Heylo :),

So it has happened, I got engaged today finally, and the fun part was, it is not "arranged" -- as had seemed imminent right through my teens and all that, my girl actually decided to get engaged to me on her own - Wow ! but, we will get back to that in a minute.

Before, I actually post the pictures, let her be A (for Annonymous) for some more time. So, I saw A for the first time on 20th Feb, 2007 when she came to the BCG office after her BCG selection (well, I remember the date because NZ chased 337 against the darned Aussies in the Chappell-Hadlee trophy on the back of a delightful McCullum-86 - the power of Cricket, mate !!) - she looked good as usual, and as per "the guy radar", it was instantly surmised that she must be in the "is-too-good-not-to-have-bf -> so-will-have-bf" category (Ohh, if you were wondering, it is Universal, when we are up, we check out all femmes, and when we sleep, the US guys do the same - Guy radar, as I told ya). Okay, back to the story, thanks to my old flatmate, Mr. P Sinha, I got to meet this lady some more - movies, dinners etc. and I became a friend in a personal capacity. She was going through a relationship and I was on my usual spree of girls - friends, more, less, some more - clueless basically.

Then she had a break-up and surprisingly, I was able to handle that (trust me, it is actually unusual), and her strange combination of wittiness, intelligence (dood - IIT D, BCG - are you still checking :) ?), emotiveness and amazing springiness intrigued me, but still kept me to good friends. We watched movies together (I slept while she hogged popcorn and JAF - Nirula's Jamaica Almond Fudge - lemme tell you, she is excellently picky -- meri total opposite - am stupidly bohemian, stole time out to see each other, somehow managed to evade running into people when we were together (once in CP, it was a total movie scene, we saw this BCG person headed towards us, and just like that I turned and started walking in the opposite direction and A went ahead and said 'Hi' to her - straight out of movies, I tell you !). There were rumors about us, but as I always told A, it will be true only when we believe and admit it, else really, what the heck.

Infact, we even worked on one common case for a particular period, but then we hope we don't get staffed together - she really hates me when I am in the working mode. But, things continued, and we started to grow accustomed to each other, a cynic like me started feeling TLC (tender, love and care for the uninitiated) and she saw hope in me :P. Then ~3-4 months ago, it happened - no proposing (I will like to put on record for posterity) but just as a natural extension of what we felt, we decided to give it a hangy-shoo as it goes. Then came the parents' bit - her parents kinda liked what they saw, but mine were the typical Biharis afraid to go against the caste legacy. Anyhow, a month ago, I got them here and got them to meet A. And they fell in love, absolutely :) - one top of the world feeling, if there was one.

And today here I am, engaged and looking into the most beautiful pair of eyes in the world, who make me go Dhak Dhak, Dhak Dhak, Dhak dhak (okay, will stop the kidding). But, she cares, she loves me and makes me feel absolutely royal. What more could you wish for :) ?

And yes, thanks for the wishes.

Ran actually kan (remember my VDay posts, and you will know, what I mean :)).

And to end with one of my fav endings, lines from the ultra-latest Aloo-Chaat: