Sometimes, I think our entire equation runs on nonsense — and weirdly enough, I love that.
Like this one time, I was having terrible cramps. 😩
I texted Manav just to distract myself. Instead of the usual "get well soon", he sent this:
> "Main sone jaa raha hoon… tu apna thoda dard mere paas bhej de."
(I'm going to sleep… send a little bit of your pain my way.)
Excuse me?? 🤨
I replied:
> "Mera bas chalta toh poora bhej deti, thode se kaam nahi chalega."
(If it were up to me, I'd send you all of it — a little won't be enough.)
To which he, being his usual extra self, said:
> "Tu khud hi aa ja na dard ke saath-saath."
(Why don't you come along with the pain too?)
The audacity. 😭
For a second, I just sat there — phone in hand, jaw on floor — wondering if I should laugh, blush, or throw my phone out the window.
Because tell me, who says that?!
Normal people offer comfort.
This man offered a one-way ticket to Bellford. ✈️
Another time, I said something in English and teased him:
> "Miss Engineer, English badi strong hai aapki."
(Miss Engineer, your English is so strong!)
He laughed and added:
> "Main toh nahi bolta zyada… mujhe apni language mein hi feel aati hai."
(I don't speak much… I only get the real feel in my own language.)
I had to throw sass:
> "Ye dekho, aajkal log language se feel le rahe hain."
(Wow, people are catching feelings from languages now!)
And he hit back with philosophy:
> "Language hi toh first feeling hoti hai."
(Language is the first feeling).
And yes this time it's philosopher manav, you will get to see him sometimes too....
Another time, just another hour of the same day, it all started because I had sent him a snap of an onion heart 🧅🧡— yeah, literal onion shaped like a heart — with the caption:
> "I was making dinner and now I'm in a situationship with an onion."
And of course, he pretended not to know what a situationship was — just to mess with me.
> "Tu iss onion ke saath kya galat karne wali hai?"
(What wrong thing are you planning to do with this onion?)
I literally stared at my screen like 😳 — what kind of imagination does this man have?!
Sir, it's just an onion, not Fifty Shades of Salad. 🧅🙄
He followed it up with:
> "Sirf tu hi mazaak kar sakti hai kya?"
(Only you get to joke around, huh?)
That's how it always was — jokes turning into banter, banter turning into something else entirely. Not deep. Not serious. But something.
He never said anything directly, and neither did I.
But one day, I told him casually:
> "Mujhe lagta hai tu mujhse obsessed hai."
(I think you're obsessed with me.)
He said:
> "Mujhe obsessed ka matlab nahi pata."
(I don't know what 'obsessed' means.)
Imagine living in Bellford — a whole English-speaking country — and still dodging vocab like a pro. 🫠 That's Manav for you.
And somehow, all of it — the wordless flirting, the weird metaphors, the accidental onions — felt better than any serious conversation ever could.
Because this wasn't love.
Not yet.
This was something else entirely.
And I wasn't in a hurry to define it. 💬
"But little did I know — the ocean doesn't stop where the shore says 'enough'🌊...."