22nd December 2013 birthday of wife of my second cousin , its 2:32 AM and this story desired being penned while the mood is of deep melancholy and despair, so be it.

Yesterday I and my cousin, who is visiting me after about an year, decided to taste some designer delicacies while mother announced that tomorrow is birthday of his wife. It was already 10pm so we made a mental note of getting flowers and a cake to celebrate.

We reached the place of out choice by 10:30 PM and had our fill , some beer and a lot of other nameless delicacies cooked on order. We were in hurry as we had to pick flowers and the cake so I left my credit card at the place in hurry - First accident.

We drove to city center about 25 km from where we were and looked for flowers or bouquets but none of the shops were found open. We tried our luck at a three star hotel nearby the center of the buzz, but there was no hospitality staff for the time being to cater to such request.

So, in utmost dismay and despair, we called all the prime hotels and inquired about availability of chocolate cake and a bouquet but we were turned down , either the call was not answered or the sorry voice informed us about unavailability of such possibility at that hour. In the meantime my second cousin called his wife and wished her a happy birthday only to learn that her brother had called a minute ago to inform her about a cake and flowers he had sent to their place, which is about 1000km away. Suddenly the doom clock rang 12 in our mind.

I decided to do the walk-in and try my persuasive capabilities rather calling hotels, we drove 30 km back to Piccadilly and somehow persuaded the hospitality staff to lend us one stick of rose and two sticks of gladiolus so that we could at-least have something for the bouquet, they happily gave in and we had a makeshift bouquet by 1 AM.

Cake was still a mystery, we drove 35 kms again to the Taj and I engaged in a life ,death and love discussion with the F&B manager, He finally agreed to open the cash register on request and we hunted for a cake which turned out to be a chocolate cake.

Next ordeal was to write the birthday wish and her name on it, a makeshift cream cone did the job but gave up midway , still Happy Birthday was somehow managed to be written on the cake.

A 30 km drive back home and all the adrenaline rush ended when she refused to wake up and even acknowledge the birthday wishes. A heartbroken husband went to sleep and an irritated 2nd cousin came up here to write about it.

She will never realize what we went through just to bring her a little happiness, but the night surely brought us one understanding .. which I leave for the reader to understand for him/her self.

$The image is actual flowers we could manage.

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