Of thirty years. Yes. Thirty. I've been married to him for thirty years. Married!

Was he my young girl running-around-the-trees love-song dream come true? Was he the answer to my mannat that I did by fasting on karwa chauth, starting from even before the wedding? Did he sweep me off my feet? Did I hear violins when we lay eyes on each other the first time? Did the world go into soft focus sepia tones everytime we met? 

It, quite decisively, did not. 

But it is the curse of the writer to see everything in 1080p, to feel everything like every pore on our skin is having its own show of Oppenheimer - whether it's the throes of fresh new love, or a decades-old marriage of tired people with debt and a two-bedroom house with an excuse of a balcony - basically a ledge with a British-Raj era collapsible-style grille, predominantly steel utensils and a Saregama Carvaan gifted by the brand new daughter-in-law. 

I still drool at other men - in the movies, of course, what did you think? On television, on reels and shorts. Suddenly a Shahrukh will come on and I'll smugly chuckle at how our generation lucked out with the OG and not the cheap copy. Happy to let you know that my feed is full of Henry Cavill, Theo James and Idris Elba with healthy doses of the younger crop too, I don't discriminate. I'm completely vocal and social about who's looking fine, with that chiseled body and a jawline that could form the foundational theories of trigonometry, or lived at the gym for a superhero movie, who has obviously got a nose job or lip fillers, and I'm not judging. You do you, you do pretty. There's research-backed evidence, science and data - that looking at beautiful people is a certified mood booster; hence this is just self-care. Who finally has a dad bod and that's OK too, letting yourself go and packing on a bit of flab because you're too busy being available for your family - that is acceptable for, and expected of me, so it is acceptable for you too, you pretty men. 

And I wonder, with all these loud opinions about screen men, why can't I just tell my husband that he's still cute too? The normal stuff - that is pretty damn pleasing to the eyes as well, it doesn't always have to be HIIT-hardened bodies and surgeon-softened looks. 

The silver in his hair is breathtaking - individual strands glinting mischievously as they catch the sunlight, and it's not the regular silver either. It's a glossy gossamer starlight spangled silver, it's kind of magical. When he turns the wheel of the car the opposite way while reversing, with one arm behind the passenger seat, it's hot. When the veins in his forearm pop while changing gears, I kind of stare. He looks like a right snack in a three-piece suit - yes he's old and not in superhero shape and has had much denting and painting done and servicing is still required, but that suit is like a filter for my soul, I seem to not be able to see any of the nicks and cracks on him once he puts that on. He looks so delectable doing the dishes and putting up nails around the house for me to hang my art. And when he does the taxes, and life administration paperwork, keeps track of our passports and insurance and where the backup keys to everything are kept and ordering for me at restaurants because I can't make up my mind about what I want, sometimes I don't even know what I want, and mostly he knows better about what I want than I do - he looks downright dreamy to me, better than a Korean drama boyfriend. 

This is neither a movie, nor a book. Not yet anyway. This is such a personal diary of a teenage girl – even while thinking this I think, is this right? Can I think about love like this? Can an old woman think of love as young? Can an old woman even think of love? This life will not pass by as a silver screen slideshow, all the good parts set to Disney (or boy band) music, and all the bad ones in montages of aggrieved parties staring off pensively into the distance, reacting only when, and if, their scene comes up. I mean – who does that? Where do they find the time to sit by a broody beach, or to walk along moody forests, lamenting inside, at their form fortune? This life is way too real for me to be thinking of love at all. 

We don't do love, and if we did, we didn't proclaim it to the world like in the movies. We only bring each other tea in bed. We only text at lunch time – u et? Wot u et? I make sure his socks are in the right drawer, he makes sure that my car always has full fuel, because I hate petrol pumps. He will wash and marinate the chicken, I hate touching uncooked fleshy food. I'll do the grocery shops and every other order of each item that keeps our lives running - from sugar to vacuum cleaners. He’ll do all online bookings of everything, I hate to do forms, digital or physical. I'll make sure there's a Playstation room in whichever house we ever lived in, before moving into our own. You should see the one now - one whole bedroom after the kids moved out! We only do small things. We don't do big love. 

It's also not like he doesn't tell me things. He regularly tells me I'm beautiful, for the longest time he even called me hot, though that has dwindled with age. He still compliments me when I dress up, and grabs hold of my waist and swings me around with a naughty glint in his eyes, even with my unmade face and morning breath, even after a drunk hurling hangover face – though that has dwindled substantially too. Hangovers. 

How do I tell him that I am still in the reality of my movie love? That I never grew up inside. That even today, I feel real safety only when I rest my head on his chest, at the end of each day? How do I tell him that in the whole wide world, and in all seasons and temperatures, only his arms feel the right kind of warm? After full days of dealing with people, maybe after endless justifications and arguments where we all scramble to claim our own space in the world, where day in and day out we claw and clamber to prevail – only his words give me energy, it's only he who can pour the life force back into me – even after a raging fight with him! He used to go away on work trips, and I would feel lost - not because I'm dependent – we did the whole career-chasing long-distance relationship, and I did single parenting while working full time and everything, did the whole independent woman bosslady thing in various life stages – but simply because I am, actually, rudderless without him around. How do I tell him that at fifty five years of age, he lets me be the princess that I could never imagine being at my father's house. That he gives meaning and definition to the word family, that home is a person. That the thought that someday I may have to exist without him, and it fills me with the darkest dread, the chasm I can't climb out of.

And this epic Titanic-ness of these thoughts, look downright laughable on the page. I used to write somewhat similar apocalyptic love letters to him when we were seventeen, proclaiming legendary love. Those have dwindled too. At this age - it sounds insane. He didn't laugh at my letters then, but if I was to tell him these thoughts today, out loud, I would die. He would die too. Laughing.

This is probably how it is meant to be – how a writer loves, and how a non-writer responds and I just heave a deep sigh and see the little joys clearly, individually, recognize them as love, and rewrite them in my head as an epic romance – where I do a lengthy diatribe on how I love you and he says – ok, yes. Sure babe. Want some tea?