How We Met
We came from two very different worlds — Kerala and Karnataka, Malayalam and Kannada — and neither of us was looking for the other.
Then we met. Deva wasn't convinced this was going to work: here was a guy who didn't speak Malayalam and had an answer for everything. Abhi was quietly impressed by someone that sure of who she was.
Somewhere between the arguments, the laughs, and approximately 47 unnecessary reels sent when one would do — our differences stopped mattering.
Still very different. Still arguing about who's right. But now, officially, we're stuck with each other — and we wouldn't have it any other way.
If you had asked either of us at the beginning whether we thought we would end up here, we probably would have laughed.
We came from two very different places, with very different ideas of what home meant, and neither of us was particularly busy looking for the person we would eventually spend our lives with.
And then we met.
At first, it was simply two people getting to know each other. Conversations turned into spending more time together, and somehow, ordinary days started becoming our favourite ones.
For Abhi, there was something different about being around Deva. After work, he usually had a very predictable routine: come home, switch off, and disappear into his room. But suddenly, there was someone he actually looked forward to seeing. Weekends felt different. Even the most ordinary evenings became something to look forward to.
For Deva, Abhi was a little harder to figure out. Here was this guy who wasn't from Kerala, didn't speak Malayalam, and seemed to have an answer for absolutely everything. Deva wasn't immediately convinced this combination was going to work.
But somewhere between the conversations, the arguments, the laughs, and Abhi slowly picking up Malayalam words, she started seeing something else. He genuinely wanted to understand her — not just the things she liked, but where she came from, what mattered to her, and the people and culture that made her who she was.
And Abhi quickly discovered that Deva was not someone who was easily impressed. She was smart, independent, and incredibly clear about what she believed in. She had moved to Sydney on her own, built a life for herself, and had a clear set of values she lived by. Abhi admired that about her.
Deva, in turn, found in Abhi someone who could make even the most ordinary moments fun — someone who could make her laugh when she didn't expect to, who would show up when it mattered, and who slowly became the person she wanted to tell everything to.
The more time we spent together, the less our differences seemed to matter. Kerala and Karnataka. Malayalam and Kannada. Different families, different childhoods, different ideas of where "home" was. But somehow, we understood each other.
We found ourselves having the same conversations, sharing the same ridiculous sense of humour, and discovering that we could disagree about something completely insignificant and still spend the next five minutes laughing about it.
Somewhere along the way, "spending time together" became part of our everyday lives. Then came the little things neither of us really noticed at the time — the random calls, the late-night conversations, the meals, the inside jokes, sending each other reels — and, in Abhi's case, sending approximately 47 reels when one would have been perfectly sufficient.
And slowly, without either of us announcing it, we became each other's person.
The two of us began creating a little world of our own here — one where our backgrounds didn't have to compete with each other. They could simply become part of the same story.
Neither of us had to become someone else for the other.
We just kept learning each other.
Deva taught Abhi that home could be a feeling rather than a place. Abhi reminded Deva that home could also be something you build together.
We liked being together.
Then we loved being together.
And eventually, we couldn't imagine doing life without each other.
So, after all the conversations, all the laughs, all the differences, all the Malayalam lessons, all the family introductions, and far too many reels...
Here we are.
Still very different. Still occasionally arguing about who is right. Still trying to make each other laugh.
But now, officially, we're stuck with each other. And honestly, we wouldn't have it any other way.