by Sangeetha Narayan

Created on: January 25, 2008

GIRLFRIENDS ROCK!

Valentine's Day holds so many memories for me that it is hard to talk about only one of them. I remember my first valentine celebration as a teenager. I lived in a girl's hostel in India. The first year of our hostel life was spent in getting to know each other. It was a new atmosphere with different personalities and it took us an entire year to form real bonds. So, celebrating or having fun in any occasion wasn't entirely our priority. But, by he second year, bonds had been established and all of us felt very comfortable with each other. By that year, we began to learn about those western occasions such as Valentine's Day.

I remember the excitement all of us felt at least a couple of days before the happy occasion. Our entire hostel was decorated by all of us. We pretty much decorated for all occasions - birthdays, , Christmas, New Year, and even Valentine's Day. I was responsible for making cards for all rooms and sticking it to every door, the night before. It was a simple card with the words, "LOVE IS IN THE AIR! CATCH IT IF YOU CAN!", and lots of heart shapes all over the card! I felt very proud that I could come up with those sentences all by myself (probably lifted it up from some magazine that I must've read somewhere, but who cared?).

Valentine's day dawned bright and cheerful. The second anybody opened their eyes, I was right beside them wishing them a Happy Valentine's Day. Some cheerfully wished me back, while other late sleepers who had just momentarily opened their eyes with no intention of waking up that early just groaned something in their half-asleep and half-awake state, but that was good enough for me. Nothing or nobody, not even grumpy girls could spoil my mood that day - or so I thought!

What I hadn't realized or probably didn't want to realize was that some of my hostel mates had such amazing boyfriends! So, when a huge bouquet of red roses arrived at our hostel, at 7:00a.m., I was in for a huge shock. The bouquet found its way to its rightful owner and I could hear the exclamations from one of the rooms. With the passing of every minute, over the next one hour, I saw at least 3 bouquets, and four huge gift-wrapped boxes make its way to one room after another. By 8:00a.m. of Valentine's day, I'd lost all my enthusiasm and cheer for celebrating this wonderful day!

Why, you ask? Haven't you heard of a thing called jealousy? Well, the monster had bit me big time, and I couldn't bear the thought that there was no such sweet

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