The first date

The first date..!

“It has been a week of togetherness with Kunal. A week of being Mrs. Chaturvedi.  I still haven’t figured out what we exactly are. I know we had barely talked to each other before marriage but this is not what I wanted. I would have never thought of an arranged marriage if my granny had not been on the death bed with that emotional last wish drama to push me into an unknown relationship. I had always wanted a day where there would be never ending talks, a cute love story and beautiful dates with my partner. More than anything, I wanted a love marriage. Things don’t go as planned…”  Taanya flipped over the pages of her dairy, carefully put it back in her drawer and slid back into her blanket.

She tried dialling Kunal’s number a couple of times but only the bot’s voice answered that the user was busy.

“Wonderful! What a perfect marriage!” Taanya muttered to herself and continued with the series that was to be resumed on her laptop.

The door-bell made its irritating noise at 11:45 that woke up Taanya who had almost dozed off with her earphones on. she unbolted the door with her sleepy eyes.

“Over-time today. Had your dinner?” Kunal tried to build a conversation though Taanya was not completely awake. He couldn’t help but notice her perfectly fitted white tshirt with the sleep shorts and her hair tied into a bun. Only few strands of hair were hanging out to compliment her face.

“Yeah! Done with dinner. Have also washed the dishes. just wash your plate and switch off the gas before you sleep.” Taanya shot her answers and went back to bed. This time, shutting the laptop and unplugging the earphones.

Kunal could not process the situation. Though they had very few quality conversations, nothing much had progressed. Kunal was stuck in a place where he could do nothing for the girl he liked.

he finished the kitchen chores, changed into his regular night T and his usual striped boxers and walked into the living room. He could see his wife asleep in the bedroom from the slightly open curtains that danced to fan’s breeze. Kunal blushed and smiled to himself.

Kunal tried to switch a few channels and ended up playing some music on his phone. The wallpaper of his phone with their wedding picture displayed 1:20AM.

Kunal went straight to the kitchen, brewed two cups of coffee and walked up to Taanya. He placed one of the cups on the side table and gently tapped her shoulder.

“Hey! tomorrow is a Sunday.” Kunal whispered.

“So? Are you making any plans? Fine I am free. Now let me sleep” Taanya spoke with her dozy voice.

“No Taanu… I am not making plans for tomorrow. I am making a plan for now. We have a complete tomorrow to sleep and get lazy. Its Sunday. Wakeup now”

Kunal knew Taanya’s senses always came alive with a strong coffee.

“here take your coffee. Now wake up. Lets talk…” kunal was excited to have some good conversation with his wife. The previous talks they had weren’t really open minded but formal. This was something Kunal expected to be different and interesting. Anyhow, 3AM conversations are meant to be the brutally interesting ones as far as he had known.

Taanya was quiet impressed to see her man putting efforts to talk to her.

“so how many over time shifts are you having in the next week?” Taanya started the conversation sipping her coffee.

“ no no no.. this is the last no no not any nope”. Kunal cringed on himself for saying too many no’s in that single sentence.

“well.. what do you wanna talk about?” Taanya was in her half covered blanket sitting up-right on the bed. The fact that she had pulled up her blanket to cover her legs that looked amazing with sleep shorts disappointed him.

“anything.. nothing in particular. “kunal could have done better than this but nothing came out.

Taanya dint respond back. She was busy sipping her hot coffee.

“Taanya!” kunal picked up some courage. Taanya’s spine quivered.

“I need to tell you something. But please don’t be mad at me” kunal put his cup aside and sat facing Taanya on the bed.

Taanya still dint speak a word. She lifted her brows implying,” ya what?”

“okay.. so it’s a long story. “ kunaal began.

“ well you already told me we have so much of time, tomorrow is a Sunday anyway” Taanya had a pinch of sarcasm and a smile.

“fine here it goes..” kunal giggled before he spoke.

“so.. I kind of .. I mean.. I actually had liked you.. liked in the sense, not like like, but like, actual liking. “

Taanya was just staring at kunal’s face and trying to encode what was coming out from his mouth.

“ also,.. this match was not just a random matrimonial match taanu. It was all me.” kunal gave an awkward pause expecting Taanya to speak something.

“ you knew me?” Taanya finally uttered.

“ honestly yeah.”

“ how? When? “ Taanya had finished her coffee and the caffeine had started to run in her nerves.

“um.. may 2017.. the 3 months data management course at Syntech.”

“you were there too?” Taanya felt the conversation spicing up.

“ I was yeah.. but you never knew me. I was one among those 80 students. “

“ so you just married a stranger from Syntech?” Taanya was confused.

“ no no not just that, do you remember that cringy insta account ranger_72?”

“um.. yaaa??”

“ that was, well… me! your current husband kunal Chaturvedi”

“that was you? “ Taanya exclaimed.

“yeah.. I really did have a crush on you back in syntech. But I messed it up later.”

“ you never told me that during college.” Taanya was smilimg with the memory of ranger_72 that she ended up blocking because, the only messages she received were compliments and quotes.

“ yeah back then, I was a very very very shy kind of guy.. “

“ so, what happened after that? This was almost 5 years back right..” Taanya continued. She was enjoying the conversation now.

“ yeah.. as I said, I messed up. Then there was purvi who happened to come into my life.. “ kunal was a little awkward as he dint know how Taanya would react to this conversation. He was hoping that she wouldn’t judge him.

“ uh ah!.. then?” Taanya was quite normal and wanted to know more.

“so ya.. me and purvi lasted not more than 6 months. We were definitely not the ones for each other. Infact, I always thought you were way out of my league and Viraj always told me that, “we” would never be possible. That’s when viraj set me up with purvi to bring me out of your thoughts. After we broke up, I often thought about you. I always regrated not putting efforts for you. viraj always suggested me to go and talk to you. but I was always nervous to do so. I know this sounds crazy but, maybe it was always you.  “ kunal was nervous for putting so much into words.

“purvi?” Taanya paused.

“ yeah” kunal was anxious now.

“ purvi Shukla??” Taanya digged in.

“ yes purvi shukla it was.. anything wrong?” kunal was trying to figureout her confusing tone.

“ oh my god… “ taanya giggled.

“what is it?” kunal was blank.

“ would you believe if I told you something interesting too?” Taanya’s voice was excited.

“ may be I would..” kunal was all ears. Tanya was blushing to start her part. She sat up straight, and cleared her throat.

“ ok lemme tell you this story. I need to.. . so.. this purvi Shukla was my room mate after syntech. She had always told me about her so called friend  ‘ kunnu’. Everytime she told me about him, I liked listening to all those tales she told . i almost knew everything about kunnu in purvi’s words. Kunnu this, kunnu that. What not?  Kunnu was literally so interesting . At a point, I had also wanted to ask her to let me meet this kunnu guy. But before I could tell her that i was kind of interested in him,…. Ugh!.. she broke the news of her dating kunnu. It was a little hard as I somewhere felt that she was way too different from him.”

“oh my..!” kunal was surprised.

“yeah.. kunnu!!! “ Taanya laughed.

“ hey please. Don’t call me kunnu. I hated it when purvi called me that too” kunal laughed along..

“so mr ranger_72, how did you find me again to marry me?”

Kunal took a deep breath to begin his tale again. He was pretty sure the pretty women sitting upright excited was ready to listen to the entire story.

“ my parents had started to bring me wedding matches. And on a random day, I had shut my laptop after stalking your Instagram account. Well.. sorry for stalking. (kunal chuckled)

My mom unknowingly happened to open my laptop and she noticed some of your pictures on my desktop. And a few notes I had written about you.. I never thought she would find out but, after all she is an indian mother.”

Kunaal sighed and continued again..

 and then, she started the over dramatic classic Indian performance where it’s a sin for a guy to have a girl’s picture on his laptop unless the guy is gonna become a devadas for her. So she confronted me asking if that was the girl I liked. Somewhow, the ‘No’ dint come out of me. before I could explain her that it was not what she was assuming, your granny was bed ridden, my parents approached yours with my match, they accepted, and everything happened in a swish.. just like that. I regret not telling you all this Taanya.”

“ well yeah.. maybe they were the situations.. timimg is really a bitch” Taanya sighed.

“so did you really like kunnu?”  kunal slid nearer to Taanya.

Tanya smiled and said, “ yeah, maybe I would have asked him out too if YOU never happened..”

“oh really?”

“ yeah absolutely.” Tanya picked up the empty coffee cups and walked to the kitchen leaving kunal alone.

“ hey mr. ranger_72. Would you like to go on a date with me?

Venue: balcony.

Timimg: right now”

 the text message popped up onto kunal’s phone. He jumped out of the bed and walked to the balcony where tanya was already waiting for him her hair was no longer in a bun.

 The midnight sky with the twinkling stars over the faded traffic noises complimented the conversations. The talks lasted till the sunrise erased the awkwardness between the two souls.

“ why could you never just talk to me back in college? Our lives would have been different.. I would have had a love story to tell my kids” Taanya spoke in a soft tone

“ because I was a total idiot” kunal sighed with a smile.

“ maybe it was meant to be this way.. “

“ look at the sunrise.. its beautiful.” Taanys spoke holding kunal’s hand and her head resting on his shoulder.

Kunaal looked into her eyes and could see the beginning of a new story.

 

The end…