Bittersweet Symphony

Vivek, Immm-possible, you never had a girlfriend? Aren’t you the guy everyone calls Casanova?

Yes, déjà vu… Been there heard that. Get that stuff loads of time. Yes! I am celebrating 20 years of freedom! That’s one thing my experience as a cupid for friends has taught me. Then again every astrologer or saintly person I end up seeing on my India visits have this thing about me being successful and the next sentence saying, beware of girls!!!! God knows if that’s the else clause of an ‘if’ statement, but lets leave out the technicalities. Yes, so why doesn’t Shah have a girl? He is tall, he is dark, he is …. Nah, still have to work on the handsome partJ, but satisfy 2/3^rd of the required qualities of the knight in shining armour. Good enough!

Rule 1 in my textbook: I am too nice to break a girl’s heart.

That doesn’t mean I am going to say yes to you girls for not wanting to break your hearts, but there is something called lesser evil, better give lil hurt now than a bigger one later on. If I can’t give back as much as you can, why risk our friendship. I am ready to give in everything you would want out of that relationship, a shoulder and lot more, except that formal tag. So, a guy who loves befriending girls, flirts with them, hears a couple of ILUs, but doesn’t go out. Hmmm… Don’t they call those types a Casanova? But unlike that categorization, I have a heart. I know how difficult it is to stand up and tell someone you like them, I applaud that courage, and it means a lot to me, but cut out the formal tag, it causes more heartburn than vice versa.

My bonding with girls? This goes a long way back to the prep (aka upper kindergarten). Having struggled with Sharjah govt’s rigid educational policies which indirectly led to May borns like me ending up one year late in CBSE schools, ended up in a O’ level school. Life seemed okay, though guys wouldn’t talk to me but call me names. They had this hierarchical order where the leader was the boss and I had been given his sitting place in class and so the enmity began. Sounds childish but then we were kids back then. I am then shifted to 1^st grade skipping prep, to be with people my age. Doesn’t work out, Arabic being my woe because this was midway through the year and people had moved on to words while I didn’t even know the alphabets, lands me back to prep. Boycotted by the boys, the only people who talked to me apart from my senior friends were the girls in class. Must be sympathy vote but it counted. Heard that “no man is an island” years later. That leader dude left next year and the guys suddenly started talking to me, and in a few years time we were the best of friends. Though they still don’t know what got into them for not talking to me except the brainwash their cool leader had given them. That mystery won’t get solved, but I know I had an entire gender to thank for giving company to a lonely newcomer to school. That’s past memory lane.

So hormones kick in and I am straight, but why no girlfriend? I have one answer, I believe in girl friends rather than girlfriends. Or in other words, have to meet someone who can blow me away : ) Till then, I’ll be your best friend and everything else as long as you don’t give it a formal tag. Ain’t no robot but I ain’t into Hallmark plastic love stories.

Rule 2: Let her make the first move.

They speak of equality, I am cool with that, but equality everywhere, from making first move, to keeping buffet tables open to all, because the ladies always finish the salad before the guys can make it. I am a guy who thinks a lot, so unless you make an obvious first moves, I am going to act blank because I have a wild imagination, and can’t let it make assumptions in the real world : ) So I keep them all stuffed up, until the other person makes the first moves, so then I can think about it. Makes life so much more simpler rather than destroying flowers with the “She loves me, loves me not” syndrome.

And yes, I haven’t closed the door on anyone, coz like SRK in DTPH or any of those candyfloss Hindi movies, I know the cupid would come knocking in any shape and size, though it would be great if it was 6 feet, Russian and played tennis or/and a supermodel.

Oh, and arranged marriages isn’t an archaic idea is it? Coz I heard gujju girls rock J though my tryst with bharatmatrimony started off too early. Some Vivek Shah out there decided to fill in my yahoo id and voila, a couple of girls are already interested in nuptials!!! I still want to see their faces when I replied back I was in 10^th grade!!

The cupid strikes his arrows like a machine gun

Waiting for me to take the bait and watch the fun.

Heartless notch earning Casanova I aint,

Nor am I a mala japofying Godly saint.

The right one will come knocking at my doors

Wouldn’t mind if she was from the Corrs

Wanna timepass with me,

Will do so with glee

But tell me beforehand

Or watch our friendship buried in sand

Want a shoulder to support you

With great camaderie, that I shall do

And yeah, live with the fact

That I follow a frank & diplomatic tact

So take it on the face value what I say

Though sarcasm is also my usual way

So the thumb rule to follow around me

I wouldn’t even hurt my enemy,

Don’t give me not so obvious signs

They are worse than hidden landmines.

But it aint all cotton candy in there

Devil too has his share J

So good and naughty like yin and yang

Let our relationship rock on with a BIG BANG!