Author: rahul

The history of the baby frog…….

Once upon a time there was a bunch of baby frogs….

… participating in a
competition.
The target was to get to the top of a high tower.

A crowd of people had gathered to observe the race and encourage the
participants…..

The start shot rang out…….

Quite honestly:
None of the onlookers believed that the baby frogs could actually
accomplish getting to the top of the tower.
Words like:
“Åh, it’s too difficult!!!
They’ll never reach the top.”
or:
“Not a chance… the tower is too high!”

One by one some of the baby frogs fell off…
…Except those who fastly climbed higher and higher..

The crowd kept on yelling:
“It’s too difficult. Nobody is going to make it!”

More baby frogs became tired and gave up…
…But one kept going higher and higher…..
He was not about giving up!

At the end everybody had given up, except the one determined to reach the top!
All the other participants naturally wanted to know how he had managed
to do what none of the others had been able to do!

One competitor asked the winner, what was his secret?

The truth was…….
The winner was deaf!!!!

The lesson to be learned:

Don’t ever listen to people who are negative and pessimistic…
…they will deprive you of your loveliest dreams and wishes you carry
in your heart!
Always be aware of the power of words, as everything you hear and read
will interfere with your actions!

Therefore:
Always stay…

POSITIVE!

And most of all:
Turn a deaf ear when people tell you, that you cannot achieve your dreams!

Always believe:
You can make it!

In the wake of the Tsunami and the multiple earthquakes following it, the
following article may be quite helpful to read … and pass on.

EXTRACT FROM DOUG COPP’S ARTICLE ON THE “TRIANGLE OF LIFE”,
Edited by Larry Linn for MAA Safety Committee brief on 4/13/04.

My name is Doug Copp. I am the Rescue Chief and Disaster Manager of the
American Rescue Team
International (ARTI), the world’s most experienced rescue team. The
information in this article will save lives in an earthquake. I have
crawled inside 875 collapsed buildings, worked with rescue teams from 60
countries, founded rescue teams in several countries, and I am a member of
many rescue teams from many countries. I was the United Nations expert in
Disaster Mitigation for two years. I have worked at every major disaster in
the world since 1985, except for simultaneous disasters.

In 1996 we made a film which proved my survival methodology to be correct.
The Turkish Federal
Government, City of Istanbul, University of Istanbul Case Productions and
ARTI cooperated to film this practical, scientific test. We collapsed a
school and a home with 20 mannequins inside. Ten mannequins did “duck and
cover,” and ten mannequins I used in my “triangle of life” survival method.
After the simulated earthquake collapse we crawled through the rubble and
entered the building to film and document the results. The film, in which I
practiced my survival techniques under directly observable, scientific
conditions, relevant to building collapse, showed there would have been
zero percent survival for those doing duck and cover. There would likely
have been 100 percent survivability for people using my method of the
“triangle of life.” This film has been seen by millions of viewers on
television in Turkey and the rest of Europe, and it was seen in the USA,
Canada and Latin America on the TV program Real TV. The first building I
ever crawled inside of was a
school in Mexico City during the 1985 earthquake. Every child was under
their desk. Every child was
crushed to the thickness of their bones. They could have survived by lying
down next to their desks in the aisles. It was obscene, unnecessary and I
wondered why the children were not in the aisles. I didn’t at the time know
that the children were told to hide under something. Simply stated, when
buildings collapse, the weight of the ceilings falling upon the objects or
furniture inside crushes these objects, leaving a space or void next to
them. This space is what I call the “triangle of life”. The larger the
object, the stronger, the less it will compact. The less the object
compacts, the larger the void, the greater the probability that the person
who is using this void for
safety will not be injured. The next time you watch collapsed buildings, on
television, count the
“triangles” you see formed. They are everywhere. It is the most common
shape, you will see, in a collapsed building. They are everywhere.

TEN TIPS FOR EARTHQUAKE SAFETY
1) Most everyone who simply “ducks and covers” WHEN BUILDINGS COLLAPSE are
crushed to death. People who get under objects, like desks or cars, are
crushed.

2) Cats, dogs and babies often naturally curl up in the fetal position. You
should too in an earthquake. It is a natural safety/survival instinct. You
can survive in a smaller void. Get next to an object, next to a sofa, next
to a large bulky object that will compress slightly but leave a void next
to it.

3) Wooden buildings are the safest type of construction to be in during an
earthquake. Wood is
flexible and moves with the force of the earthquake. If the wooden building
does collapse, large survival voids are created. Also, the wooden building
has less concentrated, crushing weight. Brick buildings will break into
individual bricks. Bricks will cause many injuries but less squashed bodies
than concrete slabs.

4) If you are in bed during the night and an earthquake occurs, simply roll
off the bed. A safe
void will exist around the bed. Hotels can achieve a much greater survival
rate in earthquakes, simply by posting a sign on the back of the door of
every room telling occupants to lie down on the floor, next to the bottom
of the bed during an earthquake.

5) If an earthquake happens and you cannot easily escape by getting out the
door or window, then lie
down and curl up in the fetal position next to a sofa, or large chair.

6) Most everyone who gets under a doorway when buildings collapse is
killed. How? If you stand under
a doorway and the doorjamb falls forward or backward you will be crushed by
the ceiling above. If the door jam falls sideways you will be cut in half
by the doorway. In either case, you will be killed!

7) Never go to the stairs. The stairs have a different “moment of
frequency” (they swing separately from the main part of the building). The
stairs and remainder of the building continuously bump into each other
until structural failure of the stairs takes place. The people who get on
stairs before they fail are chopped up by the stair treads – horribly
mutilated. Even if the building doesn’t collapse, stay away from the
stairs. The stairs are a likely part of the building to be damaged. Even if
the stairs are not collapsed by the earthquake, they may collapse later
when overloaded by fleeing people. They should always be checked for
safety, even when the rest of the building is not damaged.

8) Get Near the Outer Walls Of Buildings Or Outside Of Them If Possible –
It is much better to be near the outside of the building rather than the
interior. The farther inside you are from the outside perimeter of the
building the greater the probability that your escape route will be
blocked;

9) People inside of their vehicles are crushed when the road above falls in
an earthquake and crushes
their vehicles; which is exactly what happened with the slabs between the
decks of the Nimitz Freeway. The victims of the San Francisco earthquake
all stayed inside of their vehicles. They were all killed. They could have
easily survived by getting out and sitting or lying next to their vehicles.
Everyone killed would have survived if they had been able to get out of
their cars and sit or lie next to them. All the crushed cars had voids 3
feet high next to them, except for the cars that had columns fall directly
across them.

10) I discovered, while crawling inside of collapsed newspaper offices and
other offices with a lot of paper, that paper does not compact. Large voids
are found surrounding stacks of paper. Spread the word and save someone¹s
life…

For more info… Please visit http://www.amerrescue.org/

The essence of life….

The first day of school our professor introduced himself and challenged us to get to know someone we didn’t already know. I stood up to look around when a gentle hand
touched my shoulder. I turned around to find a wrinkled, little old lady beaming up at me with a smile that lit up her entire being.

She said, “Hi handsome. My name is Rose.
I’m eighty – seven years old. Can I give you a hug?”

I laughed and enthusiastically responded,
“Of course you may!” and she gave me a giant squeeze.

“Why are you in college at such a young, innocent age?” I asked.

She jokingly replied, “I’m here to meet a rich husband, get married,
have a couple of children, and then retire and travel.”

“No seriously,” I asked. I was curious what may have motivated
her to be taking on this challenge at her age.

“I always dreamed of having a college education and now I’m getting one!” she told me.

After class we walked to the student union building and shared a chocolate milkshake. We became instant friends.

Every day for the next three months we would leave class together and talk nonstop. I was always mesmerized listening to this “time machine” as she shared her wisdom and experience with me.

Over the course of the year, Rose became a campus icon and she easily made friends wherever she went.

She loved to dress up and she reveled in the attention bestowed upon her from the other students. She was living it up.

At the end of the semester we invited Rose to speak at our football banquet. I’ll never forget what she taught us. She was introduced and stepped up to the podium.

As she began to deliver her prepared speech, she dropped her three
by five cards on the floor. Frustrated and a little embarrassed she
leaned into the microphone and simply said “I’m sorry I’m so jittery.
I gave up beer for Lent and this whiskey is killing me! I’ll never get
my speech back in order so let me just tell you what I know.”

As we laughed she cleared her throat and began: “We do not stop
playing because we are old; we grow old because we stop playing.
There are only four secrets to staying young, being happy,
and achieving success.

“You have to laugh and find humor every day.”

“You’ve got to have a dream. When you lose your dreams, you die.
We have so many people walking around who are dead
and don’t even know it!”

“There is a huge difference between growing older and growing up.
If you are nineteen years old and lie in bed for one full year and
don’t do one productive thing, you will turn twenty years old. If I
am eighty-seven years old and stay in bed for a year and never do
anything I will turn eighty-eight. Anybody can grow older. That
doesn’t take any talent or ability. The idea is to grow up by
always finding the opportunity in change.”

“Have no regrets. The elderly usually don’t have regrets for what
we did, but rather for things we did not do. The only people who
fear death are those with regrets.”

She concluded her speech by courageously singing “The Rose.”

She challenged each of us to study the lyrics
and live them out in our daily lives.

At the years end Rose finished the college degree
she had begun all those years ago.

One week after graduation Rose died peacefully in her sleep.

Over two thousand college students attended her funeral in tribute
to the wonderful woman who taught by example that it’s never
too late to be all you can possibly be.

If you have read this, please pass it on to your friends,
family members, and even email friends.
Share this important lesson with them.

GROWING OLDER IS MANDATORY,
GROWING UP IS OPTIONAL.

Soft drinks….killing me softly

Please read this. An interesting piece of information…….
Have a look at the wrapper on a Coca-Cola 1.5 liter bottle and in the
ingredients label you will find phosphoric acid in it. Minute
quantities of ethylene glycol are also used (which is acknowledged
in the soft drink world for making it really chill).
This is popularly known as anti-freeze which prevents water from
freezing at 0 deg C and instead drops it 4-5 degrees with minute
quantities. This chemical is a known slow poison in the caliber of arsenic.

So, if you manage to drink about 4 liters of Coke within an hour or
so, you can die. Read along and give up these dangerous things. Be
natural; have flavored milks, tender coconuts, buttermilk, lassi and
plain water instead of these “soft” drinks. Guess what’s the pH for
soft drinks, e.g. Coke? PH 3.4! This acid ity is strong enough to
dissolve teeth and bones! Our human body stops building bones at the
age of about 30. Softdrinks do not have any nutrition value (in terms
of vitamins & minerals). It is high in sugar content, carbonic acid,
chemicals i.e. colorings etc.
Some like to take cold soft drinks after each meal. Guess what’s the
impact? Our body needs an optimum temperature of 37 degrees Celsius
for digestive enzyme functioning. The temperature of cold soft drinks is
very much below 37 degrees or even close to 0 degrees Celsius. This will
dilute the enzymes & stress the digestive system. The food taken will not
be digested. In fact it will be fermented! The fermented food produces
gases, decays and becomes toxin, gets absorbed by the intestine,
circulates in the blood stream and is carried to the whole body. Hence
toxin is cumulated in other parts of the body, developing into various
diseases.
Think before you drink coke/Pepsi (or any soft drink) again.

Have you ever thought what you drink when you drink an aerated drink?
You gulp down carbon dioxide, when nobody in the world would advise
you to drink CO2. Two months back, there was a competition at Delhi
University “Who could drink the most Coke?” The winner drank 8 bottles
and fainted on the spot-too much CO2 in the blood. Thereafter, the
principal
banned all soft drinks from the college canteen!

While this might have been an extreme measure, their results do
provide some food for thought. Did you know that soft drinks use
chemicals in them that cause immense harm to you. Someone put a broken
tooth in a
bottle of Pepsi and in 10 days it DISSOLVED! Can you believe it? Teeth
and bones are the only human parts that stay intact for years after
death. Imagine what the drink must be doing to your soft intestines
and stomach lining!

Request to all: Forward this message to your friends to increase the
awareness of the great “Assumed soft drinks”.

In a small village not far from the town, lived a poor woman with her four year old son, Tommy. Every day Tommy helped his mother by sweeping the house, washing the dishes, getting the water from the well for their tea. His mother taught him how to make his bed in the morning, and sometimes he prepared the breakfast for himself and his mother.

When Tommy was six, his mother decided he should go to school and this really gave Tommy great joy but he didn’t like leaving his mother alone; but his mother encouraged him to go to school so that he could learn more.

So every morning before Tommy left for school, he did everything like he used to do. This made Tommy late sometimes but it didn’t worry him because he loved his mother very much.

One day, one of To”mmy’s best friends asked him why he used to come to school late. Tommy told him he had to help his mother to clean the house and pick up the rubbish before he left. Tommy’s friend laughed and said, “Your mother is treating you like a servant, she should do all those work by herself and let you come to school so that you won’t be late every day. If I were you, I would ask her to pay you for all the work that you had done.”

Tommy thought that all his friend said was right, so all the way home from school, he was wondering how to let his mother know what he wanted. Finally, an idea came.

Next morning, Tommy woke early, prepared himself and went off wIthout anything to eat, and without doing any work like he used to do; before he left, he put a letter on the table. Mother woke up and found out that there was a big difference in the house – nothing was done, not even his bed, the rubbish was still there, no breakfast etc: She came in the kitchen and saw an envelope on the table, so she sat down and started to read what was written.

Dear Mum,

I realize now that you are treating me like a servant, not as your real son, so I would like you to pay for all the work I have done.

For making my bed every morning $4.00
Sweeping the floor $2.00
Picking up the rubbish $4.00
Getting water from the well $3.00
Preparing breakfast $2.00

The total is $15.00

I want this money when I come home.

Your son Tommy

His mother could hardly see anything, her eyes were full of tears and her heart was heavy. After school, Tommy came quickly home, he felt happy that his mother could give what he wanted. When he arrived, he opened the back door quietly and went in, he was very happy when he saw a white envelope on the table; he took it and went inside his room and started to read.

My dear son,

I accepted with much love and joy what you have asked for, but before I give
you the money, I would like to tell you how much I love you.

I carried you in my womb for nine months – no charge
Washed and clothed you – no charge
Fed you – no charge
Cared and watched over you nights and days when you were sick – no charge
Took you to school – no charge

So when I add them all up the full cost of my love is – no charge

At that moment, the door opened and mother came in to give the money to Tommy, but Tommy was crying and trying to say something.

His mother said, “My dear son, are you not satisfied with the money I am giving you? I am really sorry, you know I am very poor so that’s all I could afford.”

Tommy came and knelt in front of his mother and told her that he was sorry, and he had been influenced by his friend. So starting from that time, Tommy and his mother once again lived happily together.

So always have an unconditional love as the love has no charge.

It was a lovely December morning in the hottest city in the world. All right, so that was a little unfair. Chennai is not the hottest city in the world. But it certainly is the city with the most uncomfortable weather among the cities that I have lived in and I’ve been around. But I digress.

I was in the company bus on my way to work, as usual trying to catch up with my sleep. On this particular day, a girl got on the bus, came to my seat and sat down. “Good Morning,” she said. I looked back at her through half closed eyes, replied “Good Night,” and then proceeded to return to my half hour nap before the bus reached the office. Unfortunately, I was woken up by a punch in the arm.

“Wake up, bozo!” She was looking at me with a big smile on her face. “I’m not sitting next to you to listen to you snore.”

Half-heartedly, I opened my eyes and turned to her. “What’s up?” I asked.

Preeti Mehra was tall, good-looking and slightly tomboyish. She was also my best buddy. “Come on,” she said. “Don’t look so disappointed. You’d rather sleep than talk to me?”

“I talk to you everyday, Preeti.”

“You also sleep everyday.”

“It’s not enough.”

“So you’ve had enough of talking to me, eh?”

You can’t argue with a statement like that, so I had to give up. I grinned and said, “OK, sweetheart. What’s on your mind?”

“I wanted to tell you what happened yesterday. Can you guess?”

“Anurag called you last night.”

“How did you know?” She was stunned.

“Oh, he asked me for your number yesterday.”

“And you gave it to him?”

“What else could I do? And stop complaining. You’ve been drooling over him for weeks now. He must have thought he had a chance.”

Preeti was the kind of girl who would openly ogle at every other guy she saw. Yet, she would not respond to any advances of a romantic nature. She would happily join a group of boys to go to a cricket match, but if asked out to a movie, dinner, or even coffee, she would never say yes. She defined ‘Hard-To-Get’.

“You like putting me in these situations, don’t you?” she said.

“No. That is not true. I love putting you in these situations!”

That invited another punch in the arm.

I had known Preeti for a year. We would tell each other about our joys and our sorrows, our victories and our defeats. I would tell her about all my crushes and she would scold me for being silly. She would drag me to classical music concerts and I would add them to the list of things she ‘owed me’ for.

Though I never let it show, I must say that she punched pretty hard.

~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~

It was 12:00 am and my phone was ringing. “Hello,” I said, as I picked it up.

“Happy Birthday!” It was she.

“You’re supposed to throw me a surprise party, sweetheart. Not just call to say Happy Birthday.”

“Well then open your door, dumbo!”

So I did and found her, cell-phone in hand, at my doorstep — with what seemed like half the population of my company. My roommates were supposed to be working late that night. Now I knew why.

I blew many candles (seemed like much more than 25), cut my cake, got kicked in the behind, and got painted with the cake’s icing. If Preeti had had her way, she would probably have preferred to use a paintbrush and a can of paint. But I bribed her with a copy of the book “Lord of the Rings”. She had borrowed it from me three times already. I thought it was about time I gave her a copy for herself.

We chatted for an hour after everyone had gone. “I think it’s time I left,” she said finally, trying to stifle a yawn. I nodded. I dropped her home in my roommate’s car. As she was getting out of the car, I stopped her.

“Hey, Preeti.”

“What?”

“Thanks.”

“Hey, don’t get senti on me now!” she smiled. “Are you trying to worm out of that gift you promised me?”

“You know, it’s interesting how I’m getting you a gift on my birthday.”

“That’s just because you’re stupid,” she grinned. “And you better get me that book, or I won’t return your copy.”

“Hey, that copy was a gift to me from my dear friend Preeti Mehra. I can’t let you keep that.”

She was not falling for that. “Your dear friend? And what about me? Am I not dear to you?”

“Very smart. That will not work with me. I am not one of your Love Crazy suitors. Why do you need the book anyway? You’ve read it umpteen times already.”

“That is beside the point. You are getting me the book. We both know that.” She smiled that wide confident smile of hers. “Good night.” And she got out of the car.

I sat there for some time, just thinking. Our conversations were always like this, a little joking, a little teasing and a lot of demanding. But somehow, I felt that something had changed since the moment she had turned up at my door that night. I was still in my reverie when a paper ball landed on the windshield. I craned my neck out of the window and looked up. She was standing in her balcony.

“What are you still doing there?” she whispered loudly.

“Waiting for you to start a paper-ball fight,” I whispered back.

“We can do that tomorrow. Go home now. It’s way past your bedtime!”

“Ok, mommy,” I grinned back. “I’m going home now!”

~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~

I am an extravagant gift-giver, and it is definitely going to be my downfall some day. I made her wait for it, but finally bought her the book. That, and half-a-dozen other omnibus collections of various authors, including a copy each of `The Complete Works of Shakespeare’ and `The Complete Short Stories of Charles Dickens’. All I got for it was an “I told you so.”

I started spending a lot of time at her place after that. Mostly because I wanted to read all those books, and she would not lend them to me.

“I’m not as stupid as you, ape-man. I am not falling into the same trap I laid for you. Plus, you dog-ear your books. You are not doing that to these masterpieces. So if you want to read them, you read them here. And if you want to mark your place, use a bookmark.”

So that’s what I did. She would even make me wash my hands before I touched the books. It was as if they were sacred.

“Need I remind you that it was me that bought you the books in the first place? For my birthday!”

“So? They’re mine now.”

“Well, then. I have been meaning to ask you this for a long time. Where exactly is my birthday gift?”

“It was in your tummy at one point of time. It’s probably been washed into the sea by now.”

“Huh?”

“Remember the cake I baked you on your birthday?”

“You what? You can’t bake cakes!” That was a mistake. She looked hurt. “You baked me a cake?” She did not say a word. She just shrugged.

I was stunned. “But you never told me.”

“You didn’t ask.” That was typical of her.

“It was fantastic! And you wasted most of the icing on me!”

“The cake was for you, dumbo.”

“How long did it take you to make the whole thing?” It had been a two-layered vanilla-chocolate cake with three flavors of very creamy icing. She had done all that!

“Well, the chocolate cake took an hour and fifteen minutes, and so did the vanilla. Then cutting them up and putting them together took another 15 minutes. Each flavor of icing took 20 minutes for preparation, and then putting it on the cake took another half hour. Cleaning up the mess took an hour.”

She seldom claimed the credit for anything, but once she started bragging, there was no stopping her. However, I was not thinking about that right then.

“You spent over five hours on that cake?”

“A little over four hours preparing it, and an hour cleaning up. Yes.”

I was speechless. I did not know how to react. She hated cooking.

“I forgot to mention,” She continued, “the hours I spent the week before that, practicing. Even the birds wouldn’t touch the first three cakes!”

I could not help but ask. “Why?”

“Because the first one got burnt, the second one was only half cooked, and in the third one, I forgot to add sugar.”

It was just like her, to try to divert the conversation. “I mean why did you spend so much time on baking me a cake?”

She looked at me like I’d asked her why the sun rises in the east. “For your birthday, stupid. Of course, I also wanted to beat every gift you’ve ever got me. Try beating this one.” She was grinning like she’d won the world championship.

As far as I was concerned, she had. I had never spent a week making her anything. I had never even spent an hour making her anything. Getting her a gift normally involved me taking her to the store, letting her choose and use my credit card. Suddenly, I felt cheap. “Thanks,” was the only thing I could say. “Thanks a lot.”

“Hey. Are you getting senti on me again?”

I was.

~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~

I was still mulling over my feelings for Preeti the next day at work when my boss asked to speak to me.

I went over to his cabin and he started with the usual greetings, asking how work was going and whether I was comfortable. He then told me that the company wanted to send me to New York for a couple of years. Normally, this would not have made much of a difference to me. I could work anywhere and did not have too much love for visiting places foreign. But right then, the first thought that came to me was that I’d be away from Preeti for two whole years. Twenty-four hours before, I’d have been disappointed to lose her company. But right then, I was devastated. That was when I knew I was in love with her. I had had crushes before. Lots of them. But this was different.

“Do you have any problem in going?” my boss asked, since I hadn’t responded.

“Not really,” I replied. What else could I say? That I was in love, and couldn’t bear the separation?

“When do I have to leave?”

I had a month.

~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~

“Wow! New York! Great! I have heard it is a fantastic city! Did you know it snows there in winter?” Preeti was obviously very excited about my going. She did not seem to share my disappointment on what I now saw as ‘separation’.

I had not decided then if I was going to tell her how I felt. We had known each other for a little over a year, and we were very close, but beyond some mild flirting, the relationship had never got even close to romantic. That was, of course, until I found out she had spent a week baking me a cake. It is funny how small things seem to make such a big difference.

“What happened?” she asked. “You don’t seem very happy.”

“Oh,” I replied, “it’s just that it’s so sudden, that’s all. And you know I was never all that interested in going to America.”

“What an idiot. Go see the place. I’ve heard the women there are amazingly beautiful.” She had a sly smile on her face. I wanted to tell her I did not care if I laid my eyes on another woman again, if she was not with me. But I didn’t.

I realized that I only had another month with her. She had rejected every guy who’d asked her out ever since I’d known her. I did not want the same to happen to me, and I did not want to make it awkward between us. I did not want to risk that month. I wanted it to be the best time I had ever spent with her. After I came back from the US, I might not even get to meet her again. Two years was a long time.

We ate out almost every night. We visited some of the best restaurants in the city. She also helped me shop for warm clothes, formalwear, shoes, toothpaste and a million things I would never have thought of on my own.

“You need to buy a nail-cutter.” My roommates and I shared one.

“I’ve prepared a list of must-have medicines that you should carry.”

“Your iron won’t work in the US. No point buying one here as you need one that works at a hundred and ten volts and has flat pins. You can buy one at a K-Mart or Wal-Mart as soon as you get there.”

“You need at least two pairs of formal shoes and at least ten pairs of dark socks. The East Coast has a formal dress code. And you won’t do your laundry more than once a week or two.”

“How many ties do you have? And which trousers do your blazers go with?”

“Better get a haircut before you leave from here. Knowing you, you’ll postpone the first haircut for too long.”

She would call me up at one in the morning to tell me to add ‘one more item’ to my list.

And with every passing day, I was falling more deeply in love with her.

The month swept by quickly. The day I was supposed to leave, I asked her to come with me to the airport. “Of course, dumbo. You think I’d let you go just like that, or what?”

After packing my bags for me and checking the lists for the hundredth time, she finally pronounced me “Good to go.”

We reached the airport four hours early to beat the rush, because it was an international flight. She got a visitor’s pass to sit in the waiting area while I went ahead and checked-in my bags. Preeti had got a spring balance from somewhere and so we knew my bags were well within the weight limit. I finished the formalities and came to sit with her. We had only a few hours before I had to go for my security-check. We decided to get something to eat at the food court. And all the time, the one thing that was going through my head was that, after this, I wouldn’t see her for at least another two years.

“Hey, Champ. Why so glum?” She saved ‘Champ’ for special days. Normally, it was just ‘dumbo’, ‘bozo’, ‘ape-man’, ‘matchstick man’, ‘weirdo’, or if she was very irritated with me, ‘nutcase’.

“I don’t want to go,” I said.

“I don’t want you to go either.”

“No, you don’t understand.” I could not hold it in any longer. “I can’t stand the thought of living without you by my side.”

She stared at me. There was a strange look in her eyes. I could not read it.

“I am madly in love with you, Preeti.”

At this, a sound escaped her lips that sounded like a cross between a sob and a laugh. “Well, dumbo, you’ve picked an absolutely fabulous time to tell me about it!”

A tear escaped her eyes. It was all I could do to stop myself from wiping it off her cheeks.

“How long have you felt this way?” She seemed amused, though she was definitely crying. I did not know what to make of it.

“From the day I found out you had baked me a cake.”

She laughed. “That’s all it took? Well, bozo, I guess a way to a man’s heart is certainly through his stomach! Hold it. A month? You waited a month? You were the one who kept saying that if you really liked a girl you wouldn’t waste a day in telling her!” She was smiling widely now. It looked funny, with her eyes all wet.

“Well, I was confused. How did I know how you would react? In fact, I still do not understand your reaction. I thought it would change things between us. You’ve rejected every guy who ever proposed to you!”

“That’s because I’m in love with you, you overgrown idiot!”

“What?” Somehow, I had never expected her to say that. She was in love with me? “How long have you been in love with me?”

“Ever since the day you offered to carry my suitcase for me.”

“But that was the first day I met you!”

“I guess I was always a sucker for chivalry.”

“All this time you’ve been in love with me and you never said anything! Then you go and complain that I waited a month!”

“You guys are so bad at reading a girl’s mind.”

“You women are so good at keeping your thoughts a secret! Even Einstein couldn’t figure you out.”

“Einstein was a nerd. Casanova, on the other hand, understood us very well.”

“I love you.”

“I know.”

That moment, my dear friends, was magic. I looked into her eyes and took her hands in mine. Physical contact for us had been limited, until then, to a punch in the arm, a slap on the back of the head, or giving each other a ‘high five’.

“You realize, don’t you,” she said, “that this is our first date?” Leave it to her to notice the little things.

“I really don’t want to go.” I had always maintained that love is a bucketful of emotions. I was not exactly delighted to be proved right.

“Don’t worry. I’m coming there in a couple of months.”

“How? On a dependent visa?”

She laughed. “For that, I’ll have to wait, won’t I? I’ve got a project in New Jersey.”

I could not believe my ears. “What? When did that happen? You never even told me!”

“Well, I wasn’t sure you’d propose before you left. And I couldn’t exactly sacrifice you to those New York women, could I? I had to watch out for myself. So I went on a project-hunting spree. There is an opportunity coming up for a project in about two months. Someone is coming back to India, so I will be taking his place. They want me there for a little less than two years.” She was beaming. “I realized I had struck gold!”

“And if I’d not told you how I felt? When were you planning on telling me about it?”

“Around a month before I reached there. I had to make it look natural. Or you’d think I was desperate.”

“Well, you are desperate!” This was incredible. All I had done in the past month had been to mope around, listen to sad songs and write her letters that I never intended her to read. “You’ve been scheming all this while! How come you didn’t lay a trap for me a year ago?”

“I tried giving you hints, dumbo, but you just wouldn’t pay attention!” She was laughing. “You’re the only guy I ever spent any time with. Wasn’t that a big enough hint?”

That was true. She would happily join a group of boys to go to a cricket match, but I now realized, only if I was one of them.

“What if I had rejected you?” I was extremely flattered that she had been crazy about me for a year. My ego was swelling.

“You must be kidding!” she was clearly amused. “I get proposed to every few days. You are the one who’s been rejected more times in the last year than I can count on two pairs of hands!”

She really knew how to burst my bubble.

“Hey,” she said softly, “don’t look so dejected. I said ‘Yes’, didn’t I?”

I grinned. “Yes, you did. And you’ve made me a very happy man. But you know what would make me even happier?”

“What?”

“If you learn to cook as good as you bake cakes.”

So she punched me in the arm again.

~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~