My First Proposal

It was in the year 1974. I was 19 years old. I was working and had gone to Hyderabad for official work along with my colleagues. When I was coming back from Hyderabad by train, our seats were not confirmed but due to urgent work, we had no other option but to come back on that particular day. We were eight in number and we had only five seats confirmed amongst us. The seats had the confirmation from Jabalpur.

We boarded the train. The boggy was decorated with flowers. We thought that there must be some newly married couple going for honeymoon. But later we came to know that an army man was being seen off for the new posting. When the train moved I noticed that a single Captain occupied the whole coupe. I talked to my friends to talk to him to allow us to share the seats. But no one was ready to do the same, so I decided to go to him with my request. He agreed to it and I shared the seat with him.

On the way, we started talking and he even offered food to all of us. He was just the opposite of what we thought. He was a nice guy to talk to and we became friendly. At the last station, we exchanged contacts with a promise to meet in the future.

After a month he contacted me in my office. We met and enjoyed a movie and had dinner at a famous restaurant in Vasant Vihar, New Delhi. This continued for some time. Time passed and now we both could feel the spark in our eyes. One day he landed in my office with one of his friends and started talking to one of my office colleagues.

I was in a state of shock and embarrassment. Later I came to know that he took their help to propose to me. And his so-called friend was a close relative of my colleague who was also in the army posted with him in Jabalpur. But I refused as I was a bit concerned about my career. He insisted and requested me to accept his proposal but I had some other priorities to be looked after. After a gap, we both lost contact with each other as he got transferred to Kashmir.