Sejal Kumar and Bharat Subramaniam have been orbiting each other since childhood. They were in the same New Delhi school from pre-primary until Class 12, though a one-year age gap and different social circles meant they barely spoke. “He was the head boy of his year, that’s how I remembered him,” says Kumar.
Their first real conversation happened years later, at a family wedding. Subramaniam’s best friend happens to be Kumar’s cousin, and they found themselves eating gol gappas together. “I remember that conversation so clearly,” Kumar says. “Bharat was saying something super goofy, which made me think he was so easy to be around.” Around then, Kumar had just started her YouTube channel, back when posting links on friends’ Facebook walls was still normal. “I shamelessly posted the link of my first two videos on Bharat’s wall,” she says. “Since he was really sweet, I felt safe that he wouldn’t call me cringe, because that was the main fear of starting something new back then.” He didn’t. “He actually commented on my videos from those wall posts, wishing me luck.”
Years passed. Kumar moved to Mumbai, Subramaniam to the US. Then, in 2019, a Facebook birthday notification prompted an impulsive message. “On a completely random impulse, I DMed him, wishing him happy birthday,” Kumar says. “It was super formal and awkward, but we made plans to meet up in the winter break.” The coffee date stretched into hours together. “Funnily, Bharat came wearing a suit to the most low-key Blue Tokai in Gurugram,” she adds. Soon after, the pandemic brought them both back to Delhi, and the relationship settled into something steadier.
“It’ll be six years around the time we get married,” Kumar says. “We were together for one and a half years in the beginning in Delhi, and since then Bharat has been in the US and I’ve been in New Delhi. We talk in the mornings and nights, and it’s been great because we’ve both become pretty emotionally independent.” Subramaniam says he knew early on that this was serious. “For me, I decided this was long term one week after we started dating,” he says. “Sejal still makes fun of me for that.”
The proposal reflected that balance of honesty and anticipation. They had already discussed timelines, and Kumar had a feeling it would happen in December when Subramaniam was back in India. “I just heard whispers of a jeweller visit, a random date being dropped, announcements of a proposal to his friends at parties,” she says. “I joked that I’ll wear something nice every time I meet him till it happens.” He proposed one day before leaving for his MBA, in the garden where they spend their winters sitting in the sun. “He decorated it with flowers with his mom,” Kumar says. “He was dressed in a suit, which was a full-circle moment.” They danced to New York, New York, an inside joke from their school days. Subramaniam is pragmatic about it. “Proposals can’t be 100% a surprise,” he says. “We had talked about the future, and I didn’t want to leave for New York without fully committing.”
