The last rose

The wilted rose lies in my closet, dry n forlorn it stares at me , recalling and revisiting  the last twenty two valentine days. 

Back in 98,few months after our betrothal , as I was coming out exhausted n knackered  after an arduous24 hrs duty in labour room as a first year pg,  I found my valentine coyly waiting near the parking lot ,propped  against his proud posession ,the black Lml vespa NV. His handsome mien,cutting a dash in a black leather jacket , white shirt  and jeans and of course  the angelic smile that was his permanent companion, was in stark contrast  to my fatigued,frumpy and groggy visage. I stifled my yawn and faked a smile,oblivious of the day it was. As he took out the solitary rose festooned with a red silken ribbon and swathed in a transparent paper with tiny red hearts dappled over it..My sullen and fatigued face morphed into an elated and vivified one..It was my first valentine ,a precious one.The wall flower kind of person he was, he didn't express much,but the dazzling rose in his hand spoke volume s of affection and tomes of romance.The shoe string budget made any material gift a miss but who cared for the gift? This was followed by a cup of joe in the Nescafe kiosk inside the hospital campus.The fragrance of the rose ,the aroma of the coffee and the suaveness of my prince charming remains pinned to the wall of memory till date.

As we added years to our marital life, the subsequent valentine's became a bit ornate and opulent, the rose was now accompanied by a gold pendant with' R ' inscribed over it,and in subsequent years  ,I was a proud possessor of all forms of r s. The italic,capital and small .With more dough flowing in,pendants and rings were replaced by diamond jewels ,and Nescafe kiosk was replaced by swanky and spruced up restaurants and hotels. Lml vespa had seen better days by now and a groovy car took it's place .So ,gradually the day became an ostentatious affair,but the solitary rose remained the same,bedecked in the same way as the first one.

14 th feb 20,as we left for our work, he slipped behind the wheels ,took a halt at florist and got the quintessial valentine rose draped in finery and handed it over to me ---the car comes to a grinding halt near an ATM ,and lo! I find a wad of rustling ,shiny 20,000 rs in my hand,that was for shopping at Suraj kund Mela in Faridabad,which I had planned to go that day with my cousins.And I pampered myself with a panoply of gifts ,least realising that this was going to be the last one..

The last rose may be dry n wilted now but the memories shall remain fresh ,fragrant and frescoed in my heart till we meet again