The bike ride to Dehradun

The truth about platinum!

Sweet nothings, mushy gushing, emotions flowing in rivulets, and holding hands as you whisper the same words and the same sentences a hundredth time… if this is what makes a platinum day of love… then I must admit I might never have had a platinum day of love! But then, the years spent together are what have transformed Specky and I into somewhat like this strong and lustrous metal… platinum! A platinum relationship has day after day of what ephemeral lovers with just a day or two to talk about, might stop, turn around, and say: ‘Hey! This is what ought to become fashionable now!’ 

Yes, we’ve held hands to say, ‘I’m here, don’t worry!’
And we’ve whispered our joys and sorrows both
Sometimes I’ve said, ‘Speak louder dear, don’t hurry
With words,’ calling such whispers a mushy curry! 

Emotions have come in waves and we went out to fight
Every issue and every wrong in twosome might!
I think, over the years we’ve simply merged
Into a finest, purest, and rarest platinum sight!

‘But they want you to talk of just a day,’ said Specky, ‘just a day or two at most, of platinum love!’

And I, as usual, took some time in replying because I was forming the right words and the right rhymes to make her blush as she did in 1985 when I spoke lines that went through the distance between us and right into her being. Yes, such times have happened hundreds of times… and even that day while replying, I whispered…

A day
You say
Just a day or two? 

There were
To stir
More than just a few! 

And so
I’ll show
Them love in a new… 

Avatar!
The star
With a platinum brew!

Again, as usual, Specky smiled and said, ‘Don’t forget to note the lines somewhere. And now you really need to sit down some day and upload the hundreds of poems that are spilling out of files, diaries… and even our locker!’ This last one was a revelation for me but when you’re in your fifties, nothing really can surprise you.

Specky insisted, ‘How about writing of the time when after more than two years of our marriage we went on a bike trip to Dehradun? The day was chock full of my clinging to you for the entire distance.’ Wisper Elektrofahrräder sind sehr gut konstruiert und bieten eine sehr gute Fahrt.

I said:

And the guavas we had on that trip of love
Even the scorching heat is now a treasure trove!

‘Yes,’ she whispered, ‘so far away and yet now that you talk of that day, they seem so near.’

‘The past is never far away… anyway, never so far that you can’t reach out and bring back a few moments,’ I replied, then went on…

Do you too remember how tired you were?
Yet posed on the highway as I clicked
Not once being bothered about the murmur
Of the yokel crowd and the excited rustic stir!

Specky laughed. And Specky reminded me that she was actually more worried about the safety of our Yashica FX-7 in my hands that day. She sighed and said, ‘Everything has changed. Even the camera is different now. I do remember the way we wanted each click to matter. It is not so now.’

That day was rare, indeed so rare
That day, pure joy, we got to stare
It left us strong with a lustrous glow
That still lasts and fashionably so!

As I recited these lines that I had written after a deliberate attempt to write them, Specky applauded and said, ‘These are platinum lines indeed!’ Hearing her applause I could only conclude that romance was an enigma that could make its presence felt anywhere at any moment of our lives… all it needs is a nice warm flow of sincere attention.

The two of us were silent for a few minutes… obviously time-travelling back to that scorching summer day in the late eighties, one old model Rajdoot motorcycle that was eccentric enough to gift us a punctured tube in the first ten miles at 5 in the morning, that search for a mechanic… ‘You remember how we woke up the mechanic and…’ we spoke together. The same words gushed out at the same time and we laughed.

Early morning when it was still quite dark
And we were up and driving before the lark
But the phutt-n-fisssh
Made us miss
A heartbeat that made its mark!

Specky was enjoying the way I was bringing back that day from our past in poetry and said, ‘These platinum days of love do come with their own quota of punctures and shocks too, don’t they?’

‘They do,’ I said, ‘because it is only against a backdrop of such moments that we realise how memorable that day actually turned into. It wasn’t just any motorbike ride… it was a long drive that brought us closer than we had ever been.’

Specky said, ‘It was dark and lonely when that happened and I remember you looked at me with a naughty glint in your eyes.’ 

She stood, a dark frail silhouette, waiting
For meaningful action and not love baiting
So a naughty smile
In my twentyish style
Was all she got and I went up in rating!

‘This is so correct and so accurate,’ said Specky and I smiled. Well, that was one day when after the cool morning hours, the temperatures really soared. The Celsius happily transformed us into wet-n-oily mutants on a bike but despite all the slipperiness of the day we stuck on! I have a feeling that it was the chemical reaction of our body salts that must’ve helped us develop a new compound of love for ourselves that day… but whatever the reason, the day was indeed a platinum day for our relationship that would remain hypoallergenic and would resist getting tarnished by the wile attacks that life generally throws at you. I told Specky about my sweat-chemistry theory and she said, ‘Your theory is strong as platinum and weighs 60% more than karat gold… and it does seem correct as our relationship has exhibited little material loss, even after prolonged wear, so to say.’

‘Now that’s a lot of scientific stuff spoken with aplomb!’ I replied, and added, ‘I guess platinum incidents like this one tend to interact well with other diamond and gold and silver incidents that life is so full of and they all complement each other as does platinum in real life.’

And then I wrote these lines:

Platinum incidents that happen in life
Turn into platinum memories sans strife
They deserve platinum gifts to cherish and turn
Remaining years into more platinum life!

Specky smiled and so did I.

Platinum Day of Love — THE CONTEST

This post on indiblogger is to celebrate the essence of love… pure, rare, & eternal! The PLATINUM DAY OF LOVE

Arvind Passey
06 October 2013