How We Celebrated My Wife's First Birthday After Marriage In Auli

The Ineligible Millionaire: “Learning about a boy who was so under-confident, who didn’t know how to speak English properly but honed his skills and became a millionaire is surely an inspirational read. I think a large part of the audience will be able to relate to it, be it students, young professionals or mid-senior level professionals. There is a bit for everyone. And, what I really loved about this book is it doesn’t preach you anything as such in the direct narrative instead there are so many underlying messages which are enough to motivate you.” – BooksAmaze

Tohfaa Shaaadi Ka: “Such a poetic summary of their beautiful step towards their new life. How amazing it is when your loved one writes every beautiful moment in poetry and dedicates it to you. It was more like cherishing every moment of their beautiful life.” – Preethika P, Goodreads

The Ineligible Millionaire: “Arjun’s character is somebody that you grow fond of as a reader because Arjun is literally the humblest guy in the world, somebody who works really hard, somebody who is trying his best to deal with all the distress in his life. Still, life keeps throwing curve balls at him while he tries to dodge them. He keeps getting hit by them, but he doesn’t stop, and that makes his character extremely inspiring. This is the kind of book that gives out the message that good things are just around the corner and you just have to keep going.” – Saumya’s Bookstation

Feb 2020: We (I & my wife, and 4 more people who were on the trip) reached back to our hotel at 6 PM approx. after doing Skiing in Auli. We all sat together for a cup of tea and started chit-chat. Here, everyone was planning for a bonfire. They said, "we'll sit till 1-2 AM" but I was worrying to cut the cake and edit the final video. I needed time for that. We took a break and joined back at the bonfire at 8 PM approx. with some music and snacks. Two hours had passed and everyone was still interested in the Gupshup and, not stopping at all for the coming hours. Somehow I managed to wrap up the bonfire and started with dinner.

At dinner, we all were continuously cracking jokes and telling all funny stories of their lives. The time was running, and nobody wanted to go to sleep. Even I was enjoying but I had to get things to happen at midnight (12 AM) so I started saying 'Let's wrap up guys, we need to left 6 AM in the morning so we should sleep early else we couldn't spend more time on 'Vishnu Prayag' and other stops. We all went into our rooms at 10:30 PM approx. When you want something to happen from your heart, the universe comes into the picture and let people think that they should sleep now.

I immediately got into my work: edits to video, making sure she shouldn't get any clue. I checked in the hotel if they have a TV which can be put in the room and I can render video on the screen but it couldn't happen. So mobile was the only choice I had. I called up the helper boy at 11:30 PM silently. She was still observing my behavior, maybe she knew something is fishy. But, it didn't stop me.

I switched-off her phone without telling her so that nobody can call at 12 AM. We cut the cake at sharp 11:45 PM and I gave her a gift. She liked it very much. We did a little chit-chat. Immediately, I went to sleep and same suggested to her as we had to wake up early. Everything was silent for few minutes and, she thought we are done for the birthday celebration. So she went to sleep. Hardly, 2 minutes left in 12 AM which I was waiting for. It was the time, I left the bed and set up my phone on a tripod stand to show her the video.

When I asked her to look at my setup, she had no clue. Her eyes were full of surprises. She was trying to understand what will happen next. The moment I played the video, she didn't move at all. Her face was full of blushing blossoms. I wanted to make her first birthday (after marriage) memorable, something different, what she always wanted.