The story until now…

They lived just 60 km apart. They read the same newspapers, were affected by the same local weather conditions that held sway in the central part of India and probably passed each other many a time. Yet, it took a server thousands of miles away, on the other side of the globe, to connect them. If Yahoo’s played the cupid to millions of lonely hearts, the portal has once again partnered in a budding romance, allowing this couple to meet in one of its regional chat-rooms.

This happened just a few months ago. They chatted intermittently, never having the vaguest idea that romantic sparks would ever fly between them. At 22, she doesn’t believe in the concept of a boyfriend (she still doesn’t!) and never progressed beyond a childhood crush and he, at 32 has seen it all and done it all. An unlikely couple, a decade apart, suddenly realized that they mean a lot to each other. Is it love? Is it just a crush, which would get crushed as the wheels of time move? They weren’t sure.

They met. Not at an obscure location, or at a restaurant or coffee shop as many others do, but at her home. It was not just meeting her, but meeting her father, mother, sister, grandma and assorted neighbors and friends who put him through careful scrutiny, until he was pronounced OK. Then, with permission granted, they went straight for a date…on a hill-top nearby to look at archeological wonders that the place is so renowned for. She was dressed to kill, and predictably chaperoned by her younger sister who kept an eye on her unpredictable sibling and the guy who professed to be her friend!

The day passed. The next day, they met again…for dinner. She brought along two friends. He brought along eight of his colleagues. They laughed at the company. They laughed at the food that took ages to be served. They laughed at the waiters and they laughed at the beer. They laughed at the jokes and they laughed at the incidents recalled from each other’s lives. They laughed at virtually everything they could think or talk of. And, with the laughter still ringing in their ears, they bade goodbye at her doorstep and promised to meet again….soon.

After a hundred failed attempts to get together again, they finally met and went on a long drive. Romantic music inside the car, supported by the lush greenery that stretched mile after mile as far as the eye could see were partly responsible for that first kiss. It was delightful, mind-blowing and intense with passion, but any onlooker would liken it more to an adolescent’s attempts at his first osculation. The car swerved from left to right…and right to left, but thanks to the thin traffic on that stretch, the couple didn’t end up going home on stretchers. They bade each other farewell, with not little embarrassment and promised to meet again….soon.

A month has passed. Every day they log in online and chat to their heart’s content. They discuss anything and everything…and blow a million virtual kisses, punctuated by emoticons that hug and smooch and blush. An emotional saga unfolds every day, peppered with smiles, grins, laughter, tears, mostly with yearning looks at the screen. If the computers had feelings, the machines would probably have turned green with envy or red with embarrassment. Love’s in the air, with a passionate nip in the wind. They think of each other all the time. They dream of each other. They long for each other. When they are not chatting, they are on the phone with each other. But is it love? Is this what happens when two people fall in love? How about giving this some time to make sense? A year from hence, would it be the same? If so, they would wed…come rain or sunshine. Else..?

What more could qualify for a drama…than 365 days of passion and tears that would inevitably be part of this waiting? To compound the situation further, he would be leaving the city, in a month or so, to take up employment a 1,000 miles away. Would distance make the heart fonder? Would 8,760 hours bring them together for ever? Would they last the 525,600 minutes that’s ahead of them…during which they could meet just a few times? Or would they abandon the ‘waiting’ and tie the knot before that? The countdown begins…now!