Countdown to Engagement begins :)

In my last blog, somebody pointed out that a person, who has had a steady girlfriend for God knows how long, is writing such a blog. That indeed is true (I have no first-hand experience of this bride hunting spree. The whole blog is based on vicarious experiences but original thought process). So I thought I will write something about first hand experience.

In July 2003, our sessions began at IIT Kanpur for first year of engineering study. Like almost all students, I was also very satisfied with the success I got in IITJEE and my next aim was to do good in IIT (yeah...it was, for the initial few days :P). My secondary aim was to find a girlfriend but when I came to know that we have just 22 girls our of 414 students, my statistical mind calculated the probability of having a girlfriend (=0.005; plz don't ask for the exact calculation now :P) and concluded the chances to be next to zero. So, I thought its better to concentrate on primary objective.

So, for my physics tutorial, we were sitting in a small class and waiting for Prof. Harbola (he was the scariest prof of all for first year and was also our warden). We were given some assignment and the whole section was busy solving that assignment. Suddenly someone entered and the class went quite. I thought it must be the professor and so I stood up without looking up only to discover later that it was this sweet innocent (yeah...she looked innocent; don't ask me if she is or not :D) girl in pink suit. I must admit that I was stumped. Now the probability figure looked much better to give a try at least. I went the obvious way, I asked her for her physics notes (yeah....how stupid, I know). She did give me the notes and I tried my level best to understand her notes...it appeared as if it was written in Hebrew...damn I should have asked for her Eco notes. Physics was not my cup of tea. I was worst at Maths though (sucked badly at real number theory...managed to pull through with a C). So anyways, I returned her notes with a big thanks :). Next, I invited her to Deepshikha (hostel night on Diwali) but I was not the only one. She has double figure invites. She came on all the invites (yeah..that sucks) but I made it look as if she has come only on my invite. We had a great night (in pure veg terms :P). That day made way for much bigger things to come.

I have been in relation with this lovely girl for roughly 6 years now (3 years in same IIT and rest three on different continents :( ). We had our share of good times and bad times. We have fought zillions of times (not really zillion :P) and we have cried together but we have been besides each other most of the time. The initial times were very volatile and many a times, we thought we are not made for each other and should part our ways (thank god we didn't). So its not like the lovey-dovey love story that movies depict. Instead, it is one in which both of us changed ourselves a lot over time. Finally, when we were able to maintain healthy relationship even without seeing each other for an year or so at a stretch, we concluded that we are indeed made for each other.

So, we told our parents about our decision and given the fact that this was going to be an inter-caste marriage, we gave them sufficient time to make up their mind (Things are easier said than done). Finally, parents on both sides agreed and the date for engagement was finalized as 12th of December 2010. Unfortunately, this is the day my grandfather died 15 years ago. We lost someone very dear on this day and now we are inducting a new member into our family on this very day. May be this is God's way of maintaining love balance in my life and also reminding me of his presence. Welcome Rashmi Mehrotra :)