5 stories of childhood sweethearts that will restore your faith in love!
Love is the most beautiful thing, and we’re sure you’ll agree with us. It makes us feel things we can’t imagine, and it makes life even more beautiful! These childhood sweethearts reaffirm our faith in love, and we hope they do the same for you.
“We were family friends while growing up. My grandparents lived in the same colony as her — so I often bumped into her while playing badminton. She ended up going to college with my cousin, and that’s how we were first introduced. In that first conversation itself I knew she was special — there was something about her.
I was working in Nagpur at the time, so whenever I came down to Bombay we would meet — I wanted to spend every minute with her. We did simple, but meaningful things together— long walks, watching a film, going to the opera, eating street food. Looking back, I think those little moments built a foundation for the larger things in life. Back then, we had no need for an elaborate proposal…it was unsaid and understood between us long before we even spoke about getting married, that we would spend the rest of our lives together.
I was 28 and she was 22 when we did get married and she moved to a new city with me, without ever complaining. Sometimes I would be away for 2 weeks at a stretch and that distance was extremely difficult for us. As a surprise, I adopted a puppy to keep her company…I’ll never forget how excited she got! The distance however, was short lived —I was soon assigned to a position back in Bombay and after that we've never been apart!
To celebrate our move, we took a trip together and somehow that became a tradition with us — since the past 46 years we take one trip a year, just us two and believe me, each one is like a honeymoon! The best part is that people look forward to a vacation, but everyday life with her is special. Over the years, we’ve loved doing everything together, from reading to going to music shows, or simply just taking a walk outside. It’s through her that I’ve learned that what you do doesn’t really matter, it’s who you’re doing it with that counts.
And it’s not always been rosy — we’ve had our share of ups and downs but we’ve always faced them together, as a team. Just 10 years ago we moved in with her mother who is in her 90s now. Marriage is a union of families and I feel that together we’re taking care of “our” mother. For the last few years we don’t get to go out together all the time as much anymore since one of us usually stays at home with mom, but we’ve developed a new habit of filling each other in at the end of the day. That’s what love is about — being two parts of a whole and knowing that no distance and no bad phase can take that part from you…you are one.”
“We’ve known each other since childhood–our parents are good friends; so we'd meet a lot but never really spoke. When I was in the 11th grade, he added me to his friend list and we started chatting online. We were friends for 2 years before he asked me out. I was so young, I panicked and asked mom, ‘What do I do?!’ But she was cool about it; she just asked, ‘Are you sure’' In my heart, it felt so right! So we were open with our parents from the beginning, and one date turned into many… before we knew it, we were in love.
During that time, my family went through a financial crisis. I was only 18 and didn’t know how to handle it—I was so anxious. But he was there throughout. He not only listened to my rants but also helped dad get his finances in order. He looked after us like family.
And when he proposed marriage, he told me, ‘I know we have a 10 year gap, but I’ll make sure you never feel it. You know how much I love you, so if you give me a chance, I will prove it to you for the rest of my life.’ That's when I knew he was ‘the one’. We got married after my graduation–I was only 20 then, but I didn’t doubt it for a second. When I told my friends, they were shocked! But I told them, ‘When you know, you know.’
We went to Switzerland for our honeymoon–and it was the trip of a lifetime! It was our first time ever on a plane! We were there for 6 days but missed home, so one evening, we went out for thin crust pizzas and gobbled 5 of them. Even after that, we were so hungry that we scoured for an Indian restaurant and binged on roti, paneer, and butter chicken!
We’ve been married for 9 years today and have a son who’s the perfect little addition to our family. Every night, we go for a car ride for some ‘us time’—we take time off from the world, unwind and talk. It’s a tradition that we’ve never broken, and if I’m ever too tired, he’ll say, ‘Let’s go for 5 minutes’ and make the cutest eyes ever!
Over the years, I’ve realized that love is love. It doesn’t see age or gender... just the soul. He’s the one I want to come home to at the end of a long day and the only person I share my butter chicken with—guess that’s when you know it’s true love!”
“We’re childhood sweethearts, but we fight all the time! His favourite thing to do is poke me and watch me get all riled up—he has so much fun doing it! The first memory I have of us together is from 5th grade — all of us, including him, were creating mischief in class, but when the teacher came, he blamed it on me! So I had to stand outside class for the rest of the day, while he enjoyed being the ‘innocent’ one. Oh, how I hated him!
But me being me, I couldn’t stay mad at him because I found him SO cute! And one day, when we were 14, someone told him how I felt about him. So he messaged me, saying that he found me cute too, and that was it — our love story began!
It’s been a few years since we’ve been together now, and let me tell you, nothing has changed! He still loves fighting with me and loves it when I react! Recently, it was my 18th birthday and I was so excited to celebrate it with him. But just the day before, he called me and said that he had work and he couldn’t make it—I was so upset. We’d been fighting a lot anyway, and it felt like there were a lot of issues between us.
Then on the day of, he called me, asked me where I was and just cut the phone. I was out for lunch so I didn’t care for it much and was prepared to not see him. But then suddenly at a distance, I see him walking towards me...He had this huge bouquet of red roses and a box of 18 doughnuts—because I absolutely love doughnuts! I was so surprised and almost in tears!
We fight and argue all the time, and are barely on the same page. But the best part is that no matter how much we might irritate, annoy, and piss each other off, all that matters is that at the end of the day, we come back to each other and make it up — as best as we can!”
“We grew up together—both our families settled down in the same colony after the partition. Times were different back then. We lived in cottage-like houses that were tightly packed. There was no privacy in our community—it was normal to see what was on your neighbour’s plate for dinner!
I often looked at him – he was both charming and good-looking; people flirted with him even after his face would turn red while playing cricket. It was common for him to come over and make my mother laugh. They had the same interests and humour. He befriended her before formally talking to me!
So when he asked for my hand in marriage, I was elated. I grew attached to him very quickly—I could see his room from my window so every night I would slyly look at him. I can still feel those butterflies! We weren’t allowed to be alone together during our courtship—in those days, even if you went to watch a film, the whole family would go together. But we found our ways. Anytime our parents were out of the house, we would sneak into each other’s homes. Neither one of us had a phone at our place, so we would go to a neighbour’s house just to hear the sound of each other’s voices.
His family was suddenly under a financial crisis, which meant we had to wait for our marriage, so for 7 years we kept up our antics. But when I reached my mid 20s, I started getting more offers for my hand in marriage.
Even though he wanted to be more stable before we made the big move, I didn’t care. I didn’t need a big bank balance—I just wanted him! I promised to support him no matter what, and in a simple ceremony, we were married. You know what’s beautiful? Nothing changed between us after marriage. We had two beautiful children and we brought ourselves up from the ground up. We’ve seen so many hardships, but it’s still been such a good, happy life.
So we’ve known each other since I was 4 and he was 9–we were neighbours, friends and eventually life partners, but we’re still looking for ways to spend more time together and our antics are still on. We’re still coming up with clever ways to ditch our children and take vacations alone; somehow even a lifetime isn’t enough!”
“I was 14 when I was out with 2 of my friends at a really shady bar. I didn’t even know what I was doing there—I was a complete goody-two-shoes kid! But that’s when I met Siddharth for the first time. He sat opposite me and stared at me the whole time, but barely spoke a word! My first impression of him was, ‘Wow, he thinks he’s too cool for a conversation!’
The same day, I found out from a friend that he liked me—for him, it was love at first sight. So, a week later, when he got admission in my school, it obviously wasn’t a coincidence! Pretty soon, we started hanging out in the same group, but never hung out alone.
A couple of months later, we were talking on the phone about a project, when suddenly, in the middle of the conversation, he said, ‘I love you’. I froze, and just said, ‘Okay’. There was a pause, and then I said, ‘Same’. We continued talking like nothing even happened—that was it; we were dating! We’d go for movies and walks on the beach alone.
2 years later, he went to Bangalore to study engineering, and I was studying in London—thus began our 5 year long long-distance relationship. We’d meet every 5-6 months but we never questioned whether the distance was worth it, we always knew it was! When he’d visit, I’d bunk tests for him, and I’d always have butterflies before I saw him.
From helping each other with maths, to helping each other realise our potential, we’ve done it all. I gave up being a stylist to start my own blog, and he gave up engineering to pursue his family business. We pushed each other to work hard, and before we knew it, we were killing it in our careers. We don’t really fight but have silly arguments all the time—once we went on vacation, and I wanted to have breakfast but he was too lazy and slept till 1 PM! And he’s not cheesy at all, so sometimes I have to teach him how to be romantic! But last year, for my birthday, he finally went all out and planned a self-care day for me with spas and great food!
It’s been 11 years now, and just last year, we decided to get married. Our conversation to get married was so casual. I mean, we’d planned our wedding when we were 16, and now we were old enough and more than ready to go through with it! We recently had our roka, where we celebrated with all our family and friends!
I can’t wait to walk down the aisle and marry my best friend; my childhood love. I’m the happiest I’ve ever been, and I’m more in love with Siddharth than I could’ve imagined. He still hasn’t proposed to me, and I know he doesn’t do cheesy, but there’s no way he’s getting out of this one—I’m waiting for it, and it’s got to be fondue-levels of cheesiness!”
Being India’s biggest storytelling platform, Humans of Bombay is all about bringing you extraordinary stories of ordinary people. We hope these stories make you fall in love with love! If you’d like to read more such stories, check out our book and dive into the diverse tales of a country with a billion hearts!
2 Comments
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Nisha
Such cute stories ♥️♥️♥️
Nisha
So cute ♥️♥️♥️