Can a Valentine day be better than this?

Can a day be better than this? <3

Heads up to my future life partner, ‘It’s very difficult for you to give me a better Valentine’s day than this’.

A huge strawberry peach citrus cupcake, given by my colleague started my Valentine's day eve. I reached home and started packing for the Valentine weekend trip to Chicago. I was meeting my friends for a long weekend. I made pink color, flower-shaped cookies, coated with chocolate icing, the before day. I put all those cookies in separate zip lock covers. Thought of adding a love note popped up in my mind. I grabbed the construction papers from the craft treasury of my cupboard. In reddish-pink paper, I cut few hearts and wrote a separate note for each one.

I was arranging things in the carry-on and the ringtone distracted me. My mom was calling from India. I was doing my daily conversation with her and told the plan for my trip.

‘Vanga anna’ my mom welcomed. I heard her on the other end welcoming someone. I was waiting to know who it was. She told ‘Iron anna has come’ (Iron anna is a person who irons clothes and do dry-washing for us). I usually call him Iron Uncle. He used to have his mobile ironing vehicle in front of our home.

As I was an inactive kid during my childhood, I lingered all day along the balcony, seeing the flight that crosses for every 15 mins, wondering how the Jasmin buds’ of balcony climbers blooms at night, touching the rust that was clinging along with the grills of balcony and watching the way Iron Uncle follows for changing the burning coal in the iron box.

During those days my grandmother cooked everyday meals extra than required for the household. My granny doesn’t preserve food for a week as we do in America. She always gives food to regular street vendors and iron uncle. Uncle used to get a portion of every meal in a plate lined with banana leaf. She always cared for him like a person in our family. That was an uncommon habit to do because at that time the lower and upper caste difference was present in the society. Criticisms were given for her act of offering food, from others. She just ignored it and remained the same.

If I was at home, it was my responsibility to give a plate of meal to him. I always saw a sense of happiness and gratitude of thanks overflowing in his eyes on seeing every meal. Granny often offered him some juices to nullify the heat he was experiencing from burning sun and coal. His household was struggling hard for a daily meal. To him, a sparsely available three-course meal was a luxury meal. He sometimes saved that for his kids. I grew up doing this for 20 years. Now things have changed. The house we lived in is renovated, his mobile ironing vehicle has moved to a different location and my grandmother is no more. I heard that he was completely depressed after she expired.

‘Do you want to talk to him? Can you switch to video call?’ My mom asked me.

‘Sure’ I said, and I switched.

I was going to talk to him after a year. I had a similar video call almost a year back. My mom told that his health was bad a month ago. I wanted to check with him, and that was the reason behind my acceptance video call. I asked normal questions about the health and wealth of himself and his family. His eyes portrayed me with a sense of sadness, and I knew that was because of my grandmother. Its been 2 years and he hasn’t overcome it. Neither me. We didn’t talk anything to each other about it directly.

I told, ‘Uncle, everything will be changing. We have to get adapted to it’.

‘Yes yes’, he just uttered for name's sake and I saw tears were slowly building in his eyes. He tried to hide it and switched the topic. Even I felt better because I was afraid that I would cry.

‘How are you ma? Are you living alone?’ he asked me finally.

‘Yes Uncle, I started cooking. I will come to India and cook for you. Probably this year I would be coming’ I told.

The moment I said I am cooking, and I will cook for you, he broke into tears. He somehow tilted the camera angle to avoid the presentation of his tears. The call got over by not crying face to face.

Love is all about the caring bond which we have towards others. I doubt whether anyone can have the love he has towards my family and me. His love is unconditional and without expectation. I am not having conversations with him regularly or providing economical support to him or we don't have any blood relationship. We both are not dependent on each other to care. But still, he loves me in the same way, as he did 20 years ago.

Caste or color or race or gender or class nothing can steal the love from us. Love is unconditional!

That’s how my day started...