A couple of wing-backed chairs and sofas sunk luxuriously into the lush wine carpet at the chic restaurant in Hyderabad where Supriya and Kamal had met for the first time last September. Their lives were a world apart: she, 29, was a management consultant, child of a Bengali family settled in Bhopal; he, 32, was an upcoming Telugu actor, a far cry from the line-up of suitable Bengali boys Supriya’s parents had been parading before her ever since she came of ‘marriageable’ age.

Countless such ‘boy-seeings’ later, she found herself face-to-face with Kamal, listening attentively as he talked about his hip Telugu lifestyle. “No averted eyes, guarded smile or pursed lips. The best thing about Supriya was her openness to other cultures,” recalls Kamal. When their conversation went on well past midnight over several plates of Andhra prawn fritters, red wine and the different acting styles of Mithun and Nagarjuna, they knew they had a match on their hands. “It wasn’t as if my pulse was racing, but I did not find myself...