Acknowledging romance

For quite some time I have been feeling as if romance is non-existent in my life. But before zeroing in on this feeling, I wanted to do reality check. So I started my journey in reverse gear.

Being infected by Raj Kapoor-Nargis movie romance in early childhood, Guru Dutt style shadow romance and Jagjit Singhs’ ghazal flowing in my veins, I already had my frame of romance fixed in front of me in my teens. I refused to delete this frame even in my twenties. And thirty today is new twenty.

Enter Harsh Vardhan Singh Rana. Very blunt, he cracks rude jokes but amazing sense of humour. Heart of Gold (now I know, then I didn’t).

He stood by me when I needed votes to prove my point in a fiery discussion with a friend concerning “To be fearful of God or not”. I am not gonna discuss it here. (Marriage makes your faith in God stronger day by day. You know what I mean). That day I got to know that he is also God loving, not God fearing, that we have similar beliefs. I never acknowledged, but yes for me that moment was romantic.

I didn’t feel the romance when he sat in my car that evening and said, “I will drop you home” and came back 18 Kms walking in the middle of the night. I actually felt bad for the poor guy, but refused to see the romance there. It wasn’t a part of my FRAME. But today I know it was very romantic.

I never thought of it or expected that he will ask me for a date. He anyways is very different from regular guys. Of course I was shocked when he asked me “Can I take you out for dinner tonight?” I refused to even acknowledge it as a dinner date. Because it wasn’t in that special way as I always dreamt of. I wasn’t dressed my best, I was smelling like an office file and we had very little time in hand. But the way he made me feel special, despite of all this, was very special, very romantic.

I wanted that moment to be very special when The person says I love you.
I forced him to be my salsa dance partner. And during a class, when I was practicing my steps with him chanting 123 567, in the same flow he said I love you-I love you. Not giving me any time to react and didn’t even let me miss my step. That was romantic.

He never proposed me in style (You know what I mean, flowers, ring, romantic place, etc).

In fact he never proposed me. We were going back to our respective places, he had kick start is bike, when he said, “haan to shaadi kar lete hai. Mummy nahi manengi, par koi baat nahi. Mridula Harshvardhan achchha lagega. So decided we are getting married.” And he left me standstill. Nothing romantic about it, but today I use his name as my last name, as he suggested. This is romance.

He doesn’t like to get wet in rain. And thats the 1st thing I can think of when its raining. There is a big NO from him whenever I want to get wet in rain. But that evening, he said, “Okay, Go, Get drenched, achchhi barish ho rahi hai”. And he kept looking at me standing there. That rain was special, that moment was romantic.

In all these unromantic situations, where I found my unusual romance, my vintage frame got lost somewhere. I am happy to lose it. Because now I have the freedom to create my own romantic moments. Harsh in his unique style, but unknowingly have deleted the frame from my thought process.

But I still love it when Guru Dutt-Mala Sinha moves like a dream and sing “ Hum aapki aankhon mein, iss dil ko basa dein to”. When Shammi Kapoor- Sharmila tagore sings “Isharon-isharon mein dil lene wale”. Or when Bharat Bhushan is singing remembering Madhubala “Zindagi bhar nahi bhoolegi wo barsat ki raat, ek anjan haseena se mulaqat ki raat”. And when he and I sing," Rimjhim gire sawan, sulag-sulag jaye mann"

There are times when I don’t see what is there, because I am too busy chasing what I want. But I want to stop and feel the rain, smell my old diary pages, write a few more poetries, acknowledge more people in my life.

Today I stopped to do what I wanted to do. Acknowledging romance in my life.

Acknowledgment series part 1.