We have all seen it— two individuals lock eyes while crossing the road, or maybe at a friend’s wedding, the way their faces light up and the fidgeting butterflies and how rapidly they fall in love— in movies. Ask anyone if love at first sight is true, and most would tell you ‘yes, only in movies,’ but what if we tell you that love at first sight happens too and not in movies but in reality? The story of Dipak Kumar Hazra and Gitashree Hazra is just one among many who, after being married for more than 27 years now, don’t regard themselves as just an everyday couple but as soulmates.

Dipak Kumar Hazra saw his wife for the first time in his friend’s house, who was her brother-in-law as well, and it was on 14 May 1997 that they got married. “I fell in love with her the moment I saw her. She was a first-year student doing a BA in English, and I, too, had recently got a job as an assistant teacher in a high school. We had a love-arranged marriage almost,” says Dipak. Getting married just after a few months of their first meet, it wasn’t an easy path for them to traverse through. First getting married without much fanfare and with an extremely small ceremony at a temple, his wife was then just a first-year bachelor student who he believed was on a long path to go towards fulfilling her education goal. “I never wanted her to give up on her education. Even my father used to believe that she was extremely meritorious and therefore I made sure that she had enough time to study while managing the household. I even used to make her study notes. After our first child, it was difficult for her, but she never gave up. I used to work as a high school teacher and also took private tuition the whole day to make ends meet while she was studying,” adds Dipak.

It wasn’t easy for Gitashree Hazra as well. After completing her Bachelor’s, Master’s and B.Ed and cracking teaching competitive exams, she was assigned to a school in Jhargram, which was almost 150 km away and it took her 3 hours to and fro to travel. She and her husband both reminisce about the days when she used to wake up at 3 am to cook and do the household chores so that she could take the 6 am early morning bus, reach work on time, and then come back home again. “I probably would not have been able to do this without my husband. He was extremely understanding and supporting, helping me go through all the hardships without making me feel an ounce of guilt,” comments Gitashree, now an assistant teacher in a renowned school in Purba Medinipur.

For both of them, mutual respect, empathy, trust and understanding are what make a marriage strong. But, like every relationship, how do you resolve your fight? Dipak Kumar Hazra, while laughing, says, “It’s always me who approaches first after a fight and tries to solve everything,” to which Gitashree adds, “Apart from fights, we always try to maintain a ritual of having our morning tea and dinner together.”

According to them, “While trust and respect are crucial, for a marriage to work, you should never let your love for each other fade away.” Gitasshree Hazra adds, “Our professor used to say that when one partner is fighting, it’s best that the other one stay quiet and tries to understand their perspective because if both the parties continue fighting, rather than reaching a solution, the situation would only escalate.”