STORY 14 :Sarika & Deepak Jul 05 2023

Love is not a finished work of art but a canvas to be painted: you create your own masterpiece as you go by adding cherished moments and precious memories.

When Deepak and Sarika met for the first time, it was not love at first sight. Deepak was at a dinner on the wedding eve of his colleague, and, concidentally, the latter happened to be Sarika's cousin. Deepak and Sarika found themselves seated at the same table, eating 7 curries, and when he noticed her, he got the impression of having met her before but could not situate where it was. This played on his mind and enticed him to want to know more about her. After the meal, when they went to wash their hands, Sarika sensed Deepak's intrigue and asked him: "You are wondering where we met, right?" She reminded him that they met at Pharmacy Capucine, where she works. Deepak went there two weeks earlier to present medical products from his company. It clicked in his head that this was indeed where he saw her. The thing is that Deepak visits 7 or 8 pharmacies daily and meets 10 people in each pharmacy to explain his products. He had to do everything fast as people working in the pharmacies usually had limited time. For this reason, he could not recollect where he saw Sarika.

Deepak grew up in St Pierre and studied Chemistry with Business Management at UOM. After completing his degree, he found himself jobless for a long time, despite attending some 50 interviews. There was limited scope for a job in Chemistry apart from teaching, and he was not fond of teaching. Eventually, he got his chance as a medical representative and was sent on a 15-day training program in India to learn some basic communication skills. As a medical representative, his job consisted in visiting pharmacies to meet the pharmacists to ascertain the availability of his company's products in their stock and to introduce and promote new medical products to the dispensers who were in contact with the public.

The human mind has this thing that when something catches your attention, it becomes a persistent itch; you keep coming back to scratch it. The next time Deepak visited Pharmacy Capucine, he looked forward with anticipation to meeting Sarika. However, when he arrived, she was nowhere to be seen. Deepak asked her colleagues about her, but since he did not know her name, he described her as a lady he saw dancing so well at a wedding. He was told that she had gone out for lunch. The scratch was still there, and Deepak was even more keen to meet Sarika. From then on, he visited Pharmacy Capucine more often on the pretence of work to meet her and get to talk to her, and his interest in her grew. He made sure his visit coincided with the time Sarika's boss left for lunch so that he could stay longer. He realized that to endear himself to her, he had to be in the good books of her colleagues as well. The end of the year was close, and his company had published branded diaries. He brought the diaries and gave them to the dispensers, even though these were meant only for the pharmacists. He regularly brought gifts, pens and other promotional items for Sarika and all her colleagues.

People essentially go to the pharmacy there when they are sick. It turns out that Deepak also was suffering from a special kind of sickness; he was getting lovesick. The more effort he made to please Sarika, the more he fell for her. His visits to the pharmacy soon became the highlight of his whole week. The pharmacy is, however, an unlikely stage for romance to flourish. There was not much space for interaction, let alone flirtation. Moreover, it was Sarika's workplace, and she could not be seen by her boss and her colleagues entertaining the advances of some Romeo instead of working. She found that Deepak was a nice guy and had kind manners, but he was not really her type. The situation was making her uncomfortable. Some days, when she saw Deepak arrive, she would hide under the counter behind packs of Pampers so he would not see her.

Deepak was aware that Sarika was avoiding him, but that did not deter him. He somehow felt that if only he could get her to know him, she would grow to like him. Every time he went, he would ask about her and her colleagues, and they always had nice things to say about her, highlighting her simplicity and her values. This convinced Deepak more that Sarika was indeed the girl for him. He went to the pharmacy once or twice every week, and each time, he took out his visiting card and gave it to her. She took it from him and immediately dropped it in the box where they kept all the business cards to make it clear that she was not keeping it with her. This was her way of showing him that her relationship with him was professional and not more. She did not want to encourage him, but she also did not want to hurt him. Deepak ended up giving Sarika some 30 of his visiting cards.

Finally, after 7 months, Sarika stopped working at Pharmacy Capucine as she needed to concentrate on her studies. She had been following part-time courses since she left college and only started working at the pharmacy because she had to make money to pay for her studies. Sarika came from a family of 5 children, her father was a vegetable seller, and her mother was a housewife. Life became a struggle for her family when her father fell sick and stayed at the hospital for long periods of time. Her mother looked after the house, and her elder brothers left college to start working to ease their financial worries. Sarika was 17 years old when her father passed away, and her elder brothers had to take full responsibility for the house.

For one month after Sarika left the pharmacy to give priority to her studies, Deepak kept coming for his visits and would each time ask her colleagues about her. One day, Sarika was going back home on the bus when she got a call from her colleagues. They had just seen her in the traffic passing in front of the pharmacy. They phoned her and asked her to come and meet them since they had not seen her for one month. Without understanding why, Sarika did something that was unlike her. She pressed on the bell and stopped at the next bus stop to come and meet her ex-colleagues. When she walked inside the old working place, she was surprised to find Deepak waiting inside. He had come for his regular visits and was asking about Sarika to her colleagues when they saw her on the bus. They thought of giving him a push and help him to meet his love interest by bringing her to the pharmacy. Sarika greeted Deepak and politely talked with him, and then spent some time catching up with her colleagues. When the time came for her to leave, Deepak proposed to drop her home. Sarika was apprehensive about this because of her brothers, but she still accepted. Deepak took her in his car and dropped her in front of her house. Just as she was about to get out, Deepak took another business card and handed it to her. This time, Sarika could not just dispatch it away. She took it and put it in her bag. Deepak asked her: "You still won't give me your number?"

Sarika did not immediately reply. But that evening, she thought long and hard about the situation. Sarika knew what her family went through when her father fell sick and how important it was for the latter to have his wife by his side and to be able to rely on her and his sons to support the family. Sarika felt that Deepak had been patient and waited for her even when she was not around. He remained loyal to her and did not go chasing other girls even when she showed no interest at all. He made her a priority in his life. At that moment, Sarika knew in her heart that Deepak was the man who would always be there for her and would look after her.

That night, Sarika finally typed the number from Deepak's business card and sent him a message just so he could, in turn, get her number.

Deepak and Sarika were now officially in touch with each other and could communicate directly. They talked for some time, and Sarika suggested that they meet one week later. That day, she told Deepak: "I want you to understand something. If you are not serious about this relationship, then I am not the girl for. If you are interested, come with your family."

This was the litmus test. At this point, Deepak did not know much about Sarika, and any other person would have probably asked to meet a few times to get to know each other first. However, Deepak did not back off. He contacted Sarika the following day and told her that he had spoken to his close ones, and they were coming over to meet her family.

The families met after two weeks, and the relationship between Deepak and Sarika became official, marking the commencement of a new chapter in their lives. They finally started dating, went out and got to learn more about each other better. One day, Deepak brought Sarika to the pub with her cousins and relatives. It was her first time in a pub, and she drank Smirnoff and beer. At the end of the evening, the effects of the drinks began to take hold and she was drunk. She told Deepak: "I know you love me, but I don't love you as much as you love me. I will ask you to give me some time; I will learn to love you back."

Deepak understood what Sarika meant and continued nurturing their connection little by little, as they patiently allowed their love to unfold and mature. Two years later, by the time they got engaged, she had really fallen in love with him.

One year later, in June 2008, Deepak and Sarika were married. After the wedding, they stayed with Deepak's parents, as Deepak is their only son. Sarika had a good relationship with her inlaws, but she could see that the house was how her mum-in-law wanted it to be when she married. It was her dream house, and Sarika did not want to change anything. She felt that a woman needed to be able to build her house the way she wanted, and she looked forward to someday build her own house the way it suited her. The plan was for them to build their house on the first floor. However, both Deepak and Sarika did not want to burden themselves with responsibilities immediately after being married. They did not want to become parents too soon either; they wanted to have time for each other. Eventually, Sarika fell pregnant 3 years later, in 2011, and then again in 2013. Her deliveries were painful and risky as she had to do it both times by C-section. Before each surgery, she was filled with doubts, remembering the traumas of her father's long stay in hospital. In her moments of vulnerability, she wondered what would happen if she could not make it. At those times, Deepak stood unwaveringly by her side, as she predicted, and she was overflowed with gratitude for her loving partner. As she laid unconscious after the deliveries, Deepak had the privilege of being the first to hold their babies in his arms, as a gift from her to him. It made her smile seeing him take care of their babies with love, remembering the days when she used to hide behind packs of Pampers to avoid meeting him.
After the birth of their two children, Deepak and Sarika realized it was time to have their own home. They took a loan and built it together as a team. It took them 6 years to furnish their house and design it the way they wanted. They still find things to improve in it. In parallel, they built their love just like they built their house. Most people think of love as a fully furnished house; you just have to move in and start living happily ever after. But it never happens like this; love often has many empty rooms when you arrive, and it requires a lot of renovation. Sarika and Deepak worked really hard to fill their house with beautiful things.

The relationship between Deepak and Sarika started slowly. Even though they both dealt with medical products, there was no chemistry between them. Sarika was initially reticent and had doubts. Deepak is not the tall, dark and handsome hero that fills the dreams of many young girls. Sarika finally chose not to chase empty fantasies and favoured the caring and understanding soul who clearly loved her. Over time they have been through all the stages of a love relationship: the dating stage, the engaged stage, the married stage, the before becoming parents stage and the after becoming parents stage, living with the inlaws stage and eventually the stage where they have their own house and family.

Deepak believes that a person's love increases when two people make an effort and walk half the distance separating them. If one person imposes his way, it becomes domination, and the relationship between a master and his slave is not love. He feels you always have to give something to get something in return. For example, even though Deepak is not religious, he still brings Sarika to her prayer sessions because it makes her feel she matters to him. They have now started going to the gym to keep themselves fit. However, because at least one of them needs to be present at home for their kids, they are not able to be at the gym at the same time. They have therefore organized their schedule so that one of them goes between 6-7h and the other between 7h -8h. Their relationship is thus a give-and-take, where each compromises a little for the other. In this manner, they are the perfect chemical equation; they balance each other out perfectly.

Sarika and Deepak celebrated their 15h wedding anniversary this year; their journey together is a testament to the transformative power of chemistry.