The first time I met my husband – I was three years old! It was the first day of nursery and he was in my class. He had a bright red Spider-Man lunchbox and fluffy, golden-brown hair! We were told to sit next to one another, and so a friendship was inevitable. After all, we liked all the same things – the red jelly at break time, building blocks, nursery rhymes – we even had the same dislike – jigsaw puzzles (this one hasn’t changed!).
After nursery came KG, and we were still in the same section. We still sat next to one another and by this time, I think it was safe to say – he had become my best pal! Our mothers would organise play dates for us after school, it was as though we couldn’t get enough of each other! Then, what seemed like the end of the world happened – we were put in different sections!
It wasn’t like we didn’t have other friends, of course, we did! After all, at 6 years old it’s more your mother who makes your social calendar than you do! It did suck though, at first – but it only lasted a year. Then we were back in the same section! However, for 8 year olds – it’s just not cool for boys and girls to be friends. He became mean and I… Well, I realised that I had a crush on him – so I became even meaner than he was! We both saw each other date various members of our friends gang. As we entered high school, we were close friends again. That phase of having a crush on him had passed for me and there was nothing more to it. Then, came college…
Both of us ended up going to universities abroad – to schools that were a 10-minute walk apart. Call it comfort, nostalgia, a friendly face in a new city or whatever, but we became even more close during this time. I felt like I was 3 years old all over again and instead of navigating the world of building blocks and lego, we were going through life’s real adventures alongside one another! Things got romantic pretty quick… It was weird. On the one hand, it made complete sense, and on the other, it came out of nowhere!
We stayed together through the last two years of school – something our parents vaguely knew about, but chose to ignore – and he proposed to me two weeks after graduation!
We live in Delhi, with two dogs. One is a pug and the other a golden lab (we named them after our nursery school teachers). We were recently going through old pictures of us as kids, when he turned to me and said, ‘Ready to have our own?’ I am. I married my best friend… And it’s the best feeling ever!
Images: Shutterstock
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