You have had my heart for 14 years, and counting.
Surabhi smiling under a wall of fairy lights
Since 2012

Surabhi.

One look, and I have been looking ever since.

Scroll slowly

I saw you for the first time in 2012. I did not know your favourite song or how you take your chai. I only knew that I wanted to keep looking at you. I still do.

Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?
Christopher Marlowe, Hero and Leander
Chapter one

You and I, a little younger.

Balloons behind us, a borrowed Santa hat, and the feeling that I had already won something I could not name yet.

The two of us holding each other at a party

The night I could not stop smiling.

The two of us, heads together, in front of balloons

Your head on my shoulder. Still my favourite place for it.

Two people who had no idea how far this would go. One of them already hoping.

The two of us in a selfie, Surabhi leaning on my shoulder

You, leaning on my shoulder like you had always been there.

Blessed is the hour we sit together, you and I. Two shapes, two faces, and a single soul, you and I.
Rumi, Divan-e Shams · ghazal 2214
Surabhi leaning on a blue bench at Kalka station, the toy train behind her
Kalka.Our 2nd trip together, remember? The first one was of course Dehradun to Delhi, when you were protecting my ears from the cold.

Wherever the train was going, I was already where I wanted to be.

Surabhi standing at the door of the hill train

You on the Kalka Shimla Express, looking at the mountains. Me, looking at you.

Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.
Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
Chapter two

Every version of you.

Surabhi laughing on a rooftop

Thank you for trusting me and coming to Doon. I promise to take care of you every day.

Surabhi in front of a carved stone lattice window

The light came through a hundred little stars and still chose you.

Surabhi pouting in a cafe

The pout. I have never once won against it.

Surabhi pushing her cheeks up into a huge smile

Instructions for a bad day: look at this.

Surabhi smiling between white marble walls

The prettiest smile I know.

Surabhi smiling behind a small green plant

Trying not to laugh. Failing beautifully.

Surabhi resting her head on her arm, a red thread on her wrist

You are the woman men go to war for.

Surabhi taking a mirror selfie

Very serious about the selfie.

Surabhi kissing a loved one on the cheek

The way you love your people. I knew I wanted to be one of them.

For the record

You are the prettiest girl I have ever seen.

I thought it the first time. I think it every single day.

Surabhi smiling on a fort terrace with hills behind her

You are my Queen and always will be.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnet 43
इश्क़ पर ज़ोर नहीं, है ये वो आतिश ग़ालिब
कि लगाए न लगे और बुझाए न बने

Nobody commands love. It is the fire that will not light when you try, and will not go out when you try.

Mirza Ghalib
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, but bears it out even to the edge of doom.
William Shakespeare, Sonnet 116
The lover's ache is unlike any other ache. Love is the astrolabe of God's own mysteries.
Rumi, Masnavi · Book I
I almost wish we were butterflies and liv'd but three summer days. Three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain.
John Keats, to Fanny Brawne, 1819
That Love is all there is, is all we know of Love.
Emily Dickinson
For you

My Surabhi,

The poets above said it better than I can. Still, none of them ever met you, so here is my part.

I have loved you since the first time I saw you. Before the trips, before the long days of work, before we knew what our life would look like. My days are better because you are next to me, and every good thing is sweeter because I get to tell you about it first.

Thank you for the tilted head, the pout, the laugh that takes over your whole face. Thank you for every station bench and every ordinary evening. If I had to start again from 2012, I would walk straight to you, faster this time.

I loved you then. I love you today. I will be right here tomorrow.

Yours, since 2012.
Yours, always.