No Looking Back: We are each other’s support system Photo: Joy Sharma No Looking Back: We are each other’s support system Photo: Joy Sharma 
I believe that I am a hopeless romantic. My life led me into a hopeless, but practically romantic journey. Coming from a filmy family, I grew up dancing to Madhuri Dixit’s songsbet86, mimicking Sridevi. I always thought I would fall in love with a ‘hero’, although I didn’t quite know what that meant.
I went to a boarding school for my 11th and 12th classes after my father’s death. I had a pen friend then. It felt easy to talk to or write to him. Yes, I am from that generation; we used to write letters. We didn’t have mobile phones or the internet. I found comfort in the idea of this person, someone I crafted in my mind. The comfort of loving an idealised version made the long-distance relationship bearable.
It was a long-distance relationship. After school, I met him a few times, and he wasn’t the person I fell in love with. It’s not his fault; I was dreaming about my own version of him. I broke up with him, but kept my love for my version intact.
After three years and 17 jobs, I found myself working as an assistant director in a production house. Due to some complicated family circumstances, I decided to work after 12th, instead of pursuing further studies. Work helped.
This was the time when Orkut was in our lives. One day, I received a message in my scrapbook complimenting my photo from a shoot during my TV anchoring days. Let’s call him ‘S’. We started chatting, and he sounded very intelligent. I was trying not to create an image of this person in my head. It was tough not to meet the person in my mind. The internet, back then, felt like a safe space. I didn’t need to deal with a human in flesh and blood. We never spoke on the phone either. It wasn’t necessary.
I was in awe of him, of how much he knew. He was pursuing a PhD after a double Master’s degree; while I was just a 12th pass. I often asked him why he talked to me, and he always said, “Tumme kuch baat hai” (there’s something about you).
Soon, we learned that we lived very close by and visited the same coffee shop at PVR complex, Saket. We decided to meet after a few months of chatting. My former boyfriend kept coming up on and off, and one day I was so irritated and upset with him that when I met S in the evening, I said, “I will ask my mother to find someone and get me married off. Maybe then he will stop.”
After being persuaded by my friends, I downloaded a dating app. Tinder was scary for me. I was 33 and had no patience to deal with Tinder-ians. I was clear about what I didn’t want.The next day he called me saying he needed to speak to me urgently. I rushed to our coffee place after work. He was sitting there with a bunch of red roses. He seemed nervous; something I didn’t think was possible for him. Then he went down on his knees and gave a long speech about how he spoke to his family and friends to confirm his feelings. He asked me to marry him. I started laughing really loud, thinking it was a prank. Why would someone like him want to marry me? He didn’t laugh. That’s when I knew he was serious, and I went numb. It was probably the worst reply to a proposal one could give. I said I can’t get married until I direct films for at least two years, not just as an assistant director, but as a director. He nodded and said, “Absolutely.” Then he met my family, and everyone was happy about it. I was 22 then. S was 7.5 years older than me.
After two years of courtship, and not just directing films, but also being an executive producer at Network 18, we got married. I left my job and started my own film production company. He was very supportive. He was still pursuing his PhD. It was a very equal marriage, at least that’s what it felt like. He would cook for me when I came back from a long shoot, and I didn’t mind taking care of finances at all. We lived fine for some time, then he got a job, and things changed. My work became a problem. My busyness became a problem.
One day while we were traveling, he forgot to log out of his Facebook from my laptop, and I saw a chat with his colleague. He was having an affair. I ended mine with him. The relationship that started on Orkut, ironically, ended through Facebook.
For a few years, I was busy with work, and life took some really complicated turns. I found myself in a severe depressive phase. It took hitting rock bottom for me to bounce back. I did bounce back and how. Therapy was a blessing. I needed to forgive a lot of people and myself. I moved on finally, but the hopeless romantic in me never gave up on finding love or even marriage for that matter.
After being persuaded by my friends, I downloaded a dating app. Tinder was scary for me. I was 33 and had no patience to deal with Tinder-ians. I was clear about what I didn’t want. Someone told me about another app, saying, “Yahan thode serious type aate hain” (Here, some serious people come). I thought, sure, let’s try this too. I chatted with very few people on that app. It was a horrifying experience. I used to take screenshots of cheesy one-liners and send them to my friends, saying, “See what I go through because of you”—“Drop-daaad gaargeous”, “Looking for one night?”, “Fraanship karogi”, and other regulars. One that I distinctly remember was: “Will you have a sensual dinner with me?” I wanted to swipe right just to ask him what that meant, but I controlled my emotions. It was strange; the internet, once a safe space, made me doubt everyone. I had severe trust issues. I would chat with a few people, and if they insisted too much on meeting immediately, I would block them. There were 3-4 people I met after weeks of chatting. One guy that I met made me feel miserable about myself the entire evening, especially about my leukoderma, and I was so low in my confidence that I sat through the entire evening and just let him do that. I entered my building and was in tears. I called my friend and told her what happened. I couldn’t sleep that night. I didn’t open the app for a week or so.
On November 15, 2018, I checked the app again, and there was a message, not a very regular one-liner, it was a paragraph, not copy-pasted, though a little cocky. But I sensed that he went through my profile and read about me. I swiped right. The same evening, he replied, and we chatted the whole night. This was the first time that I decided to meet the guy the next day. He was an hour late for our first date, for genuine reasons and then the date went on for eight hours with a full bottle of scotch. We talked about everything under the sun: our love for our respective work; his mother and I grew up in the same town of Haridwar; and, he had also been married earlier, which turned into an ugly court divorce very soon. I opened up about my depression, my complicated family.
We made fun of all the lousy one-liners that women receive on dating apps and made plans for our first trip together. A lot happened on that date. Next day, my friend, who was mostly worried that I would friendzone every guy I meet, called to ask how it went. I thought and told her that I think he didn’t just friendzone me; I believe he buddy-zoned me.
Two days after that day, he called me to help him and his business partner with a PR photoshoot. I sent my camera guy and went there to help. After that, we met every day. We became buddies for sure, and soon we realised that we both wanted the same things in life—our work, family, kids, marriage, home. It was sorted.
I don’t quite remember when this became official. I moved in with him, which his father advocated. I still kept my apartment. I became close to his family very soon, especially his mother who loved me. I planned a trip together with them to my kind of destination, a village in the mountains. A couple of months after that, we got to know about his mom’s cancer. It was in the 4th stage. I left my apartment and moved in with his parents and him. She passed away during COVID, leaving us with a vacuum. We became closer during this tough time. I saw the worst of him, and he saw mine. We still stuck around.
Now, five years after our first date, he is still my buddy, and we laugh at each other and life’s absurdities. We are each other’s support system, critics, and most importantly, family. We built a beautiful home, and we got married our way—just five people at the courthouse signing papers.
I’m glad I didn’t create an idealised image in my mind, but allowed his impression to unfold naturally. As I always saidbet86, I had everything I needed, just needed a little joy. I found ‘JOY’ on the dating app and swiped right.