjacent lamp-post and goes to sleep. Thats how code behaves with software engineers like me.

Knock-knock Knock-knock. The sudden knocking on the door rudely interrupted me from my coding pleasure. Knock-knock-knock. The knocking grew more incessant. Irritated, I put my laptop aside, went up to door, and opened it. At the door stood two strange men/creatures who looked something like this.

"Yes?" I asked quizzically. "Who do you want?"

No answer.

"I said what do you want, who are you?"

No answer again. I was beginning to get irritated.

"Are you a kabadiwala (guy who collects thrash) or something? Or are you here to sell credit-cards? " I asked, hoping to get some reply.

"My name is Valentine... Saint Valentine" said the old guy, slowly.

"Excuse me?" I blurted out. I thought I didn't hear properly. "Who did you say you were?"

"St. Valentine. " the old man repeated.

"St. Valentine, who?" I asked, unsure

"The man after whom Valentine's Day is named and celebrated. I am the man who made Feb 14 famous" said the old man. He had a confident air about himself that was impossible to miss.

" Ooooh... that Valentine" I exclaimed in surprise. " But err... would you still mind if I see some identification please?" I asked.

The old man whipped out his driver's license, a ration card and a voter's card. All bore his name & address - Mr. Saint Valentine, Rome, Italy.

"Wow, so nice to meet you Mr. err. St. Valentine" I said. " But I thought you were dead!?"

"Oh no, I am very much alive" the man said, shaking his head. "It's just that I was in hiding"

"Why?" I asked, unable to understand.

"Too much publicity" he remarked. "I dont like publicity one bit. If I show up too much, then Archies Gallery will start pestering me to be their brand ambassador"

"Oooohh... " I said, enlightened.

I then looked at the other creature next to him

"Who the heck is that, I mean what is that..... tooth fairy??" I asked, pointing at the creature

"That is Cupid" replied Valentine.

"Excuse me? What? Stupid...?"

"He is Cupid" said Valentine. " He is from Italy too... He is the Roman God of Love. A buddy of mine... we often hang out and have pizza together"

"God of Love, eh?... I see... That explains his wings. But what is he doing with a bow and arrow? Discarded from the national archery team or something? " I asked, unable to hide my sarcasm

"The bow and arrow... " explained St. Valentine "... is his symbol, his weapon. He uses the borrow and arrow to spread love"

"How?" I asked

" Nothing special. He just aims his bow and arrow at a person and shoots it to inspire and arouse erotic love in that person" said St. Valentine

"Erotic love? Ha ha ha ha ha ha. We have a fancy porn industry out here to arouse erotic love. Why does he want to keep shooting arrows at people?" I said, bursting into an uncontrollable laugh

"Not just erotic love, fool" said Valentine in a serious tone. " But even the simple, non-sex love too"

"Oh, I see... But pardon me, what's with his attire? I mean, why is he wearing a thong? Is he gay or something" I asked

"Shut up. Not another word against my friend. And no, he is not gay" replied St. Valentine

I kept silent. It had been a puzzling last ten minutes for me to speak more.

"Now aren't you going to let us in?" said Valentine, breaking the silence. "Or are we gonna do all the talking at the door" ?

I ushered them into my room, getting more puzzled by the minute. Being the ever-gracious Indian host, I even ordered some pizzas from Pizza-Hut to keep their Italian taste buds happy. In between all the munching and drinking , we shared interesting bits of conversations... some of which I am highlighting below.

St. Valentine: "Nice Pizza you guys have"

Me: " I am glad you liked it, Saint"

St. Valentine: "Yeah. The topping is fab. What's this thing, paneer, eh? Delicious"

Me: "Ummm... hmmm"

"So, Parikshith... do you know why the two of us are here at your apartment?"

"You never told me"

"We'll tell you. But first, do you realize what day is it today?"

"Yep. It's Feb 14th. Valentine's Day"

"Ahem! Do you realize what you should be doing on Valentine's Day?"

"Oh I am so sorry... Happy Birthday to you... Happy birthday to you.. Happy B'day dear Valent"

"Cut it, idiot. It's not my birthday today"

"Oh ok. What do you think I should be doing on this day, then?"

"Take a look around, young man. Look outside your window. You will find couples deeply in love and painting the town pink and red. There's love all around. There are roses, balloons and ribbons everywhere"

"Yeah. Even the garbage dump would smell of love today."

"And look at you. You are cooped up inside this room and working on that dumb computer project of yours. I mean, what is that stuff anyway.... Java? .Net? VC++ ?

"Neither. It is COBOL"

"Ha ha ha ha ha... COBOL? Ha ha ha ha... They still use COBOL? Ha ha ha ha. I mean, they've been using COBOL every since I was in my nappies... ha ha ha ha"

"Do not poke fun at my livelihood"

"Ha ha.. OK, I'm sorry. So the point is you are sitting locked inside your room on Feb 14th"

"What else do you want me to do? And why the hell are you guys here anyway?"

"Me and Cupid have come here to make you fall in love"

"What???!!!"

"Yes. We want you to fall in love. That is our mission of coming here"

"Are you serious?"

"What, you think we came half way across the globe to kid ourselves? Plus, we came by a British Airways flight. You realize how painful that is? They misplaced all our baggage. They had misplaced Cupid's bow-and-arrow too. But we were determined to come here and meet you"

"To make me fall in love?"

"Yes, to make you fall in love"

So it had come down to this. I had never believed or been in real love for the 25 years of my life and then one fine day, I find these two ambassadors of romance hell-bent on making me fall in love. Anyway, the conversation continued...

St. Valentine: "Do you feel no love, young man? Look into your heart and tell me what do you see?"

Me: "Arteries, veins, ventricles, auricles and lots of blood. If you want more details, then I need to have an endoscopy done."

St. Valentine: "Never mind. So tell me. Is there anyone you like? Anyone special you have in your sights?

Me: "Ummm... yeah... there is this girl. But no love-schmove. Heck, I have not even spoken to her. I see her everyday in the bus. She's pretty, she's got beautiful hair and this really big pair of err.... eyes. "

St. Valentine: "Perfect!"

Me: "Perfect, what?"

"She's gotta be the one for you, Parikshith."

"Heck no. There's nothing...I mean I dont love her or anything. "

"You leave that to us"

"Shit"

"Don't worry. Now lets see, how do you express your feeling. What special talent do you have?"

"I play excellent table-tennis. And I can eat noodles using 4 forks simultaneously"

"Shut up. Oh yes, I got it. You write decently. Why don't you write her a love poem?"

"Write her a love poem? Have you gone completely mad? "

"Not at all. Write her a beautiful, mushy, romantic love poem. Buy some tiny ,red heart-shaped cushions.... And a little teddy bear, lots of lovely chocolates. Gift wrap all of them together and give it to her"

"Err... wouldn't she gift-wrap her chappal to me in return? "

"No. She won't. Let us be optimistic. Now write the poem"

"Write a love poem.Yeah right. You think I am a mushy adolescent? I am frickin' 25 now"

"Why not? Why not think like an adolescent and let the love flow?"

"Adolescence was the time when I thought that the beauty of a girl was directly proportional to the size of her boobs and inversely proportional to the length of her skirt"

"Ha ha, you pervert. Don't you believe the same even now?"

"Oh no no... Not at all. I am all grown up now. I have learnt to respect women and all that..."

"Anyway, don't digress from the issue. Write the love poem"

"Damn you. Ok fine I'll write it. What next, you want me to do prior literature survey by reading Mills & Boons?

"Not needed. You have it in you to write."

"And who will convey my letter of love to her? Will you give it to her?"

"I am St. Valentine, for Christ's sake... not an American Express courier boy. But anyway, yours is a special case. So I will ask Cupid to hand over the letter to your girl"

"Ok. Wow. Thank you... I mean, I am honored that you've come all the way from North Pole to do this for me"

" I don't come from North Pole, you moron, Santa Claus does. Anyway you better start writing the poem now. If you waste one more minute, I will ask Cupid to shoot an arrow straight up your ass"

So now it had come down to this. I was supposed ( or rather threatened) to write romantic poetry straight from my heart to woo the girl. With a sigh, I stared penning the poem. I've tried my best and I believe I have put in true, warm and genuine feelings of love. I am sharing the poem that I wrote, with all of you. Have a look at it:

I sit here, putting words to paper
To express my love to thee
I don't know why the heck I'm doing it
When I could've downloaded e-cards for free.

Maybe I love your smile
Maybe I love your eyes
Or maybe it's your posterior
Or the lovely, shapely thighs

You lend a helping hand
You lead a caring life
When Mary had a little lamb,
Weren't you the midwife?

My heart is beaten to pulp
My soul smashed to smithereens
I shed tears for you
Sometimes aided by glycerine.

With me you stay, night and day
Joys will be plus, sorrows will be minus
I promise I'll keep trouble away
Just like Norton anti-virus

My pockets are empty
I so wish I could buy you a rose
But my horse just lost the Derby
At the darned, stupid race-course

My love will grow on you
Slowly into your heart I will encroach
I will cuddle up to you, I will snuggle up to you
Just like a cute little baby cockroach

You'll have my undivided attention
For you I will long, care and wait
But not today honey, the match is on
Oh darn! India is 134 for 8

Do you love me too?
Do you find me handsome?
Please say yes, please say yes
This gay archer has held me to ransom

Into the sunset let us walk
Letting out a carefree hum
Sing a song, both together
Dum-titi..... dum-titi...... Titi-titi-dum!

That is it. I had written my first ode to love. I held up the piece of paper and triumphantly handed it over to St. Valentine to get his feedback. He took one look at it, stared up Heavenwards, let out a yelping scream and fell down to the ground unconscious. I dont know whether it was due to de-hydration or if it had something to do with my poem. Anyway let me try to revive the Saint and find out. Meanwhile, on his behalf, I would like to wish everybody a "HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY"

With Love, literally,

Parry.