Chapter 1: The Filmi Proposal Gone Wrong

I hid inside the car, clutching a bottle of Sula Brut, its gold foil already smudged with my nervous fingerprints, ready to surprise my girlfriend for her birthday.

My heart thudded in my chest, palms damp against the chilled bottle. The air inside the boot was thick and stifling, making it hard to breathe. I kept picturing her face lighting up—maybe a tear slipping down her cheek when she saw me with the cake and flowers. Outside, the distant honk of an auto mingled with the low voices of office security guards at the gate, and the sharp scent of Mumbai’s summer dust mixed with a hint of car perfume. The bottle in my hand, glinting in the phone’s faint light, was a Sula Brut I’d picked carefully from the Bandra station wine shop—hoping she’d notice the effort, not the price tag.

As she approached, I heard not one but two voices. Startled, I peered through the tinted glass, catching her silhouette pressed up against it—both of them breathing hard.

My breath caught. My hands shook. I squinted through the film—her shape, so achingly familiar, but not alone. Their laughter, muffled but clear, rose and fell in the humid afternoon. A trace of jasmine perfume mixed with something sharper, drifting through the heat, laced with the stale tang of last night’s biryani wrappers still lingering in the footwell. For a moment, I wondered if this was some weird nightmare, or if maybe I’d misunderstood. But the way they clung to each other—so careless, so oblivious—made my stomach twist in that uniquely desi way, the ache my mother always warned me about.

I should have hidden under the car, not inside it—then I wouldn’t have witnessed how wild their little game was.

The thought came to me, bitter and absurd, like a joke I’d never dare say out loud. If I’d hidden under the car, I’d be worrying about stray dogs sniffing at my shoes or the chowkidar’s torchlight, not about my own life unravelling above me. Now, I was forced to watch, trapped by my own filmi plans. The boot’s thin lining was no protection from the ache spreading inside, or from the memories of my mother’s voice: "Beta, pyaar mein andha mat ho ja."

But the worst part? I had planned to propose today. Wanting everyone to share in our happiness, I had even started a livestream.

I’d set up my phone with care on the dashboard, just like those Instagram proposal reels—everything angled perfectly. My heart had been hammering with excitement, picturing relatives glued to their screens: my mother in her faded nightie, calling out to Papa to come see, my father acting uninterested but peeking over his newspaper, her parents, her chachis and mausis, all waiting for that one moment. This was supposed to be straight out of a Karan Johar film, with confetti and "Wah beta!" echoing in my ears. Somewhere, I could almost hear the crackle of the landline in our old drawing room, Ma yelling for Papa to come see what their son had done.

Right now, both our parents, along with our relatives and friends, are all watching online…

The reality, however, was cruelly filmi in all the wrong ways. Instead of joy, my phone was capturing a scandal, and the entire khandaan was frozen in shock. In my mind, I could already hear Ma’s voice—“Arrey bhagwan, yeh kya ho raha hai?”—while the family WhatsApp group was probably on fire, with chachis and mausis sending frantic voice notes, half in shock, half in gossip mode.

My girlfriend and I made eye contact, but she couldn’t see me because of the dark window film.

There was a flicker—she paused, lips parted, as if she sensed something. Our gazes almost met. For a heartbeat, I wanted to bang on the glass, make it all stop. But I stayed frozen, hidden by the film, feeling like a ghost in my own story.

She coyly suggested going to the car. I was terrified she might actually get in, because the livestream was being broadcast from a camera inside the car. If she got in, the camera would catch everything, and I’d be completely humiliated.

My heart skipped a beat. Sweat trickled down my back as I imagined the scene: her, that man, and all of it captured for the whole world—or at least, the entire extended family—to see. I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans, praying to every god I could remember. Outside, a stray cat meowed, oblivious to the drama.

I quickly called her. She glanced at her phone, saw it was me, picked up, and said, “I’m in a meeting, abhi baat nahi kar sakti.”

She didn’t even pause. Her voice was clipped, formal, like she was talking to a nosy HR manager, not her boyfriend waiting in the heat. I could imagine her adjusting her hair, glancing at the man beside her, barely masking her irritation.

I didn’t even get a chance to speak before she hung up. I even saw her switch off her phone.

The coldness of it stung more than any slap. The old Nokia ringtone echoed in my ears, and I remembered the first time I called her, how she used to laugh and tease. Now, her phone screen flickered and died, and with it, whatever hope I’d clung to.

Right after that, the car door opened. The door handle clicked, and for a second, I thought my heart would stop. I pressed myself against the boot’s lining, praying to every god I could remember. The two of them tumbled inside, the man pressing her down onto the seat as they kissed passionately, completely lost in each other.

They were careless, giggling, whispering things I never thought she’d say to anyone but me. Their clothes rustled, the seat covers creaked, and the bottle of Sula Brut in my hand suddenly felt ridiculous—like a prop from the wrong scene. I shrank further into the boot, heart pounding, eyes fixed on the blinking livestream light.

It was over.

A simple, brutal truth. The world I’d built in my mind, with wedding cards and sangeet dances and shared Netflix logins, crumbled in one awful instant. I wanted to howl, to break the bottle and the moment, but all I could do was hold it tight, knowing tomorrow I’d be the star of every family WhatsApp forward.

Everything was being captured by the camera.

Every breath, every movement, every word. The little red recording dot blinked like a nazar battu, never missing a moment. Somewhere in a living room, maybe my own mother was pressing her hands to her mouth, unable to look away. My knees ached from crouching, but I didn’t dare move.

My car is an SUV. At that moment, I was lying in the boot, completely at a loss.

The faint smell of last week’s samosas mixed with the plastic dashboard, and the idol of Ganpati on the dash stared back at me, unmoving. There was a whiff of my old gym shoes, and a trace of agarbatti from Ma’s last puja. I stared up at the ceiling, feeling smaller than I ever had. In my mind, I replayed every moment we’d shared in this car—late-night drives, singing along to Kishore Kumar, sharing samosas from the tapri—now all tainted by this one terrible afternoon.

Today was her birthday. I had originally planned to open the boot when she came downstairs—just like those viral videos online: the boot pops open, it’s overflowing with roses and gifts, and I’d be kneeling on one knee beside the flowers, holding out a diamond ring.

I’d even practiced the moment in front of the mirror—down on one knee, nervous smile, ring box held out just so. My best friend had helped me fold the origami roses from red paper the night before. My mother had insisted on adding a box of kaju katli “just in case she likes sweets.” Everything was perfect, or so I’d thought.

It was supposed to be a super romantic proposal, with the camera perfectly capturing her surprised and joyful expression.

The plan had been to record her happiness—the tears, the laughter, the blush on her cheeks—and maybe, if we were lucky, go a little viral online. I wanted to tell our kids one day about this filmi proposal, how everyone was in on the surprise except her. But now, it was all upside down.

All our relatives and friends were waiting at home. We’d agreed that once the proposal succeeded, as soon as I led my girlfriend inside, everyone would set off confetti cannons for us.

I could picture the scene at home: my father fiddling with the remote, my chacha lighting up a Gold Flake outside on the balcony, my little cousins squabbling over who’d get the biggest piece of cake. Her family too, all dressed up, aunties in silk sarees, uncles with their smartphones ready. Now, I imagined them frozen, the cannons untouched, the cake melting on the table.