Happy Birthday Baby.!!

"Wow, how long has it been since we have been with each other?" Lavanya asked him, taking another bite from her pizza.

"This friday, it will be three years," Angad told her and smiled.

Lavanya laughed briefly, "What happened to that playboy I met years ago who had to get into another relationship right after getting in to one?"

"Well," said Angad and took a bite from his chocolate dessert, "that playboy became thirty today."

Lavanya grinned, "You have grown up now?"

Angad shook his head, "Nah, and I never will, but everyone around me has grown up."

"What do you mean?" Lavanya frowned.

Angad looked deep in her eyes, "Remember back in college, when dating meant just dating? When it was just about having fun! You had no idea what would happen and in a way, you didn't want to know. Because sometimes, not knowing is fun. It was just so exciting. Now, the definition of dating has changed."

"As in?" Lavanya said, now ignoring the food on the table and getting more engrossed in the conversation she was having.

Angad frowned, "Like you don't know."

Lavanya smiled, "No, I don't know, please tell me", and batted her eyes.

Angad sighed, "Dating is still fun but it is not the same anymore. 'My parents want to see you.' 'Will our parents approve of our marriage?' 'How are we going to get married?' 'Are we going to follow your customs to get married or ours?' 'Will society approve this inter-religion marriage?' God, it's all about what others will think when we will get married."

Lavanya looked at him confused, "That's wrong?"

Angad shook his head, "Of course, it is not wrong. It just isn't, you know, what I want."

"What do you want?"

Angad took Lavanya's hand in his and smiled, "To be in love without worrying for what others think of us."

Lavanya didn't even blink her eyes, "I am not sure I understand you."

Without breaking the eye contact Angad continued, "Why do you think people want to be with each other? Because they are in love. Marriage, having kids; it's moving forward. Moving forward with a person you're in love with. Anybody can fall in love, but very few people have guts to be committed to that person for a life time. Right?"

"Yes"

"So, if we love each other, and want to be with each other, than what business others have with that. I love you, you love me, and we want to spend the rest of our lives with each other. It doesn't matter how we get married, as long as we are getting married and are happy with each other. It doesn't matter what my distant relatives think of you as my life partner or whether your relatives approve me to be your life partner or not. What matters is whether we are happily in love with each other or not. It doesn't matter if we are following different religions, all religions preach love, and our love for each other is above each and every religion in the world. Our parents have a right to be worried for our future, but they shouldn't be the one to decide whether we should get married or not, or how we will live after getting married. That decision is solely ours, and ours alone, not mine not yours, but ours. And most importantly, the only deciding factor on marriage should be our love for each other and nothing else."

Lavanya took a deep breath and finally spoke, "Is that what you want?"

Angad smiled, "No honey, I want us to be together in love with each other. I want to be busy; busy living my life with you, busy loving you the way I love. I want to travel every corner of this world and I don't want to travel alone. I want to travel with someone I love, and that's you. I want you to be beside me, living the moment as it is - not worrying about what we would be tomorrow. Not worrying if society will label us as outcasts. I agree, society matters. But they don't matter as much as our love for each other. I don't want us to get married for the society, I want us to get married for our love, I want us to get married for ourselves. I want us to get married, have kids, settle down and be together, be in love."

Angad sighed and continued, "Marriage is not just a ceremony, or papers. It is not just a wedding. You hold hand to show your affection, you kiss because that makes sense in love. You marry not because you have to, because you want to, because it's just another way of showing affection, another way of declaring you are in love. It's not a promise of being together for the rest of your lives, it's only if you spend the rest of your lives together, you realise that it was a promise. Another beautiful start to an already beautiful journey. You don't wake up just to a person you love, you wake to your wife or husband the next morning, a person you dreamt of waking up next to, since you were old enough to love."

Angad looked deep in Lavanya's eyes and said, "I am in love with you, and I cannot stop loving you. After marriage, I might be a jerk and fight with you over silly things, I may be irresponsible and get home late at night, while you will be awake waiting for me. I might pamper our kids a lot, to the point of spoiling them. But I am sure of one thing, I will never fail as a husband or a father. I will love you and our kids, more than anyone else in the entire universe.

There will never come a day in our life when you will get tired of cooking three meals for us, as I will be helping you cook them. There will never come a day in our life when you will turn to opposite direction fuming in anger before sleeping, as I will always hug you and kiss before sleeping and make you sleep in my arms.

When there will be wrinkles on your face and grey hair on your head, and you won't remember how many days are there in a week. I will make you sit on my lap, hug you tight and show you photographs of all the happy times we have spent together, and make you smile.

Lavanya smiled and tears found their way to her cheeks, "If things are supposed to go this way, then trust me, no matter what others say or think, things will go this way. I love you and I am always with you."

Lavanya leaned towards Angad, her lips found his and an electric current ran through their bodies, "Happy birthday baby!"