What did a good Bengali boy do when he liked a girl? Told Ma, of course. Today, he tells the world to tweet his proposal to the girl! That's what best-selling romance writer Durjoy Datta did to get a "Yes" out of his girlfriend on Tuesday, sparking a social media frenzy in the process.
Durjoy, 29, is set to marry Avantika Mohan, after whom all the names of his female protagonists begin with 'A'. His titles include Of Course I Love You..! Till I Find Someone Better, If It's Not Forever. It's Not Love and World's Best Boyfriend and their combined sales figures have reportedly touched 2 million.
The date is set, March 1, but what was missing was a "grand proposal" that Avantika had once mentioned. "She'd always wanted me to propose, but stopped hinting at it five-six months back because she knew that I didn't have the type of personality to carry it out," the Bengali boy who was born and raised in Delhi told Metro over phone.
But with the wedding date knocking on the door and Tuesday being the last day the two would meet before D-Day, Durjoy took to social media (Twitter, Instagram and Facebook) to urge his readers to ask Avantika - who was then up in the air, on a flight to Delhi - to say yes to him.
"I first thought I'd write 10,000 words and give it to her, but realised it would be really boring. So I took the help of my readers.... I really thought this would be an intimate affair with my readers asking her to say yes. But a lot of people started retweeting my request. I was like okay, the pressure is starting to build!"
Avantika was tagged on posts and comments, with Durjoy's fans imploring and urging her to say yes. One fan, @harnoor.kaur16, posted a picture titled "Avantika(@avantii2) plz plz marry him...coz of course he'll love u, will hold your hand, will be the best boyfriend, and will love you till your last breath. Marry Him Lucky Girl."
After Avantika landed in Delhi, her phone wouldn't stop ringing. "She had no idea of the proposal. She asked me but I feigned ignorance. When she finally figured out the main post, she was overwhelmed. And so was I!" said Durjoy. Her answer? "Of course I love you. Yes!"
This isn’t the first time social media has played a role in their relationship. “We used to keep visiting each other’s profiles on Orkut, which we knew because of the recent visitors feature on the site, but we never spoke. Finally, when Facebook came along and everybody was trying to find people to add, I messaged her.”
Avantika suggested they start seeing each other, since “we were already sort of dating each other in our heads, she said,” laughed the groom-to-be, who is also a co-writer for the TV show Sadda Haq.
The duo have been dating for four years now and though he is a Delhi boy, the first ‘I love you’ Avantika wanted to hear from him was in Bengali. On Tuesday too, one of his tweets to her was in Bengali. “Aami tomake really bhalo bhashi! #BengaliSwag #MarryMeAvantika
Speaking about how romance graduated to marriage, the boy who has just released a new novel titled Our Impossible Love, grew philosophical. “We knew that if this person accepts every aspect of mine then probably we can stay together for a really long time,” he said. So a date was set, save-the-date invites sent out and outfits decided for a big fat Bengali-Punjabi wedding in Dehra Dun, from where Avantika hails.
The rituals will be traditionally Bengali but the celebrations Punjabi. And what’s he looking forward to the most? The cocktail party and the ring ceremony more than the actual rituals. “I am so not looking forward to sitting in front of the fire for three-fours hours,” confessed Durjoy.
If my boyfriend proposed like Durjoy did, I would.... Tell tttmetro@abpmail.com
