Rediff.com« Back to articlePrint this article

Love story: 'We married after courting for 12 yrs'

Last updated on: December 23, 2010 17:10 IST

We invited readers to share stories of how they met their spouses and interesting anecdotes about their wedding day. Here's Satyajeet Gopal's account of how Bharadwaj Srivatsa courted his cousin Sushma for 12 years before getting married!

It was in the May of 1996 when I had just completed my tenth grade and Sushma was about to start hers.

We are cousins -- she is my maternal uncle's daughter. I was loving her since the time unknown but very hesitant to spell this to her or anybody.

I was keeping it myself. But one fine day I got to know that my other cousin (my mom's sister's son) Pramod is also loving her a lot.

Since me and Sushma were very close and very friendly, he asked me a favour -- he asked me to convey to Sushma that he is in love with her.

As I was very close to him, I thought I should sacrifice my love for my beloved brother, and waited for an opportunity to tell her this.

We were in a four-day family trip. Ours is a very big family and cousins of our age are in plenty so we used to move around together and didn't get the chance to convey the message what my brother had send to her.

One fine afternoon I had the chance to speak to her personally about this. I conveyed to her that Pramod is in love with her. She said it can't happen so... because she is in love with me and asked me to convey the same to him.

I tried convincing her...but in vain.

I was in duel mind: one very happy to have won the heart of my dream girl and at the same time, sad that I would end up in loggerheads with my brother.

Finally I decided to convey him the feelings of Sushma through his sister. After he came to know about our love, he acted in a very matured way. He became even more friendlier to me and her than before.

She was in Tumkur and I was in Bangalore.

We could meet each other once in a year. We had no way of communication. I couldn't call her with my pocket money, because of the call charges prevailed at that time.

After I joined engineering, I went to her college to meet her. After seeing me in her college she was surprised and I was very afraid to stay for even one hour so I returned back to Bangalore.

As the time passed, frequency of meeting eased out and after getting job, we were almost everyday used to speak over phone.

As we knew each other, getting permission from our parents was not a big task. After 12 years of love life, we have been married for four years now.

We are blessed with two beautiful kids -- first one is daughter and second is son.

Share your romantic experiences with us! Write in to getahead@rediff.co.in (subject line: 'My love story') along with a photograph of you and your spouse if possible and we'll publish the best entries right here!

Just make sure you include the following information:

Where and how you met your partner

When you shared your feelings for each other

An interesting incident from your wedding