We took a year. Nobody once asked us to hurry.

We wrote in Boishakh, stopped for four months while my father was ill, and started again in Kartik as though nothing had been interrupted. That gap is the part I tell people about. Nothing expired, nobody rang to ask whether we were still interested, and no fee was waiting to be paid before we could carry on. Thirty-one weeks from the first message to the engagement. The wedding was in Magh, small, and both of us were sure.