They’ve been married for 33 years, and the twinkle in their eyes is just for the other. Bhuwan feels that love should be slow and taken step-by-step. “After all these years I still feel so lucky to have found eti maya garne manche (a man who loves me so much), who supports me in everything. The love that we share now is even more deeper.”

And she’s received many gifts from Michael over the years but the expect for one red kurta the others have made her cringe be it because of their strange colours or weird designs and styles.

However, she has also picked a strange gift for him — knowing he loved chocolates, she picked up a packet but as she could not understand the langauge on the package she didn’t realise that she had actually picked a packet of soap.

Not just gifts, it’s the special little gestures that they do for each other that makes their life together more special. Says Bhuwan, “There is nothing as such but I take care of him” and she tries to do something specail for him everyday.

Michael recalls an incident in 1971 when Bhuwan was acting in a play called Parivartan. In a scene the girls had to get stuff from the bazaar, he (playing the role of a shopkeeper) remembers getting special food items for her and she accepting those gifts right in the middle of the play.

“I was a very rapid believer in love, felt it was magic which would fulfill all my desires, but I realise it foolish thoughts,” he says. He says that after marriage he felt Bhuwan would just be his, but realised it was a selfish thought and there were a lot of other relations and responsibilities that come along. “However, I knew she was the right one by the way she understood me and responded to my needs.”

He adds, “Love has to be stable and it has come to me after 33 years of marriage.”

Yogendra and Bindu Sakya

They met when they were studying Hotel Management in Delhi.

“Like in business, I did a feasibility study — if she was the right person for me. I didn’t just look at the sugar coating, but was clear about what I wanted. I saw her as someone who would blend with my family and friends, and in the long run it would work out,” says Yogendra Sakya, even though some may find this notion quite shrewd.

Yet, he isn’t sure whether who drew the other one into this relation. “To this day I haven’t figured out, whether she was really naïve or very clever when she said I could leave her if my parents were against it. It was that choice she gave me that made me decide to marry her.”

As for Bindu she says, “I was blindly in love, but have been really fortunate that I have found such an understanding, compromising and mature partner.”

She feels that love is a wonderful feeling and is fortunate to be in love but adds, “You should fall in love from the heart but think from the head as well. See yourself 10 years down the line with the person.”

Freedom or as they call it, ‘breathing space’ is what they feel is really essential in every relationship.

“People love their partner’s possessiveness in the initial stages, but gradually it changes to nagging and then suspicion,” says Yogendra.

“Although the freedom is there, we respect it and haven’t broken each other’s trust,” adds Bindu.

She further says, “ Both of us have to work to nourish it. We’ve built on our love, gone through the ups and downs and overcome them with our love.”

Besides that she feels it’s very important to keep yourself updated and fresh, physically, mentally, emotionally so that you are always attractive and interesting to your partner.

Yogendra admits he loves flirting and admits there are distractions. “But I know that since she has given me the freedom and trust as a human I should not hurt this lovely woman.”

He feels that one should accept the other for what they are and not start expecting their partner to be the perfect person of their imagination, not see them as godly beings, but as humans with their weaknesses.

“You should not try to change the other person, but bring about changes in each other, to create not the perfect partner, but the perfect US,” says Bindu.