What classic Indian love story, including the mythological ones, would be complete without a dash of melodrama? Think about Dushyant and Shakuntala’s. Kings, empires, Gods, magic, curses—existing in a world where seemingly anything is possible. Our grandparents were receptive to it; our parents a little less; we think of it purely as something that might (or might not) have happened a long, long time ago; the generation after us probably wouldn’t buy it at all. I grew up listening to these tales from my grandmother, and it could be her exceptional storytelling or the stories themselves, but I’ve always found myself fascinated. So when I was asked to imagine Dushyant and Shakuntala’s love story in modern India, I was intrigued…
It was love at first sight for them. Dushyant was a total hottie. Tall, fair and lean, he was every girl’s dream. All the money and power helped too. He was an heir to his ancestral properties across South Delhi. Our boy Dushyant went camping with his homies for the weekend when they came across a beautiful little garden with real actual flowers that smelled almost as good as the ones the many maids in his bungalow back home decorated around the house. They looked pretty damn good too. He felt a pull like he’d never experienced before, and found himself in front of a beautiful woman, her curly hair tied up in a messy bun that wasn’t messy on purpose, her cargo shorts rolled up high.
She pushed a tendril of hair away from her face with the back of her hand and spoke. “What do you think you’re doing here?” Her tone was stern, but not unfriendly.
“We saw the flowers. They’re beautiful,” Dushyant said, his eyes glued to hers. “I’m sorry; we didn’t mean to bother you.”
“Who’s we?” She raised an eyebrow.
He looked around. Guess his homies weren’t into flowers much.
Before he could say anything, she let out a quiet laugh. “It’s alright,” she said. “Seems like an honest mistake. Just as long as you don’t turn out to be a stalker or something.”
When he laughed with her, hers grew louder.
They had the best weekend together. She showed him around her father’s little farmhouse and as they hung out in the woods, it felt as if they’d known each other forever. Late Sunday night, Dushyant told Shakuntala that he caught feelings. Shakuntala was like, same. He even gave her a ring off his finger, a family heirloom he held dear. He left the morning after, but not before having her save her number into his phone. They knew it was too fast, but they also knew that if was real.
Later that day, our girl Shakuntala found herself unable to stop thinking about Dushyant, while attending to an important client at the farmhouse. She kept stealing glances at her phone. This infuriated the client, and he wished that whoever she was thinking of wouldn’t text her, or call her, or hell, he wished he would forget about her altogether.
As fate would have it, Dushyant lost his phone on the way back to Delhi. Once there, he intended to find Shakuntala on Facebook and ping her, but incidentally, he inherited his share of the family property and got caught up in complicated and important matters. He was a smart, hardworking man, who eventually ended up being swallowed up in work and forgot all about Shakuntala, who, on the other hand, was miserable back at the farmhouse. She was obsessing over why Dushyant hadn’t texted her as promised. She was starting to believe that he had played her, even though her heart revolted against that idea.
Shakuntala’s father was a proud man with highly orthodox values. When he got back to the farmhouse, she obviously didn’t tell him anything about Dushyant. Not until she found out that she was pregnant. Her father kicked her out of the farmhouse, making it clear that she needed to find her man. She set out to Delhi, swallowing her pride, still hurt that he never texted her.
Once there, she found out his address following clues on his Facebook profile and ended up at the gate of his bungalow in Vasant Vihar. However, that was the farthest she could do. The doorman refused to let her in without appointment. Apparently, Dushyant had become a very important man. She knew what she had to do. She had to give her ring – the one that Dushyant had given her – to the doorman. Once Dushyant saw that ring, he’d surely ask the doorman to let her in immediately. That plan would have worked, had she not lost the ring somewhere. Dejected, she went back to the farmhouse and her father.
Time passed. One night, months later, Dushyant was enjoying a seafood platter with his family when their cook turned up with a familiar-looking ring. He had discovered it in the bag with the fish that the doorman had brought home for dinner. Seeing the ring, Dushyant was reminded of Shakuntala immediately. Unable to spend another minute away from her, and feeling guilty about forgetting to text her, he dashed to his jeep and drove all the way down to the farmhouse.
Shakuntala was angry with him, but the love that they shared overpowered everything else. Reunited, they found the promised bliss. Dushyanta even named his empire after their son, Bharat.
Nikita Singh is the author of eight novels. Her new book will be published by HarperCollins India in March 2016.