We met for a drink between lockdowns.
He was an ICU doctor treating COVID patients around the clock, I was a journalist reporting the pandemic. We found love in a hopeless place 🎼. I joked on that first date that Rengan was probably too vanilla for me anyway, so let loose and proceeded to tell him my wildest travel stories while he grinned at me. As the night went on we realised we had a shared sense of values, history and dark humour. It felt like the start of a great love story. It was.
— Mridula
We got engaged while travelling the world together in 2023.
In Berlin I secretly went ring shopping while Mridula was out getting tattoos. At a stopover in Doha I called her father to ask for her hand. And by the time we landed in Tanzania, between her journalist instincts and my beaming smile she’d already figured it all out. I’d initially planned to propose on a hot air balloon over the Serengeti (which she’d organised). But I realised she knew me so well that to truly surprise her, I had to surprise myself. So after witnessing the Great Migration I stopped the vehicle, stepped out with her onto the red dirt under an African sunset, and asked her to marry me. We then did the hot air balloon engagement as well – so we got engaged twice.
It's the happiest moment of my life so far. — Rengan