Creative write up for the post of reporter in The Fifth Estate in my freshie year.
No one could believe their ears when they heard that Bollywood star Sanjay Dutt popped the all important “question of life and wife” to Manyata near the gusty beach of Goa. However, no one was able to give the minute details of this uncanny proposal even though many of his close friends claimed to be physically present at the venue.
The art of proposing, right from the time man realised the need for a better half, has come a long way. In the olden days, people especially women used to embroider the first alphabet of the name of their lovers at the corner of their sparkling white handkerchiefs.
Five decades later, in around 1980’s, handkerchiefs made way for some phoren ideas, thanks to the infiltration of Angrezi Junta. Chocolate Fantasy, cards, tiny invisible pendants could be spotted with the Roadside Romeos waiting to give out their hearts to any girl passing by.
Who says that the scientists and the artists are the only creative and innovative people in this world? When it comes to the proposal, a lover can be as artistic as a painter, ready to experiment and make his love lady experience something entirely different which she will never forget in her lifetime. A surprise candle light romantic dinner at the beach or a movie night out of the best romantic movies of the world or a short trip to The City of Love, Paris. So that at the end, when the man finally goes down on his knees holding the dazzling ring in his hand and pops the question, there is nothing left for the lady of the occasion to say anything but “YES”.
Then there are some who want to declare their love with the whole world excitedly witnessing their audacious proposals. We have seen many movies and heard of innumerable instances where the hero jumps into the football field or the basket ball court at the half time and shouts out “ ABC, WILL YOU MARRY ME ?” like a maniac. Meanwhile the flashboards, instead of scores, will start displaying his 20 minutes long proposal which will include lines like “You are my life, you are my music blah blah blah….”. As for the lady in question, she does not know to react and simply stands amidst the crowd gaping at her boyfriend with her mouth wide open or runs away as fast as she can.
One of my friends narrated the following incident which took place in one of the schools in Slovakia. Exams were going on. The top student of a particular grade had finished her paper and was going through it when suddenly the guy sitting in front of her turned back and thrust a cheat code into her hands. She was completely taken aback but luckily the examiner had gone out of the room a while ago. She was about to hit that person when the girl sitting right beside her gave her another cheat code. And in the next few minutes, the topper‘s desk was full of cheat codes, one from every student sitting in that class and everybody had gathered around her desk. Somebody shouted” Open them”. Badly shaking, the girl opened all the chat codes one by one but they all had only single words written on them like IS, WILL etc. Confused, she looked up to find no one but her boyfriend standing at the door and smiling at her. He told her to arrange the chits in a sensible manner and when she finally did, she was on cloud nine.
In another instance, some hundreds of people held torches powered by Duracell to create a huge virtual billboard displaying “WILL YOU BE MY LIFEPARTNER FOR THE LIFETIME?” for their common friend who wanted to propose in a different manner.
A proposal, at the end, is just means to express your feelings in a unique style. What survives till the end is true love even if it isn’t preceded by an unforgettable proposal. Our mind is an infinite arena of imagination. So who knows what people will come up with tomorrow?
Sohini Sarkar 