It was a very hectic day for all of us at home. It was the 27th of May, a day for which, each year, as kids all three of us bro, sis and myself would stash away all our pocket money.
Back when we were kids, on the evening of 26th we would pull out all those crumpled notes that had been so carefully tucked away into all unthinkable corners of our house and make a secret expedition to the local supermarket. (Oh! We would simply whistle and tell mom that we were going for a walk … and of course she would know well, but would choose to act appropriately ignorant.) Once there within the air-conditioned, well lit, polished floors of the supermarket, we would go about walking up and down the aisle stopping at every shelf, debating, estimating, recalculating and driving every sales girl crazy, scratching up the wall with our stupid questions. The store owner, a neatly powdered lady in starch stiff sari, in her late 40s would come snooping behind up, just to ensure that we were not there for shop lifting. Three little kids running all around the place inspecting almost every product she had displayed, would drive the old lady nuts. She would conspire and place all her worn out, half dead sales girls at strategic points in the shop to have a birds’ view (naa …. an eagle’s view) over us. But we cared nothing. The whole fiasco would last for about 3 to 4 hours. Well that’s about the time the three of us could be patient in one place on one task, before we get down to blows over small differences in opinions.
Within those few hours we would have “a” task in hand; to buy for mom and dad the most fitting anniversary gift that could be bagged for the all the pocket money we had been collecting all through the year. What we had in our minds never matched what we had in our hands; damn those flashy advertisements that interrupted all those cartoon shows! Finally, when we find ourselves well exhausted we would lay on the counter, all the prospective gift we could buy. Then there would be another round of intense heated discussion to reach a unanimous consensus on the right gifts. With decisions made we would proceed to have the gifts billed. Smirking at the old lady and growling at all the other zombie-like sales girls we would walk out of the store with the gifts in neat plastic bags.
We would then head to the florist’s. With the remaining paltry sum we would go about picking dewy, dainty, delicate flowers and soft colored leaves to make a bouquet back at home. After pulling and plucking at almost every organic stem the florist had in his little red buckets, we would stumble back home all too excited.
Once back, we would go into the master bed room and lock ourselves up, shooing out our highly irritable but sadly ineffective granny from the room. Bustling about gathering small pieces of assorted decoration material and anything of interest and attention we would finally settle down to make a huge anniversary greeting card and a big flower bouquet. Right from leaves, dried up petals, flashy stickers, color pencils, crayons, scissors, glue, etc … everything would conjure up from nowhere. After an eventful span of one hour twenty eight minutes and forty seven seconds we would crawl out of the room shouting out to mom (who would be making dinner by then) to stay away from the fridge … hmmm … to stay put in the kitchen long enough till we tell her that the coast is clear. We would run over to the fridge, make a large clearing in one of the shelves and carefully place the custom made bouquet. (That was our perception of keeping the flowers fresh and beautiful.) With that we would stick a note on the door of the fridge threatening anyone who moves anywhere within a few feet from the fridge. Sometimes we stood guard … till the night’s most important TV show started.
Then when the BIG day arrived, we would wake up nudging each other and roll over on our tummies to plants sleepy kisses on mom’s and dad’s cheeks, wishing them a happy anniversary. After all the initial hugging and thanking we would walk out to the fridge and pull out the bouquet and the greeting card, from the bottom most shelf of the cupboard. Both mom and dad would be amply pleased, with glistening eyes there would be another round of warm hugs and loving kisses.
And these days, when we’re all grown up like buffaloes, we still storm into shops on the 26th of May and go about busying ourselves driving every pathetic store owner creepy mad. The only difference, instead of stashed away pocket money, it is the mindless swishing and swashing of shiny pieces of plastic, our bloody credit cads. Oh!... but the joy still remains the same. Ooooppppssss…. There’s my mom screaming at the top of her voice. I think she’s finally spotted the bill for the cake we ordered for her anniversary. God! I’ve now got to sit through another round of wont-you-ever-grow-up talk show!
