Many have asked if ours is a love marriage or an arranged one. We do not know!!! Sure, if you consider finding your match via your elders as arranged marriage, then ours is. But we don't believe that love can be "arranged". Sure, our elders arranged for us to meet, but the love that blossomed, and the decision to get married, was ours.

Once our families were done with the nitty-gritty of match-making, like ‘horror’scopes and the like, it was down to us to interact and make the plunge – to marry, or not to. But tradition dictated that we speak to each other but not much. You see, in our culture, the boy and the girl are not supposed to interact much before they are married. Well, to make a long story short, in those ‘few’ interactions, we decided that we liked each other.

And we had never even seen each other except on photos. So, much before we had had any face-to-face interactions, we had decided that we were for each other. It was then decided that Bhuvan would fly home, for a ‘girl-seeing ceremony’, then fly back to Germany, and decide later. At least that was the ostensible plan.

It was November 2008. Bhuvan left Germany, knowing very well that the ‘girl-seeing ceremony’ was a mere formality, but then it gave him one full week to see and be with Brindha. Then he would fly back, and some time in April 2009 would return for the engagement, with the marriage slated for sometime in the second half of 2009.

But destiny had other plans. At least, Brindha did. Before he left for home, Bhuvan had given Brindha all the contact phone numbers, and had clearly informed her which his personal mobile number was. Probably he gave too much information. Brindha was confused (not that she is not otherwise!!!)

Bhuvan reached India, called Brindha from his mother’s mobile, as he could only receive calls on his own, and went to sleep. The next morning, he woke up, and his mom handed her mobile over to him: "You have got some SMSes from some one." "Me? Who will call me on your mobile?" he quipped. "I don't know who, but these SMSes are definitely not for me!" she said. He was wondering what the SMSes were.

Seems so, that morning, Madame Brindha had sent a really romantic SMS to Bhuvan, on his mother's mobile!!! The message ran something like this (it was actually a mixture of Telugu and English, but it has been translated here): "Sweetie, how are you? Me sleepy…Sweet kisses…" My dad saw it and showed my Mom. They were still recovering from the first SMS, when another landed. And then another. My parents, especially my mom, were being deluged with romantic SMSes from Brindha!!! It was an all-out attack, and the first ‘SMiSsiles’ had landed!!! And my mom was not even being given the chance to make peace, or divert the missiles towards me – the ‘intended recipient’ of the SMSes.

And there he was, happily sleeping through the entire attack, oblivious to all that was going on around him. Poor Bhuvan . You should’ve seen the look on his face .

It was by now clear how close they had become, and the ‘girl-seeing ceremony’ would have been a farce. It was then decided to ‘upgrade’ it to an engagement function, and before the day was out, the decision had been made. The next day they got engaged!!! The guy who entered India as a bachelor was now a bridegroom, and the girl a bride.

And that was the first ever time we had met each other. And we were already getting engaged!!! A better version of these events would be written about in the future blogs. To think that we had never even seen each other till the moment we got engaged, well, it is really mind-boggling. But who knows? Truth, at times, is stranger than fiction.

But wait…that was not the end of the story. The day after the engagement, we were discussing the formalities needed to be done for Brindha’s visa application to Germany. We realized that it would be easier if the marriage was registered much earlier than the actual ceremony, which was not slated till the second half of the next year. So when should we register the marriage? Probably Bhuvan could fly home in April the next year again for the registration.

But was it not a redundancy, flying all the way to India for the registration of the marriage, when Bhuvan was personally present right then and there? Why not register the marriage when he was already in India? Why not the very next day?

And so there we were, my friends! On November 10, 2008 we got engaged. Two days later, we registered our marriage. We had been ‘sentenced’ man and wife legally.

The bride had become the wife, and the bridegroom the husband. The date for marriage would be fixed later.

So Bhuvan, who had flown in as a bachelor, became engaged and a bridegroom in 48 hours, and still, 48 hours after that, legally married. No more a bachelor, at least officially!!!

To Brindha, who set off the avalanche, with her own avalanche of SMSes to her dear mother-in-law, thereby making Bhuvan an outlaw in the process!!!

By the time the week was over, Bhuvan had returned to Germany as a married man, having left just a week earlier as a bachelor...

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...and that, friends, IS our story!!! Carpe diem.