Yuvaan Grewaal
[Now, USA]
It wasn't exactly a cinematic moment—the kind where the hero strides toward his sleek black sedan, hair fluttering in slow motion, lips tight, jaw set, and a haunting indie ballad playing in the background. No, it was more sweaty panic meets public meltdown, because I was panting like I'd just run a marathon through a war zone when I reached my matte classic BMW that was parked in the lot behind the HQ.
I yanked the door open with the desperation of a man who'd seen too many flashbulbs in one lifetime, slammed it shut behind me like I was sealing a vault, and gripped the steering wheel like it owed me money.
The key slid into the ignition with the urgency of a man hiding from child support, and the engine coughed awake—loud, angry, and very much in the mood for dramatics.
Good. It matched my vibe.
The car lurched forward with a guttural growl, which might've made me feel powerful if it weren't for the sudden, soul-sucking realization that the press had, in fact, located me. Again.
SHIT, I mused.
I saw them rounding the corner, no less than a swarm of caffeinated meerkats, DSLRs swinging from their necks, sneakers squeaking against the asphalt like this was the final sprint of a very aggressive scavenger hunt. Their eyes were wild, predatory, and hungry. As if I was a walking, talking scandal buffet and they'd skipped breakfast.
They ran—some of them actually ran, bless their cardio—toward my car, waving notepads as if they were offering me absolution instead of ambush. One even smacked my windshield with what I think was a press badge and a whole lot of misplaced enthusiasm.
"SIR! JUST ONE QUESTION!" someone shrieked.
"Oh sweetie," I muttered, jamming the gear into drive, "I wouldn't give you half a question if you were the last Twitter thread on Earth."
The cameras flashed—aggressive, blinding, and utterly unbothered by things like boundaries or personal space. It felt less like journalism and more like a séance where I was both ghost and sacrifice.
For one deeply misguided second, I hesitated. Civility whispered, Maybe say something nice? A smile? A wave?
Then the guy in the mustard-stained hoodie tripped and face-planted directly in front of my bonnet, and I decided, "Yeah, no. I'm absolutely flooring it."
I white-knuckled the steering wheel, squared my jaw, and made an executive decision: I wasn't stopping. I wasn't talking. And I sure as hell wasn't giving them the satisfaction of a headline that read 'Panicked Starlet finally reveals the secret of abduction.'
The car surged forward, aggressive and unapologetic, parting the sea of gossipmongers like the world's least subtle escape plan. Lenses swung in every direction. Someone shouted, maybe cursed. Someone else tried to chase me on foot—bold of them to assume I didn't come emotionally prepared for vehicular combat.
I didn't breathe properly until I hit the highway. Kept the speedometer flirting dangerously close to triple digits like I was in a Fast & Furious audition tape no one asked for.
Only when the HQ disappeared in the rearview, along with every last desperate paparazzo and their delusions of a soundbite, I let out the breath I hadn't realized I was holding.
Muscles in my bicep relaxed, and a gush of relief filled my lungs. I slowed the car, let my spine sink into the seat, and rested my head against the headrest for a luxurious half-second. Just a little pause. A personal timeout. Then I blinked back to reality and forced my attention back to the road ahead. The city was bustling and thriving, unaware of the shit that I had been through in the last twenty-four hours. My mind was empty until the clips of the past few hours started replaying in my head like a toxic highlight reel.
Surprise.
With the fire of a thousand unreturned texts, I clicked my tongue against my teeth, partly in disgust and partly to stop myself from actually gagging as my mind fixated—again—on how close Ms. Saini had gotten.
Like, unreasonably close.
Uncomfortably close.
Like-she-was-shopping-for-pillow-fabric-on-my-chest close.
I shuddered.
She'd touched me like we were starring in the middle of a Bollywood love scene, and I had the emotional availability of a golden retriever. The audacity. The sheer, bold-faced audacity. Damn it.
None of this—none—would've happened if I hadn't followed those godforsaken instructions issued by the chairwoman of Suave. Also known as my mother. Also known as the human embodiment of a wedding planner's Pinterest board and a full-time hopeless romantic on a mission to marry me off before I died of sentimental constipation.
I totally get why my mom's on a one-woman mission to get me married off as though I'm a clearance item at an emotional warehouse sale. She prays to the universe—God, fate, the stars, horoscopes, and possibly the ghost of Jane Austen—hoping I'll fall head over heels one day. Because she's a romantic like that. My mother believed in love the way astrophysicists believe in dark matter: invisibly omnipresent, slightly mysterious, and undeniably powerful.
"You can accomplish great things when you're on your own," she'd told me once (a few years back), during one of those infamous family dinners where the only things more abundant than carbs were unsolicited opinions. "But when someone's right beside you? You go even further. It's doubly powerful. You can conquer galaxies."
Quite an adorable sentiment.
Love that for her.
I, however, believe in the power of solitude. Of peace. Of not having to share the TV remote. Or my side of the bed. Or my trauma.
To be fair—painful as it is to admit—she might have had a point. Maybe. A tiny one. Love could be powerful. Some people built empires on it. Others destroyed themselves chasing it.
It's not like I don't believe in love. It's not Santa Claus.
I just think it's more of a statistically rare anomaly. Like being struck by lightning. Or finding a non-toxic group chat.
Sure, love probably exists. But not for me. Not in my personal user manual. The very idea of being that emotionally exposed? Of being seen by someone and then falling to my metaphorical knees over it?
Yeah. No. Hard pass.
For me, solitude is the real MVP. I like my space. I like my sanity. I like not having to decode cryptic texts or pretend to care about someone else's gluten allergy on a date.
I've seen what love does to people. It makes them... weird. It turns normally intelligent, capable humans into clingy, mushy, oxytocin-drunk chaos muffins. I've seen grown men write poetry. Bad poetry. I've watched perfectly rational women pick fights over shared Spotify playlists.
It's not that I'm closed off. I'm just...efficient. I've ghosted more setups than I can count. Fifty arranged proposals? Check. Eighty miserable blind dates? Unfortunately, yes. A hundred persistent aunties with "lovely girls from such nice families"? Also, yes, plus one who brought her daughter's resume in a laminated folder.
At this point, I could dodge Cupid himself and still have energy left to run from his LinkedIn follow-up.
So yes, dear mother. You've gone too far this time. There are lines, and you pole-vaulted straight over them in a sari and heels.
I opened my mouth to compose the perfect imaginary monologue that I would never actually deliver when—
BZZZZZ.
My phone buzzed against the console, snapping me out of my internal TED Talk. I was still halfway home, one hand lazily curled around the steering wheel. I glanced at the screen and immediately felt every molecule in my body perform a synchronized cringe.
There it was.
MOM.
In bold. All caps. The harbinger of matchmaking doom and guilt-tripped therapy bills.
Of course. Talk of the devil, and she rings you with wedding proposals.