On Another Valentine’s Day

The jogging tracks of the Sports Complex were deserted in the morning, except for a few die-hard morning walkers who braved it out in the particularly foggy morning and a Sunday....off and on a silhouette would emerge from out of nowhere.... It was quite cold today, brrrr.... who would have thought that in the middle of February it would be so cold and foggy.......a fellow morning walker taking the anti-clockwise route as I trudge along clock-wise....few familiar faces... hint of a smile or a nod in acknowledgement......my hands deep in the wind-cheater pockets that I wore over my jogging suit...




I try to walk faster...chilly wind against my face... but my gaits are small... my steps not fast enough, reflective of my general laid back attitude...in no particular hurry to reach a destination or to compete......people overtake me invariably and casually in my clock-wise track......people who don’t seem to really try very hard to walk fast...they walk normally, sometimes in two’s and three’s, talking amongst themselves....people walk with the earphones glued to ears listening to music...or they talk incessantly over the cell... totally engrossed....I wonder always what is it they talk about?



I prefer to walk alone, at my pace, it is my only me-time. As I walk, I think about life, future, country, people, ....random stray thoughts criss-cross my mind in no particular pattern... Today’s Valentine’s day? What’s so great? Rose Day, Teddy day, Hugs day ... eeks....rampant commercialisation of a tender emotion....yet how the people lap it up... creates stress among the youth who do not have a special someone....they are made to feel inadequate, is it fair?.......just exhibitionism.........scratch the surface of the professed love....hollow inside... like those heart shaped balloons..........shey!!!


I hear soft voices ahead of me...have seen this rather odd couple off and on...they walk anti clock-wise... the man, salt and pepper hair, tall and stately..with the characteristic military moustache, and a woman ,diminutive, salt and pepper cropped head, in a Salwar suit and a sweater...walking unsteadily, swaying from side to side with her affected gait......head bobbling a little...eyes not totally focussed... the man was speaking to the woman very tenderly in hindi..... ‘see you have walked 100 meters already, you can do it.... , just another 100 meters, dear.....I am with you... think you feel cold?...as you walk, you will feel warm”,
 .......then I hear a shout of laughter...a young girl with loads of spotted bangles, that characterise a newly married girl, jogging with her new husband... they were racing with each other in the jogging track in fog...teasing each other and laughing all the while... had no eyes for anyone else but for each other...they kind of brushed past the older couple...the woman almost fell, but the man was very quick to hold her fall, ‘nothing to worry dear’, he said, ‘I am here’ ever so softly....and then I had crossed them...



I had a sudden lump in my throat...... two distinct phases of love that I saw unfold in the course of one morning during a routine morning walk...on a Valentine’s day....a Sunday....