Is Romance still alive?

On the eve of Valentine's Day, I think it behooves me to write about romance. A and I had plenty of romance, philmy shtyle, back when we were dating. I broke up with someone else to date him, we faced plenty of opposition and got married on the eve of running away, in a manner of speaking. I remember the days that we used to work late so we could hang out, then mush along to Rodeo for their nachos and salsa. We wrote each other funny notes and dropped them on each other's tables ( this was the age before gtalk and IM). Once in a while he hid my shoes (I had a habit of kicking them off and walking around office barefoot) so I couldn't leave. Sometimes he'd walk me home ( before he bought a car) through India Gate and I got serenaded with 'Bade acche lagte hain...' We almost got arrested for hanging out on the central park in CP one summer evening - we were just loitering to chat, I swear! We'd go to late night movie shows and hold hands, we'd dance through the night at the popular nightclubs..It was quite funny. We tried to keep our romance a secret but it was as if we had a giant magnet attached to us surgically - we couldn't go anywhere without bumping into someone from the office. We eventually grew to be so in tune that we could finish each other's sentences or know what the other was thinking without his/ her even uttering a word.

Now that it's all official, the only walks we take are hand in hand with Chubbocks or Puddi. Our singing, except for my friend's music parties, is a line-up of either lullabies or twisted versions of the latest pop hits to catch Chubbocks and Puddi's fancy, with their names or titles woven in, e.g. Puddi ke nakhre pudde lagde...Dancing is again with one of the tinies in tow with me doing an early 'Asha Parekh from Teesri Manzil' imitation. Late night movies...are you kidding? My idea of going out is falling asleep by 9 pm. And we only meet friends ( who are similarly child-challenged) by appointment, none of this running into them stuff.

So is romance quite dead? I think it's definition has changed but I'd hate to think it's given up the ghost altogether. A is still nice enough to bring me flowers when I'm down or we've had a huge fight ( and he's wrong!). It's romantic... to have all four of us snuggle into one bed and fall asleep clutching each other. To be out in the car, all of us singing a mad song. It's romantic that A covers me up at night with all the razais because I'm too lazy and cold to even bother pulling the cold things over myself. When, instead of yelling at me for being a natural-born messer, he organises my clothes into neat piles and hopes I'll put them away sometime. When he indulges my gardening mania and wearily pulls over and lets me buy another few potted plants. Or sits through another of my favourite black-and-white old English romcoms which he hates. When he and I have the same thing in mind...lemme give you my favourite example.

Some time ago, both the kids were heading to the park on a Saturday evening. We had hung out with them all day after a hectic week and were dog-tired. as soon as the kids were out the door, we took one manic look at each other...and I dived for the sofa as he raced upstairs to the bedroom. And the two of us had a peaceful, undisturbed, golden hour of slumber before the monsters came back. Gee, I hope that's my Valentine's Day gift this year!