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Jab We Met: 'I knew I'd marry her right then!'

Last updated on: February 4, 2010 17:58 IST

As part of our Valentine's Day celebrations, we invited readers to write in telling us all about their love stories. Here, we publish the first responses. First up we have Delhiite Vaibhav Gupta's experience:

Those days are still so fresh in my mind that I can narrate as if I'm watching a romantic love story on a large screen at PVR Cinemas. I'm from Delhi and I was in my second year of BCom (H). This story began when everyone was busy saying adios to 1999 and welcome to the year 2000. Everyone was busy in their own way; youngsters were preparing to celebrate the new millenium, philosophers were debating whether the new millenium started in 2000 or was yet to come in 2001, officials were updating their software systems to become compatible with Y2K...

I was my usual self, lonely, running away from myself, sitting quietly in a corner, making girlfriends and then running away from them. I guess even God did not know what I was upto or to be precise, what I wanted to be upto. I had already tried, passed and left the medical field, engineering, CA (all prelim stages) and was wondering what to try my hands at next. I never exposed myself to my relatives much and did not know even 20 percent of them.

Life was really a routine headache, when my father got a call from his sister who stays in Saharanpur, that her daughter's marriage had been fixed for November 24, 1999. Since their son had his engineering exams, they requested my dad to send me to help them out with the marriage preparations, as it was supposed to take place in Panipat. So loads of stuff was supposed to be bought, packed and trasported to Panipat from Saharanpur. Hence, I went there one week prior to the marriage and was struggling hard to catch up with my sleep as my Fufaji (i don't know what you call a fufa in English) would pack things uptil late at night and then get up again within 2 hours to recheck whether everything was packed or not. So for me it was more of packing and unpacking stuff like a regular mazdoor.

It was November 22 when my bua's son (the one who could not come because of the engineering exams) reached Saharanpur and life became a bit joyful for me as now my fufa used to shout his name for all necessities. It was on the 23rd, finally, that I first saw my fortune in a girl with a round face, nicely groomed and an extremely beautiful pair of eyes, which I have probably seen only in movies. I saw her looking a bit lost, somewhat not interested in what was happening around and just strictly keeping to herself. She seemed not to want anyone or anything around. I came to know (after a bit of enquiry) that she was Reena, came from Yamunaganar (Haryana) and her folks were family friends of my fufa and bua. Her father was a renowned botanist and she would be starting her dentistry course soon from Modinagar, UP, which is about 45 kms from my residence in Delhi.

The same night, while trying to catch a couple of hours' precious sleep with my cousin Manu, I took 5 minutes out to tell him that I love that girl and I am going to marry her one day. Of course he mocked me and simultaneously warned that she was not a usual Delhi girl who you could fool around with and since she was a family friend, I'd better take my eyes off her. But as a default setting in my basic configuration, I never let anything go without giving my best fight for it and I pledged to do that the next day.

The next morning, amidst a great hustle and bustle, all the packed goods were to be finally transported along with a huge group of relatives to Panipat for the marriage. She was in our car with my sister, as they gelled really well and we had a small fight over what kind of music we wanted to play in our car. Shabash! I was at my usual arrogant best, denying her requests bluntly like a sarkari babu. But I kept looking into her eyes through the rear view mirror.

After reaching Panipat, things were much more relaxed and we also got a chance to enjoy ourselves with stuff like snooker -- I used to be a snooker freak and a champ in those days. I was reminded by Manu again to keep away from her and respecting my elder cousin's advice, I tried not to be around her. But whether I was helping relatives to settle down, or doing smaller stuff, or kidding around, I would see her again and again!

Shabash to me again as I insulted her younger brother Kannu in front of her and everyone else while I was playing snooker and he picked (out of ignorance and arrogance both) one of the coloured balls I was aiming to pot. That was the last time I saw her in the entire marriage procession. My eyes kept searching for her, though. Finally while leaving for Delhi early in the morning after the vidaai of my sister, I went up to her and apologised if I did something wrong (Hum Aapke Hain Kaun style).

I had almost forgotten about her when she called on December 7 to wish me happy birthday and put the phone down after talking to my mom. BTW, my birthday was on December 6. Then it was New Year's Eve and we were in Saharanpur to celebrate it without my father, as he was busy struggling in his office with Y2K problems. My sister called up Reena to wish her Happy New Year and gave the phone to me too and I thanked her for her call, even if it was by mistake and she said "perhaps it was not a mistake", which sounded like a signal to me.

It was this boring day of February 6, 2000 which ended up being the best day of my life when I finally decided to give it a go and called her in her hostel (took the number from my sister). I proposed marriage to her (of course it sounds foolish now), once we both settled down and till then suggested we both try to know each other better. I told her to answer by the 13th, so that I could decide whether to date her in Modinagar on VDay or to sit back at home mourning.

Voila! There I was in Modinagar, dating her on the 14th with gifts. Then it was followed by almost 7 years of Bollywood-ish melodrama when her father rejected me, as I was into business and he wanted his would-be damaad to be a doctor as he and his daughter were doctors. I went abroad, did my MBA, came back, started my own venture, established it fast, while she became a dentist. Finally after loads of waiting and fighting around, her father succumbed to our pressure and decided to do a full-fledged North Indian marriage in July 2006, and promised not to keep any relationship with us in future and we settled down with it.

Today, our marriage is 3.5 years old with a pretty son, Maulik, who has started going to playschool from February 1, 2010. My father-in-law treats me like his first son, as I saved his precious investments several times and got his son a job in a leading IT company during the times of recession (just kidding). He just realised later on that being a doctor is not the only good thing in the world. Nice people can exist in other professions too. Moreover, Munna Bhai MBBS released and he did not want to be a second Dr J Asthaana.

The best part is that after we got married, Reena told me that during the time we met it was her who was making concious efforts to be around me, as she liked me from the first day. Why? Because of my sense of responsibility, sense of humour and my so-called in-built arrogance, which actually attracted her greatly. LOL!

In the romantic spirit of Valentine's Day, share your special love story with us. Write in to us at getahead@rediff.co.in (subject line: 'Jab We Met'). You can also include a photograph of you and your partner and we'll publish the best entries right here on rediff.com

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From coffee to marriage

Last updated on: February 4, 2010 17:58 IST

And here is Ronny and Neha's short 'n' sweet tale:

It was just a date. At least, it seemed like one, initially. Little did I know it would turn out to be one of the biggest and the most important dates for me.

We met through some common friends. That day, we went to Barista's Connaught Place outlet. While at the table, we ordered for coffee and while I was enjoying the coffee and my friends were enjoying random gossip, she looked nervous and was constantly playing with her mobile phone. While playing with it, she dropped the phone. I rushed to pick it up. She rushed to pick it up too and about a second later, we actually bumped our heads and then laughed for around 15 minutes.

From then on, we were together, but fate had other things lined up for us. We could never continue being a girlfriend/ boyfriend again after that. As fate had it, we got married and still keep bumping our heads every day, and yet loving the moment.