My lovely wife gave me a very simple task: write about the first time we met.
The story takes approximately two minutes to tell and goes something like this:
I met Satabdi during her first month of residency. I was a cool chief resident, and she a starstruck intern. I sat next to her for a few minutes during a meet-and-greet to learn a little more about where she was from, how she was settling into life in the middle-of-nowhere Pennsylvania, and to give her a chance to tell me how impressed she was by my wit and sense of humor. Someone, who shall go unnamed, then decided to spill red wine on us, at which point I thought it better to not sit next to her. Two and half years later, I was proposing to her in Barcelona. The end.
- Varun
Now that that’s out of way, I can talk about all the weird and amazing things that I love about my wife. Here are just a few of my favorite things:
• Satabdi is like the rain in Pennsylvania spring time: warm, unpredictable, and unrelenting. Admittedly, this analogy may be inspired by her penchant for pulling me into the pouring rain to jump and dance around like a crazy person.
• She is so talented, with a background in musical theory, and a classically trained pianist. Just know that her most listened-to Spotify song this past year was Maluma singing about getting dumped for an international football superstar.
• She loves everything and everyone unconditionally, including our two useless cats. I look forward to them taking up half the bed every night, waking me up at 6am asking for food, and screaming at me throughout the day.
• Satabdi is a total foodie, constantly looking for unique dining experiences anywhere we go. So aware is she about the culinary scene in every city we visit, that her only request on our trip to Dubai was to eat at the local McDonald’s.
• From Orlando to Tahiti, she is the greatest travel partner a guy can ask for. She only takes one week to pack and makes me get to the airport three hours before a domestic flight.
• She can make friends with a brick wall, and is the life of any party. Her ideal Friday night is falling asleep on the couch by 9pm while watching Hocus Pocus for the 52nd time.- Varun
Satabdi is all that my heart didn’t know it was missing. To describe her is to describe everything I ever wished for in a life partner. She is every cliché that has ever been written and ever will be written about love and friendship. I could probably talk about how amazing she is all day, but that would just get boring. So, I will leave you all with this: she is my favorite person in the whole multiverse, and I don’t think there is any reality that would make sense without her in it.
- Varun
Varun proposed to me on our trip to Barcelona, Spain in Dec 2019. As romantic and perfect as this sounds, the process was a comedy of errors and admittedly a self-imposed one. See, Varun relishes in my anguish and I'm notoriously impatient, two characteristics that made our engagement story torture (for me) in the most endearing way. It all started when I unknowingly signed for a package before our trip that I would find out later was my engagement ring. He had already asked my parents for their blessing, even reviewed his ring design with my best friends so Varun was set, completely unbeknownst to me.
I was really hoping Varun would propose on this trip, so much that I told my best friends "this is the trip! I just know it!" Varun knew it, too. But here is the thing, Varun really loves messing with me when I'm anxiously waiting for surprises.
Let me start this off by saying, we had a wonderful time in Barcelona. Varun planned multiple perfect moments to propose but didn't propose at a single one of them. Not only that, he was increasingly stubborn about not posing for pictures. My impatience and frustration grew day after day. He took me to nice restaurants, romantic walks with cava and champagne flutes in his backpack, a paella cooking class...but still no proposal. It all culminated at an FC Barcelona match, where I got pickpocketed and my phone with all my pictures got stolen. I was so bummed that a bucket of churros couldn't cheer me up.
Finally, it was the last day of our trip and I was dejected to say the least (there may have been some tears in front of the Sagrada Familia). I had no phone, no pictures, no ring. Trying to enjoy the last evening in Barcelona, Varun suggested walking along the beach at sunset and I obliged. We walked to a beautiful, secluded area and the thought of a proposal didn't even cross my mind because Varun had continuously crushed it throughout the trip. He apologized for being so stubborn and asked for us to take a photo. As I tried to set the angle just right for a gorgeous picture, he got down on one knee. What came next was this blurry photo of Varun and lots of happy tears!
- Satabdi
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