Between the sharp, sticky heat of Delhi and the occasional, stolen breeze of an overworked ceiling fan, I sit, staring at this man—this impossibility of a man—who somehow, against all odds, against every carefully crafted plan, is mine.

And honestly? It has all been a scam.

A very well-orchestrated, brilliantly executed, straight-out-of-a-con movie that the universe somehow pulled off without me realizing.

Because me? Married? To him?

I had spent my life confidently declaring that I wasn’t the marrying kind. That I would waltz through life, gathering stories, laughing at love-struck fools, and living on my own terms. I was sure I’d be the main character of my own chaos, sipping overpriced coffee, giving wise (and unsolicited) advice to friends about their doomed relationships, and sneaking out of weddings before they could trap me into their happily-ever-afters.

And then, somewhere between a hot Delhi summer and a man who walked in with Sydney’s cool logic, my well-laid plans turned to absolute dust.

Srijan wasn’t supposed to happen.

And certainly not like this.

Not this fast.

Not this effortlessly.

Not this completely.

He came in like the opposite of everything I had ever known—a planner, a thinker, the kind of person who reads the instructions before assembling IKEA furniture. A man who sees chaos and instinctively reaches to organize it, while I was perfectly content living inside of it, letting it swirl around me like a storm I had befriended.

But here’s the thing: I might be the storm, but he—he is the stillness in its center.

Somewhere between our opposing quirks and our perfectly-aligned humor, between our stubborn debates and the way he softens when he looks at me, I realized—I was doomed.

Because love wasn’t supposed to be this easy.

It wasn’t supposed to be laughter at 2 AM over the worst food delivery we’ve ever had. It wasn’t supposed to be him instinctively pulling me closer in a crowd, like a habit he never meant to form. It wasn’t supposed to be knowing exactly what kind of chai I need on an exhausting day, or him rolling his eyes at my ridiculous theories while secretly enjoying every single one of them.

It wasn’t supposed to be feeling, for the first time in my life, that I had met someone who gets it. Who gets me.

And now? Now, I’m stuck.

Forever.

In a scam so grand that even I can’t find an escape clause.

So fine. I accept defeat. I give in to the fact that my life—this beautifully wild, unpredictable life—has been permanently hijacked by a man who somehow makes my chaos feel like home.

And if this is a scam, then I hope it lasts for the rest of eternity.

Because Srijan?

He is the one thing I never saw coming.

And the only thing I now know I can’t live without.

Between the crisp, orderly mornings of Sydney and the sunburnt, chaotic afternoons of Delhi, I walked into a summer that was hotter than I remembered. The heat pressed against my skin, thick and unwavering, like a living thing testing my patience. I had known this city once, its madness and rhythm, its unpredictability, but I had been away long enough to feel like a stranger to its feverish pulse. Sydney had been neat, composed, and efficient. Delhi, on the other hand, was a wildfire that never quite burned out.

And just when I thought the weight of it all might consume me, I found her—Tanvi.

Between the overwhelming swarm of honking cars and hurried footsteps, her presence was an oasis. In a city that never pauses, she moved with a quiet confidence, as if the noise bent around her instead of swallowing her whole. She carried a kind of peace within her, but not the fragile kind. No, her peace was the kind that could stand against the storm. The kind that didn’t waver, no matter how strong the winds of the world blew.

And it was instantaneous—the way she looked at me and knew me, the way I looked at her and forgot where I had been before. It wasn’t the loud, dramatic kind of connection that the movies romanticize. It was something deeper, like slipping into the ocean and realizing you’d been thirsty all along.

She didn’t ask me why I had left Sydney, didn’t prod at my reasons for returning. Instead, she made space for me in a way no one ever had.

Between the blistering Delhi heat and the air-conditioned cocoons of escape, she became the in-between—the place I could rest, the breath I didn’t realize I had been holding.

Between my structured plans and her effortless spontaneity, we found our own rhythm. She laughed at my need to organize things, and I fell in love with her ability to embrace the unknown.

She taught me that you don’t always need a plan, that sometimes you just need to exist—fully, freely, without apology.

Between my love for quiet corners in busy cafes and her endless energy for long walks through crowded streets, we found something sacred—our own little world within the madness of India.

And I—who had spent years trying to find meaning in movement, in ambition, in cities that promised more—realized that meaning had been waiting for me all along.

In her.

She was the poetry in a city that often forgot to be poetic. The softness in a world that demanded edges. The calm in the chaos that I had been running from my whole life.

And somewhere between the structured, thoughtful precision of Sydney and the reckless, breathless passion of Delhi, I knew.

I had found home.