Ankit, 23, works in Cognizant while Mohit, 27 is pursuing MA in Education and works part time with Virtual Assistant Group. They both live together in Bangalore.
That cute guy
I still remember the day when we first met on a beautiful winter morning in February 2017. I accompanied my colleague and best friend Tanisha for an official meeting. I noticed this cute boy looking at me as he was shopping. Do I know him, I wondered.
As he came closer, I found him looking at Tanisha and that’s when she introduced us. After a small introduction, we parted ways. As a coincidence, Ankit and I matched over Tinder after a few days. We started with short Tinder chats - sometimes one message in maybe 20 days!
After a few months, we exchanged our numbers and started chatting on and off on WhatsApp. Ankit was still in Meerut, in his final year of engineering. We became good friends but didn’t meet because of my busy schedule and his rare visits to Delhi.
The historic date
When Ankit moved to Delhi we talked more often. One day, we ended up having an hour long telephonic conversation about his past life.
Ankit ended up proposing to me for a life long relationship. I was not prepared for something like this but the moment I shared this with him, I felt bad. There was a strong voice from inside, ‘Mohit, you are losing a gem!’ So I accepted his proposal on the very call itself.
More than a year after our first meeting and proposal, we finally met on the 6 September, 2018. It was our first date and a great coincidence that it’s also the day when the Supreme Court of India decriminalised homosexuality. Truly historical and special!
Signs from the universe
The decriminalisation of homosexuality on our first date was the first positive sign that we were meant to be. But after that we have had many such signs from the universe!
For instance, when we met for our first date at City Centre, Dwarka, the weather was amazing that day, so I asked him to sit in a park in front of the city centre.
While sitting in the park, Ankit asked me to remove my ring and make him wear that. I wore that ring on my thumb but it fit his ring finger perfectly. Then he made me wear a ring he had bought for me, and it fit me perfectly!
After exchanging rings, we started walking around the park. It started raining heavily. We were a little far from the nearest shelter hence we got wet. As we were walking towards the shelter, a security guard from one of the nearby buildings asked us to come inside.
We entered the building and there was a temple at the entrance where some ladies were singing bhajans. The rain, the ring and now the bhajans...Ankit is religious and I am more of a spiritual person, but in our own ways, both of us considered this as another sign from God.
The big desi wedding
We have been living together since 2018 now. Life has been wonderful together. The day he first came to my home was really memorable. I was still sleeping when Ankit woke me up with a kiss on my forehead. With us together, every single day is romantic and memorable.
Both of us are waiting for that day when we can get married officially. We dream of a traditional Indian wedding where we celebrate all rituals such as Haldi and Mehndi and then the saat phere wali Hindu wedding and adopt at least two children.
Sharing our love
We started an Instagram account to post our couple pics and share love with the community. We had no idea that people would love us so much. We got 10k+ followers on Instagram within a few months.
A lot of people started asking us about our love story and how we met and all. Some suggested making a web series, some requested for a music video. We discussed it with our friends and decided to put together a five-song series based on our real story. The first music video tells ‘How We Met’ and is available on YouTube. We made this song to share our story with people and also to normalise homosexual love.
Very few people get a chance to relive their first meeting and immortalise it forever with a video. We feel lucky to be one one them! Check out the music video below.
Miles and smiles
Currently, we are far apart due to COVID-19. I am stuck in Delhi and he is in Bangalore. So every single day now feels like a year. I am still with my family but Ankit is alone there.
He cries almost every day over phone and it’s only my stupid jokes that help him smile. We are truly thankful to the video call technology that’s kept us in touch during difficult times.
We are celebrating PrideMonth 2020 with Mohit and Ankit’s love story. Do you also want to share your story with us? Write to us or DM us on Facebook. If you have any questions, ask on our discussion forum.
About the author: Mohit is a researcher who writes about gender, sexuality, education and love. You can find him on Instagram.