City Moment - Vermas' 32nd Wedding Anniversary, Ajmer-Delhi Shatabdi Express

City Moment – Vermas’ 32nd Wedding Anniversary, Ajmer-Delhi Shatabdi Express

City Moment - Vermas' 32nd Wedding Anniversary, Ajmer-Delhi Shatabdi Express

The memorable instant.

[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]

If you’ve been married for lo, these many years, exactly how would you go about celebrating, say, your 32nd?

Meet Mrs and Mr Verma. The Delhi couple is comfortably seated in the Executive Class of the superfast Shatabdi Express. They are on a hectic three-city tour.

Every year they celebrate the anniversary with a brand-new honeymoon somewhere. “And we’ve just spent some time in Pushkar and Ajmer and now heading for Jaipur,” explains Suresh Verma, an engineer with the Delhi Development Authority.

His wife, Archana, who is painting her nails red, goes on to say that they sojourned to Darjeeling last year, “and next year we’ll finally go abroad to Tajikistan… our son’s working there!”

The couple first met all those years ago in Roorkie in UP, where they were introduced to each other by their parents. “It was an arranged marriage. I already had a job,” Mr Verma recalls. Mrs Verma was working towards her MA in Economics at the time.

Their very first honeymoon—the real one!—was spent in the lake resort of Nainital where they relaxed for 17 memorable days. But the event they’ll never forget happened in Goa during their 23rd, where “we got the Best Couple award in dancing,” gushes Mrs Verma.

Otherwise, they dwell in a DDA apartment in west Delhi’s Dwarka where Mrs Verma runs the household; but now, the train is approaching Jaipur. She removes two red roses from her handbag, gives one of them to her husband, and asks a fellow passenger to click their picture: “Just for memories!”

Just for memories

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City Moment - Vermas' 32nd Wedding Anniversary, Ajmer-Delhi Shatabdi Express

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City Moment - Vermas' 32nd Wedding Anniversary, Ajmer-Delhi Shatabdi Express

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City Moment - Vermas' 32nd Wedding Anniversary, Ajmer-Delhi Shatabdi Express

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City Moment - Vermas' 32nd Wedding Anniversary, Ajmer-Delhi Shatabdi Express

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City Moment - Vermas' 32nd Wedding Anniversary, Ajmer-Delhi Shatabdi Express