Happy Girlfriend's Day

I think a part of me knew it on our very first call. Somehow, while discussing the most ridiculous jungle-survival strategy ever, that the best way to defeat a bear would be for us to start singing together until its ears gave up, I felt something click. I had found someone rare.

That day, and through the week that followed, I was happy in a way I had not felt for a long, long time. Your voice gave me a high no drink, no drug, no distraction could ever give me.

It felt clean. It felt natural. It felt like coming back to a part of myself I didn't even know existed.

Being with you has always felt strangely easy, like the universe was not forcing anything, just quietly placing us where we were supposed to be.

Every day with you feels written in the stars, like Mahadev looked at the chaos of the world and smiled while making us his favorite side project.

Falling in love with you felt magical in the most ordinary way. I would complete 20,000 steps while talking to you on the phone and not even realise I was walking. My body would get tired before my heart ever wanted the call to end.

Before you, even my longest, most gossip-filled conversations with friends would run out of fuel in thirty minutes. With you, a four-hour call somehow became normal. Effortless. Like the day had simply made extra space for us.

And because we are two different people who came together and truly tried to accept each other, there have been moments of tension, friction, and pain. I am not proud of every low moment we have had.

But I am proud that we kept choosing to come back to the table, not by suppressing what we felt or distracting ourselves from it, but by talking, listening, and trying to understand each other more deeply.

Baby, I know you have complaints with me. I know I have messed things up before, and I am sure there will be moments in the future where I still fall short while trying to become better.

But please do not ever doubt the one thing in me that is not confused: my love for you. I truly and deeply love you, and only you. For every mess-up, I ask you for a little patience, and for you to not give up on me while I keep learning how to love you better.

Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I had not dared to do all the crazy, reckless, stupidly confident things I did on our first date.

What if I had not grabbed your phone so you could not book an Uber? What if I had not kept asking you to eat something, anything, after we left Smokehouse Deli, until you finally said yes?

What if I had not had that sudden brain-wave to go to Paul's, and what if Paul's had not absolutely nailed the fries?

For the record, I am definitely naming one of our kids Paul someday. That place earned it.

What if I had not gone in for the kiss with the exact intent that I did? What if I had not said the exact things I said?

Would God have kept me away from you? Would He not have allowed me to drive you around for seven hours in UT's tractor on the first day itself?

Did God really mean to mess up the Qiro project so that we could come together, or was it just Quill being Quill?

I think about these questions a lot. And every time I do, I feel grateful that things happened in the exact strange, chaotic, magical way they happened, because somehow all of it led me to you.

But you know what, babe?

Even if none of those things had happened. Even if the phone, the Uber, Smokehouse Deli, Paul's, the fries, the kiss, the seven-hour drive, Qiro, Quill, all of it had gone differently. I would have still found you.

You may not know this, but you have taught me how to love. You have filled a void in me that I did not even know existed.

And whenever I would have finally realised that something was missing, I would have gone searching for that missing piece of my heart.

Across every timeline, I believe I would have fought fate, turned back time, defeated death, and torn through every distance just to reach you.

I know, somehow, I would always have ended up with you. In this life, in the next, and until eternity.

There is one doubt I want to answer clearly, because I know how dangerous a whispered doubt can be when it enters the heart of someone you love.

I do not want to give the person who asked it any power over us. But I do want to answer the question properly, so it never has to sit quietly inside you.

The question was basically this: Rahul has travelled so much, met so many people in India and outside India, seen different countries, different women, different lives. So why is he dating you? What is his hidden motive?

Baby, I swear on my Red Velvet Dohfuls, I will not let a question like that plant itself between us.

Let me tell you the truth.

Even before our first date, I had already accepted you as my girlfriend in my heart. You just did not know it yet. I did not need a dramatic announcement from the universe. Something in me had already chosen you.

Was it because I liked exactly the body type you have? Was it the way you talk, the jokes you make, the way you understood web3, the timing with which you came into my life, or even the fact that you are Jaat?

Maybe, partly. All of those things made you familiar, attractive, interesting, and impossibly hard for me to ignore.

But the biggest reason was deeper than all of that.

It was shared values. I always believed that if I was with the right person, my nervous system would know before my brain could fully explain it. And with you, that is exactly what happened.

I can be me when you are around. Not a polished version, not a managed version, not some performance designed to keep someone impressed. Just me.

And I hope, with all my heart, that you feel you can be fully you with me too. If that base condition is met, everything else can be worked through.

What good is any fantasy woman from anywhere in the world if being with her steals peace from my life?

What good is beauty, nationality, glamour, novelty, or distance if I have to pretend to be someone else just to keep her?

I have always been content with the kind of person I am. My strongest requirement from a partner was never that she worship me or agree with everything I say.

It was that she accepts me as I am, and still loves me enough to push me toward the best man I can become.

Nancy, you fit that role perfectly.

Not because you are performing it out of obligation, and not because you are just naturally nice to everyone. You do it because you truly want the best for me, the best for yourself, and the best for us.

That is a rare thing in this world. A truly rare thing.

So if any voice ever asks you, "Why you?", I want my answer to be louder: because you give me peace, truth, fire, friendship, desire, home, and the kind of love that makes me want to become worthy of it.

I guess you already know this, but I absolutely adore you in kurtis. Every time you have worn one, somehow the universe has decided to give us chemistry that is completely illegal for ordinary human beings.

Some of those memories are ridiculous, unforgettable, and yes, even moving-car level iconic. XD

But beyond all the teasing and all the things I personally find beautiful on you, I want you to know this with complete certainty: I accept you for who you are, and I respect your choices.

Kurti, mini skirt, sundress, saree, suit, anything. The outfit hardly matters to me. It is the woman wearing it who has my whole heart.

And I will do everything I can to make sure you can wear what you want, when you want, and where you want, without fear, shame, or anyone making you feel smaller for being yourself.

I do not want to own your choices. I want to protect your freedom to make them.

There is another thing I never got to say properly out loud. I deeply appreciate the way you have supported me in my professional life too.

You met me at perhaps the worst time in my career, and somehow, right in front of you, I fell even lower before I started finding my ground again.

But not once did you ask me to stop chasing my dreams. Not once did you make me feel stupid for believing in Bluethroat. Not once did you tell me to become more realistic in the way people use that word when they really mean, "become smaller."

You kept believing in the dream when the dream did not look easy to believe in.

Apart from me, you have been the one person I could count on to truly, genuinely want Bluethroat to win.

I love that unconditional support from you more than I can explain. I hope I can give even a part of that back to you someday, in the places where you need someone to believe in you without hesitation.

And for the record, baby, do not ever worry too much about money.

I am rich. Like, really rich. ;)

I understand that this past month has been unbearably hard on you. I can try to support you through it, baby, but I do not want to pretend that I can fully understand what you went through, what you endured, or what it felt like inside your body and your heart.

I did whatever I could, and I did whatever I thought was right, with your safety as my first and only concern.

If I sounded intense, scared, overprotective, practical, or imperfect at times, please know that underneath all of it was one simple truth: I wanted you safe.

I offer you my deepest, most heartfelt apology for every place where I fell short over these last one or two months.

For every moment where I did not comfort you the way you needed, understand you quickly enough, or hold your emotions with the tenderness they deserved, I am sorry.

But I also have this solid feeling about us.

Like Taleb explains anti-fragility through the mythic Hydra, I believe some things do not merely survive pressure. When they are tested, they return with more heads, more strength, more life.

I believe our relationship can be like that. Not untouched by hardship, but made deeper by the fact that we faced it together.

I believe our trust can multiply because we did not just enjoy the easy days. We also stood inside the difficult ones and still kept reaching for each other.

And in this journey of healing, rebuilding, and overcoming, it would be my privilege if you could lean on me a little more.

Let me earn your trust fully, slowly, patiently, and lovingly. I want to be a place where your heart feels safe.