CARD-SHARP! And what happens in the case of couples who have busy professional lives that takes them or one of them away from home a lot? Enter cards, phone calls and SMS.
Manna Shetty, is a self-confessed, true-blue romantic. "Sure, in the early stages, you do the candlelight dinners and stuff, but after marriage, your roles and responsibilities change. But that doesn’t mean the romance goes away... it just takes on a different form. It’s the small, everyday things... an unexpected card, an SMS message in the middle of the day, that sort of thing", she says.
"Every year, on her birthday, their wedding anniversary and Valentine’s Day, Sunil goes out to the store Eternia at Breach Candy, Mumbai, and buys the most amazing cards. The store now knows on which day he’s going to show up", she says with a laugh. "And I have all the cards he’s given me over the last 20 years!"
And what are some of the romantic things he’s done? "Well, one year on my birthday, we went out, and when we came back home, the house was full of flowers, and my birthday present was sitting there, wrapped and waiting for me. He’s also thrown a surprise party for me, where he had invited my whole gang!"
LOVE ME? SMS ME Aditi Govitrikar says she is a ‘classic romantic’. "I believe romance is about the candlelight dinners and flowers and stuff. But you have to consciously make time for romance. You can’t let it slip away. And when the need to connect takes over, anything can happen".
Her husband has surprised her with a beautiful cruise through the backwaters of Kerala. "It was really wonderful", she says.
"The important thing is that you don’t take each other for granted. Even if we’re apart, we stay in touch by calls, SMS messages... these unexpected things show the other person that they are in your thoughts, and that’s a special feeling".