memories of one Valentine's ~ surprizezunltd

I think this was in the year 2010, precisely, the eve of Valentine's Day, i.e. 13th of February. I was in Mumbai, just my usual visit to get out of the not-so-happening life of Vadodara. The plan was to catch the morning chair car back to Vadodara for the Valentine's, till then party and chill in Mumbai with my friends. So, it was Saturday night and we were partying all night. My train was at 6 am on Sunday morning,a nd it was my then best friend's boy friend's idea to party the entire night and then drop me at the Bandra station the next morning. Initially we were 4 of us; that included my friend, her boyfriend, their male friend and me. By about 9 pm in the night my sister called me up, telling me that she had no plans for that night, so she also wanted to join us. Generally, I and my friend avoid including my sister in our fun parties, simply because she is too girly girly kinds. I mean she gets mean at times, at times nice and entirely predictable, so in short she is a complete girlie. Also, she has the tendency to break into those random tantrums of hers, because of which we always have to change our plans according to hers, or at times even have to drop all the party plans and simply suck at home. So, everyone gave me a face when I welcomed her to be a part of our party that night. Obviously afterwards, I pleaded and assured everyone that all will be fine tonight, she has grown up now and I went on with all those silly support statements, which I do not even remember today. She came over to our place, from there we all went into some disc, I think Firangipani at Andheri (W).

All of us partied hard and were all having fun. I kept reminding my friend's boyfriend to not make large pegs for me, because I had a train to catch like in few hours. And he kept assuring me with bigger OF COURSES, bigger than the portions of drinks he was making for me. After the club got shut at around 1:30 am, we all headed to our home. My sister's bag was at our place, so we first reached our home to pick that up, but do not remember today who among us switched on the T.V. Well, there was the English "Wanted" playing on it, and since all of us are die hard fans of both Bollywood and Hollywood movies by that name, we all ended up watching that movie. All of us were so high; we did not even bother to shut the main door. It must have been after an hour that I realised that my younger sister was sleeping on the bare floor; I woke her up and also woke up the other guy. Since he was the one who was only a beer drinker, I asked him to accompany me in dropping my sister to her home. Luckily she stayed nearby, and also because of the lack of traffic at that hour; we dropped her safely to her place and came back to our flat, all in one piece.

Time was 4 am by then, I knew it was a tricky time to be awake and drunk at the same time, of course I had to be at the station in next 2 hours. But since I was feeling so sleepy, I asked my friend's boy friend to wake up and stay up with me. A nice reliable boy who he is, he asked me to take rest for at least 1 hour. He made sense to me, since I had a journey to make, and it could be dangerous to sleep like a drunkard in the train in front of so many strangers. Also, he assured me that he would stay awake and ensured that he would set an alarm for 5 am to wake me up, and would also come along with me to drop me at the station. Somehow I trust gentlemen at times, so I trusted him and succumbed over to toxins induced slumber.

I woke up fresh at 7 am and that was the end of my happiness. I panicked and started shouting. The realization that I had missed my train that left the city 2 hours back and because of that I would not be able to meet my husband on the Valentine's made me so so sad. I was about to weep when I realized that this would have been once in our lifetime when we could not be with each other. The moment this thought came to my mind, I got all energized and opened up the notebook that was lying in one corner of the room under a heap of dirty clothes. I got on with my research skills and found a number of a cab services in the city. The opportunity of catching another train that could drop me to my city on time was all exhausted, so a private cab was the most suitable option available. By then my best friend had woken up, I updated her on the entire story of her boy friend being an irresponsible friend, and we both girls kicked him. He was so deep in sleep that he did not even move, we both then got back to our task of calling up the cabbie, whom I had just short-listed. She gave me the option of spending another day with them, but if it was not for the 14th of February, I surely would have stayed back.

The cab guy turned out to be real prompt, he showed up at my place within half an hour, I jumped into the cab immediately so as to not waste any more time in reaching my destination. I negotiated with the cab driver to drop me off to Surat in 3 hours, because I could only afford the expensive journey till there. I then called up one of my facebook friend who stayed in Surat. He was more than happy to receive a random call from me. He was nice enough to book a train ticket for me from Surat to Vadodara in the evening. So, that way I could spend time in Surat with him and then could catch a train to my city in the evening; leaving me time to have dinner with my only husband.

I was happy that the driver arrived on time, I was relaxed finally. I wanted to catch on a quick nap, but the realization that I was alone in the car with an unknown man on unknown roads made me alert and I was all up to sit straight. The guy only broke the ice between us by asking me if we could halt somewhere for tea. By then I was also itching to have my cuppa, and then I initiated a conversation with the guy. I admitted to him that I ended up missing my train, though I did not reveal to him the reason for the miss. I also told him that I did not have the cash amount in full to pay him, but could do it the moment we reach Surat through the first ATM that we would come across in the city.

While getting into a conversation with him I got to know that he was a nice person, who is hard working, honest and respects women. I also got to know that he owns 2 taxis and gets informed from a particular agent about customers who want to travel for more than 4 hours in a day. So, then he gets to keep 75% of the payment from the customers, and the rest is the commission for the person who gets him the clients from the Internet or his personal network or from anywhere. And there I popped up to help that man. I took all the details from him and created an ad for him in the Just Dial and also shared his number among all my friends as the most reliable and safe cab driver who can vrooom you up to your destination in no time.

Well after paying him for transporting me from Mumbai to Surat, I bid him an adieu and we both parted. I was then greeted by my Facebook friend whom I was meeting for the first time in my life. We both went to see the movie "My Name is Khan" which was so cliched and so Shahrukhanite that I urged him to leave the multiplex. He was feeling embarrassed in exiting among all the jam packed audience filled theatre, but since I have practised it many a times before, so I just asked him to follow me. We both left the multiplex premises and came out laughing and giggling.

Then we passed our time loitering around in the cafes in the city, well what else one can do in a place like Surat?? He then dropped me at the station and I boarded my train, and when I reached Vadodara station, there my husband was waiting for his wife to surprise her on the Valentine's. He did surprise me when he asked me how did I manage to make it?? I was like why I would not? He then told me that he had anticipated that I would not wake up on time and hence would end up missing the train. He therefore, had called me several times in the morning, and every time I would attend to his call and reply "yes, sure" and then would hang up. So he was damn sure that this Valentine's day we would be celebrating solo. But he was happy and also worried that I would somehow make it on time, and he cannot always thank the destiny for safeguarding his wife with strangers all the time.

I am sharing the facebookprofile of the cab driver, for whom I am so happy. Today his earnings have multiplied all because he started dealing with the customers directly. Co-incidentally, today he is the only facebook friend among all the friends/characters who are mentioned in this story. All of them are neither friends in real life nor on the facebook, except of course my husband and sister (we again added each other a week back, for the 5th time, LOL)