The Falling Petals...🌺

Closer...

"What? You haven't talked to your parents yet? Shillang! You promised me you'd do that by now."

If you are wondering who this new character, Shillang, is – it's me. And the person shouting those questions at me is my Dae. Yes, she is mine now.

We are in love. For the first time.....sounds crazy?

So, did it happen when we were studying together in college?

Of course not.

Was it love at first sight?

Definitely not. We haven't even seen each other yet!

--The questions my friends asked would ask me and the answers I gave them. (There were some dirty ones too, which I can ignore.) But everyone's last question was the same.

ARE YOU CRAZY?

I don't knowwwwwwwwwww........

Indeed, being in love with a person you haven't even met is a crazy thing. And deciding to marry that person someday, even crazier. Never in my wildest dreams had I thought my love-life would be like this. To be honest, I had never even thought of any love-life.

But, now, I had changed a lot and was no longer the person I used to be till some time ago.

A lot of things had changed, in me and around me. I had started slipping out of conversations with my friends just to give her a call. I slept less and talked more. My phone bills led my monthly spending chart, leaving the house rent miles behind the race. I started noticing couples: the way they sat together in gardens, hand in hand; the way a girl holds her boyfriend, on a motorbike. I started worrying about the "how do I look" factor. My status in Facebook changed from 'single' to 'committed'. She became the password to my several interest ID's. Sitting in my office alone, I used to smile, talking to nobody.

Love was in the air.

Ours was such a different story. A 21st century love story, whose foundation was modern-day gadgets. Thanks to Graham bell for inventing telephones that helped me talk to her, know her better and, finally, fall in love with her. Thanks to the internet, the world wide web and matrimonial sites that helped me find her. I discovered myself to be a true software engineer in this hi-tech-love phase. And whether this kind of love was good or bad, was no longer a point to ponder------we were already in it.

Coming back to the reason she was shouting at me.

It was because I broke a promise. No, not the boozing one. Something else.

Her family knew about me since our first call, but the case wasn't the same at my end. My family did not know about her yet. In fact, they didn't even know that their son's profile was on some matrimonial site. Naturally, she was concerned about this situation. That too, after we had finally decided our destiny.

Her queries about this matter were growing everyday. Gradually, she started feeling uncomfortable because of this very reason. Therefore, a week earlier, i had promised her that I would talk to my family om the coming weekend. But unfortunately, I could not, because of the weekend exam at IMS. ( IMS. Another interesting similarity between us was this MBA preparation center. We both were preparing for MBS, and we had joined the same crash-course in the same institute in our respective places.)

"I could not travel to Gwangju last weekend because I had to give my class-test at IMS," I said, trying to calm her.

"But you promised me Shillang...!" My shouting lady turned into an emotional one. She killed me with that name. she loved to call me with different names and the best among them all was Shillang. And I loved the way she used to say it. with such care and warmth.