Rahul Joshi wrote the book on wooing. When Joshi — that’s not his real name — fell in love, he went shopping not for diamonds or roses but for leaves. His beloved got a love letter of 36 huge leaves — palm, banana, canna — and she swooned. Teenagers, you may smile. But Joshi is 27 years old, a successful career manager and as level-headed as they come, except when it comes to romance.

Every year, world-wide Valentine’s Day is driven by hoopla, big bucks and ads blitz. But nothing fires the romantic imagination more powerfully than the art of wooing. Soft toy and heart-shaped balloons are passé; to be a winner in the game of love, you have to demonstrate a sophisticated understanding of courtship rituals. What do women want? And what will men do?

In the past, Cleopatra may have rolled herself up in a carpet to impress Caesar. Not so long ago, the married Meherunissa (later Nur Jahan) was eventually won over by a besotted Jahangir who had earlier dispatched her husband to the battlefront. Jahangir’s open display of adoration — the emperor personally charioted his wife around — provoked one of his generals to remark, “Never,” he said, “has there been a king so subject to the will of his wife.” And a certain English king gave up his throne to win over his reluctant bride.

But the Rahul Joshis of the world now lead the way. And they tell us that, to get a Masters in the Art of Courtship, you have to take the road less travelled. Here’s how:

1 Bungee, nude?
Anindita Dasgupta, Delhi-based arts buff, jokes she has not yet met the man who takes her breath away. “I’d love to have someone do something dramatic like say I love you during a bungee jump.” Dasgupta’s wishful thinking is actual tame compared to what actually happens. Trawling through the Net, one comes across freelance writer Kimberlee Jensen’s take on romantic bungee jumping in the Canadian forests. “For our first Valentine’s Day together, my partner and I wanted our celebration to truly reflect our relationship, so naked tandem bungy (sic) jumping sounded just right.” They jumped, shared a thrilling kiss while dangling in the altogether and when last heard of were contemplating marriage in mid-air — in white, or in the buff.

2 Image magnified
Recent film-school graduate Shabbir Siraj eschewed nature for technology when it came to wooing Mrinalini. Frequent arguments had impaired their relationship, so Siraj pulled out the stops on her birthday. He gave her a 2 foot-high photomosaic of her face. A photo mosaic is a large image made out of a preset grid of hundreds of small images which are automatically arranged to make the big picture look good when seen from a distance. Software then coordinates the selection of photos with similar colours. In other words, 350 images of her face were duplicated over and over again on one main photograph of hers. “The response I got was phenomenal,” grins Siraj.

3 High horse
When all else fails, call for the stallion. Among the more flamboyant tales that is recounted in a Mumbai-college is one that goes thus: Many years ago, a love-crazed youth trotted 15 kilometers on a horse, from his home to the college of his obsession and proposed to her. One does not know what she said but it is believed the suitor was one of the scions of a party given to moral policing.

4 Gifts galore
Gautam Allahabadi, scriptwriter and advertising creative, once put up 21 life-size posters, scattered flower petals (“no money to buy flowers!”) along the staircase and parked himself outside the apartment building of a pretty classmate on her 21st birthday. The girl wilted. Some of his more bizarre efforts were not as successful.

Another time he got the supermarket staff to barrage his girlfriend with free gifts. “There is a thin line between being irritating and charming,” says Gautam who philosophically admits to having erred on the side of the former. He got short shrift from a girl he took to the movies, and then sat one seat apart saying her BO was too strong.

5 Over the top works
“Women love gestures that show effort on the man’s part,” says the CEO of an organic food company. “It’s not how much money you spend.” His success in wooing women lay through tracing paper placed on a photocopied photograph of the woman concerned. Etched lightly on the translucent paper were the words “You are always on my mind.”

6 State the obvious
Sometimes the direct way works best, says the CEO. How many men walk up to a good-looking woman and tell her she is looking good, he asks.

7 Follow the formula
Flowers, diamonds and candle-lit dinners, of course, are the tried and tested ways of wooing. And in desperate times they sometimes deliver. What would Asutosh Khanna, CEO, Greyworldwide , India , have done without Gershwin? Many years ago, Punita Chaddha was on the verge of calling it quits, convinced that there were too many differences between her boyfriend and her.

Then, on the drive back home, the boyfriend turned on the volume: “You like potato and I like potahto, You like tomato and I like tomahto, Potato, potahto, Tomato, tomahto, Let’s call the whole thing off…(But oh), if we ever part, then that might break my heart,” the songster crooned.

“That was the only way I could think of telling her that differences did not matter,” says Khanna. Chaddha added Khanna to her name, and their romance is still going strong, decades later.