Truly Inspiring Real Life Love story (II)
Happily Ever After doesn’t exist. Every day you wake up and decide to love your partner and your life — the good, the bad, and the ugly. Some days it’s a struggle and some days you feel like the luckiest person in the world.
We’ve all grown up listening to things like, ‘shaadi do parivaaron ka milan hai’ because well, Bollywood and society exist. When in fact, marriage is about celebrating two people who love each other. But it’s not as simple as it sounds, at least not for us desi’s. Marriage in our society is treated as something very crucial to living making it look like an obligation or anything other than love. Arranged marriages are increasingly becoming a business transaction, with parents encouraging their sons to pursue higher education in the hopes of receiving a larger dowry if their son is well educated and can find a wealthy spouse. Girls’ parents, on the other hand, force their daughters to study only to a certain degree, reminding them that they must save money for their wedding, thus a basic degree is sufficient for now, and if they want to study more, they must do so after their marriage. Yes, such individuals still exist…!! And it is for this reason that most parents are opposed to love weddings.
If you’re seeking for a “happily ever after,” you’ve come to the wrong place. I pray that God uses our story to bring you the kind of comfort that only God can provide.
“Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.”
The little things add up to big things
True love takes time, patience, and the efforts of two people who are completely dedicated to one other. The decision to marry someone is one of the biggest steps in life. And saying yes to someone’s proposal is almost as big! Coz it is going to be for a lifetime. And so our love story began this way, Being long-distance is the truest measure of time, but for us, our long-distance story never had a short-distance side. While I was studying in Mysore, he was working in Hyderabad. He was a classmate of mine, and after a few phone calls, we both felt we were familiar with the difficulties and complications that come with one. Until then, it seemed like one of those stereotypical instances when you know, you know. As a result, we resolved to do our best to make it work.
Every Friday, he would leave Hyderabad and travel 750 kilometers to Mysore solely to spend time with me; he would stay in hotel rooms, then we would meet for breakfast, wander around for the rest of the day, and then he would drop me off at my college hostel before returning to Hyderabad on Sundays. He journeyed like this for months only to meet me. On weekends, we traveled to Goa, Ooty, and Coorg a few times. I would describe our love as crazy love. One day, I called him and told him that I would be leaving for Bengaluru tomorrow for my vacation, which would last 15 to 20 days. Fearful of being away for so long, he immediately booked a flight to Mysore, where we met, roamed around, and then he dropped me off at my father’s house in Bangalore, where he booked a same-day flight from Bangalore to Hyderabad.
He thought one day that instead of traveling this route, it would be better to have a transfer from his project location to Bangalore, which was 150 kilometers away from Mysore. After he moved to Bangalore, he used to ride his bike to Mysore most days, where we would meet for breakfast before he returned to his office. He didn’t stop even when it was pouring outside, and no matter how dangerous it was, he made so many attempts only to meet me. After days like this, I got a job offer in Tumkur, which is 70 kilometers from Bangalore, and I had to relocate to Tumkur for this job. Because the distance between Bangalore and Tumkur was short, he spent practically all of his days with me, traveling up and down and spending all of our weekends together. We used to spend much of our time at resorts because we couldn’t find a good location to sit and converse. We decided to move because resorts were too expensive to visit every weekend, and we could save time by not having to travel. We would also be able to focus more on our careers because we would be together. As a result, we rented a house in a different neighborhood in Bangalore, distant from my parents’ home. I got a job there, and we gradually began to transform that flat into a lovely home, purchasing all of the necessary house setup items, from kitchen appliances to almost everything, with our own money and without the assistance of our parents, because we were living together and not telling anyone about it.
But our obstacles didn’t end there; new ones arose, as neither of us knew what the letter “C” in cuisine meant. We had a lot of fun shopping for food and experimenting in the kitchen. He sampled a variety of foods, including lemon rice and a few other south Indian specialties. These recipe titles may appear to be simple, yet they were quite difficult for us as novices. He used to make lunch for me and deliver the lunch box to my office whenever he had WFH. We occasionally ordered from Swiggy and Zomato, and because these online meal orders were new to us at the time, we found it incredibly convenient to have food delivered to our home rather than going out to restaurants. We gradually used to spend our entire wage on food and save the rest to pay off house accessory loans in this manner.
One day he said, “Today I’m trying to make something,” and he said, “Maybe we’ll find a flavor we don’t mind, or we’ll just find a new favorite,” and he made a dish, which I couldn’t eat after tasting, so I ordered food from Swiggy." Loshith did not want his efforts to go to waste, so he sat down and ate everything. This may seem amusing today, but it was a disaster at the time since as soon as he finished eating, he began to have extreme stomach discomfort that was unbearable to him. I rushed him to the hospital, where physicians checked on him and admitted him to the intensive care unit. I was standing outside, crying, thinking that if something happened to him, I wouldn’t be able to live any longer. At the time, even doctors were clueless, so it made me worry even more. After a while, one of the physicians approached me and said, “Don’t worry, he’s well; this is due to food poisoning.” As I listened to the doctor, I thanked God with glad tears. I felt vibrant and at ease. It sounds silly now that I’m writing about it, but that moment felt even worse at the time.
Many more weird things have happened between us, such as his skipping work while I was in Mysore and then spending the entire day with me. We used to plan trips for my extended vacations because we were both travel freaks. It’s all about letting off steam during vacations. Our first excursion was to Coorg, which was close to Mysore and which we meticulously arranged as a genuine honeymoon. After having our breakfast, he arrived from Hyderabad and got me up from Mysore, and we drove to Coorg, which took 3 hours from Mysore. We traveled to Coorg twice like this, and then to Goa, and both times it was a great trip that was a little pricey but well worth it. You might think it’s cliched, but you can’t go wrong with this one. Simply go to a secluded beach, sit on the sand, and sip some wine while gazing passionately into your partner’s eyes. The sound of the crashing waves, the light ocean breeze, and some delectable Goan food are perfect ingredients for an ideal date. Cheesy? Maybe. Effective? Always! This is how we visited Goa for the second time, and Goa is divided into north goa, south goa, and central goa, so we planned a bike ride from central goa to south goa, which is 40 kilometers away. When we finally arrived in south goa, as soon as we got to our room, I fell off the bed with a high fever, and loshith, who was checking on me, became speechless and shivering because there were no doctors in south goa. He didn’t know what to do at the time, where to flee, or who to contact for aid, so we looked for a clinic nearby and found a homeopathy clinic, but the medicines don’t work right away, so we went out and saw some college kids, We found one clinic address through them and checked it on the map; it was 15 kilometers away, so Loshith took out his bike, I sat behind him holding him tightly, and he drove all the way to that hospital. After the checkup, the doctor said she needed to be admitted right away, but Loshith, worried, said no doctor if it was serious, let me take her to Bangalore, I planned to have her checked out there, but that doctor objected and insisted that we be treated at that hospital because traveling in this state would be dangerous, and that doctor didn’t want us to take any chances. When Loshith saw me feeling better the next morning, he finally grinned and said, “Thank God, you’re better now.”
As a result, our trip stories never seemed to stop. After Ooty got popular, you could say it became our second home. We went there too many times, mostly on weekends, and we did so many crazy things like exploring local places, taking lifts, and traveling to save money on local travel expenses. It may sound funny now, but we also wanted to keep our budget in check so we could enjoy ourselves and only spend where it was necessary.
We had always wanted to travel abroad together, so we agreed that if he went, he would take me, and if I went, I would take him. As a result, we decided to fly to Thailand in 2018. We established a goal of five per year since we wanted to see at least 100 countries. I’d want to discuss my vacation to Thailand here. When we first came to Thailand, communication was challenging because everyone spoke only Thai. Indians were harassed as well since they frequent the area way too frequently. One night, we attended a boat party there, but I convinced Loshith that we should head back to the resort as I began to feel nervous. On our way back to the resort at the time, a single Thai man joined us and started presenting a number of people who appeared to be prostitutes. I became anxious and began to worry about what would happen if this man killed us after locking us somewhere. When we left the boat, there weren’t many people around to see us, and we reasoned that if anything were to happen to us, no one would even know where we had been taken. However, when I signaled to Loshith to return to the boat, the Thai man began yelling at us. We came into another Indian couple on the way there, and they assured us that they would be with us. Then, we felt comfortable. I don’t intend to imply that Thai people are evil, but we became afraid due to language barriers and the unknown.
The majority of the time when we chose to travel, he would receive a phone from his home informing him that someone had passed away, forcing us to leave overnight. I wouldn’t claim that our travels were always good ones. But Our journey experiences are never ending because we explored Mumbai, Wayanad, Kodaikanal, and so on. Our travels have increased steadily since we got married. If I sit down to write about it, even a book won’t be enough, and the stories would be like To Be Continued…!!
We used to get together on the weekends, host dinner parties at our apartment, and party hard as I became close with his college friends, and their spouses when we were living in Bangalore. When we occasionally travelled around Bangalore, the fun reached a new level.
Get good at fighting
It’s a living, breathing entity, this bond. It can’t develop stronger without stress and challenge, much like the body and muscles. You have to put up a fight. You’ll need to work things out. Obstacles are what holds a marriage together. He went through hell and back to marry me.
We are blissfully married today, but the trip was not simple. It was difficult for him to persuade his parents, and it was difficult for me to persuade my elder sister. Only my mother was truly delighted for us, and her support alone was enough to keep me positive.
We fought for 6 years to get his parents to approve. I’m sharing this part of his battle in the hopes that it will help those who are battling right now. I hope this brings some encouragement to those readers who have lost all of their battles and are hoping for miracles. I’d like to encourage you to keep trying until you succeed. We are the ones who perform miracles. If he had given up in the middle of his struggle, I would not be his wife today.
So, let me begin our struggle journey here; my share of the fight was less than his; it wasn’t difficult for me to persuade because I only had to persuade my mother, who had already backed me since the day I made her meet Loshith. So if any of my relatives brought me proposals, my mother would be able to manage them with ease. The hardest part was when my sister approached me with fantastic profile propositions from men who had already established themselves in another nation, but neither I nor my mother cared because I was entirely focused on this man. It wasn’t her fault, though, because she had no idea of my love story.
It was February 2015 when Loshith told us about us at his house. His parents informed him at the time, “See, you guys are still young, only 23 and 24, we are not in a hurry for marriage, let’s see when the time comes,” and he became silent. His parents didn’t say yes or no at the moment. Loshith was certain of their response; he knew that when he revealed his love, they would not agree right away, but would most likely accept after 6 months or a year.
After that, whenever he was in Bangalore on weekends, his parents kept phoning him to come down to Hindupur, fearful of what would happen if he met me. So, for the first few months, everything at his house was like this for him. After 6 months, his parents would bring up our topic and ask him questions like, “Are you guys still in touch?” and “What do you know about her?”
Slowly, his parents realized that this was going to get serious if they didn’t stop it now, and they began making dramas every Saturday morning when Loshith arrived at his house. They stopped eating their food and blamed him for their health, scolding him all the time and asking, “What did we do to deserve a son like you?” All of these things began, they said, “How will we show our face in a society that we did in intercaste, and girl is also older than you. His house construction work began at that time, and despite knowing that his parents would scold him, he continued to visit his home on weekends. His parents took him to many temples, performed many poojas, and even showed his astrology to whomever they met, and those astrologers told his parents don’t worry, your son will get married to whomever girl you show, and a few of them told his parents that his son’s love marriage would not last even 6 months.
In 2017, his parents took him to all of the temples along the coast of Karnataka, where they performed all of the poojas for him not to marry to love, and he never said no. He accompanied them to all of the temples and sat in on all of the poojas that his parents demanded. He did so with the intention of making my parents feel better, but he later stated that his feelings for her are very strong and that marrying her is his final decision. So his parents began emotionally blackmailing him, threatening to murder him if he married her; he was horrified when they used death threats; he sat outside his parents’ room all night, messaging me about his anxiety and inability to sleep while his parents slept soundly. This put him under mental strain, and he couldn’t sleep for a few nights because of his anxiety. But, with time, he realized that no one is so stupid as to die because their child chose love marriage, this was all their drama, and he felt that am I their son only if I choose to marry as per their choice? am I not their son if I choose a love marriage?? Whenever our topic came to his home, his mom went inside the room, locked herself, saying I’ll hang myself, he and his family in tension used to knock on the door, convince her for then and bring her out of the room. She skipped meals on occasion and became ill as a result; when she was rushed to the hospital, she blamed him, claiming that it was because of him that she became ill. She told his kid, “Look, everyone in our family got married in arranged marriages, love marriages don’t work,” and she even offered him examples of failed love marriages. Observing the drama at home, he concluded that everyone in the world is selfish, including his parents, who tried a variety of methods to put a stop to it. And when he stopped placing such a high value on their emotional dramas, his parents realized that my son would not agree to anything, that he was already deeply attached to her, and that they needed to make a plan to persuade her, so they scheduled a meeting with me.
In 2018, His mother requested that Loshith set up a meeting place close to Majestic; she didn’t contact me and didn’t even have my phone number, and he requested that I meet her at Cubbon Park in Bangalore. I was excited but nervously dressed decently because I didn’t want to give her the opportunity to point out any flaws in me, so I made sure I looked perfect before reaching out and meeting his mother. She was nice but told bad things about her son and tried to create a false impression about Loshith, she thought I might leave her son if she talks Ill about him. She even broke down and performed a melodrama. His parents blackmailed him saying that they would go to any extent and his father even said to Loshith that he would kill us and might serve his entire life behind bars. Loshith was also present, but he was observing us both from afar, fearful that his mother's blackmail would have any impact on me; nevertheless, when I instructed him to ignore what his mother said, he felt at ease, knowing that I was just as strong for him as he is for me.
When his parents saw that this plan had failed, they began criticizing him whenever he returned home, and they refused to eat or feed him. They stated things like, “If we had known you’d be like this, we would have killed you when you were born,” “We’re fine killing you and going to jail, but we won’t agree for your love,” and “Too many things happened at his side.” But one day, he told his parents that if they kept doing things like this, he’d best stay away, and he didn’t speak to them or go to his house for a year. After meeting me, his mother realized that they are much stronger for each other and that everything we do or say would have no effect on them. They tried a million different methods to separate us, but he only had one reason: he never wanted to leave me.
There’s something undeniably special about a person trusting their gut and trusting in their partner. As they say, when you know, you know.
Honestly, there is not a single argument or logic in the world that will convince them. Actions are what matter. He tried convincing his parents a lot but when he realized it wasn’t gonna work, he said fuck this shit. I’m gonna marry this girl whether you like it or not and whether you’re gonna be a part of my life or not. They didn’t speak to him for months and eventually came around. I won’t say that they have wholeheartedly accepted his decision to marry me, but they have agreed to be there in our life and we’ll take what we can get.”
And he finally broke the good news to me with a note that reminded me of what he said when he proposed to me. “Oka saari chetini pattukunte vadalanu ani cheppa kada” translation of this is “I promised you that if I hold your hands, I would never abandon you.” And he made it happen at our wedding.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — ❤❤ ❤❤ — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
