And the tables turned...

***It’s a nice artistically-lit restaurant, with groovy music, lip-smacking starters and an ambience that will make you fall in love with it. Great company too, if I may add. Yet, happiness seems to be something that I have been chasing for a while...a wild goose chase, I call it. I’m in the best of places, with the most amazing people, but I feel lonely, hollow. From the corner of my eye, I notice two of my best friends cozying up, lost in each other’s eyes, cooing sweet nothings into each other’s ears...A voice inside my head goes, “Awww, adorable!”, while I feel a pang of something entirely different within...a stab of jealousy, a pinch of disappointment and oodles of sadness. Tears brim in my eyes, and I bow my head and wipe them off...***

This was how my life was a couple of years back. I was this lonely, brash, mechanical woman, whose life revolved around deciphering bus numbers in Marathi and running behind them. Phone calls were limited to calling ammai-appa’s numbers and receiving their calls. I was single, like I’d been all my life...”Why don’t I have that someone special,” I wondered at times, attributing my relationship status to the not-so-nice reflection that I saw glaring back at me from the mirror. I am not ‘hot’, I’m not the seductress that every man would want to have, heck, I’m not even the regular girl next door, whose smile would make a few hearts flutter. “Maybe this is how I’m supposed to be forever,” I thought, silently recalling the couple of times I had to face the horror of having to ‘meet’ guys, meetings arranged by family.

I used to shudder at the thought of these ‘prospective grooms’ rejecting me because of the way I look -impish and small, like someone close to me chose to put it. I’d mentally prepared myself to get married to some random guy; a guy my parents would choose for me. I was also terrified of letting my parents down by getting married to some ‘non-tambrahm guy’, but I knew it’s possibility was minimal, considering the reflection, yeah the same one that stares at me from the mirror everyday.

But then, the tables turned. One fine day, my man arrived, sans all the violins and drumbeats that Yash Raj films have made oh-so-routine. With a tiny red number whispering into my ears that ‘he wants to do fraaaanship with me’, my choti si love story got conceived. With Zuckerberg as our witness, we embarked on a beautiful journey of that saw us transform from buddies, to besties, to sweethearts to a married couple.

And through this journey, I discovered shades of my personality (fifty shades grey and otherwise!), and honestly, I’ve surprised myself. From being indifferent towards mush to having become a hopeless romantic, belting out cheesy lines and blushing (yes, BLUSHING!), I have come a long, long way...

The bright blue and yellow flame, the fragrant smoke arising from the neatly bundled incense sticks, the sacred yellow thread, the maamis in bright sarees, the mamas in crisp white dhotis, the bling, the colours, the peals of laughter, the air of festivity, the vows - all of these stand as a testimony to our relationship - the one that facebook gave birth to..

Today, as we complete two years since that magical day, I am a wife, your wife, a happy, proud one, and the reflection, well, she looks at me with kind, loving eyes now...The tables have turned indeed!