New Years Eve

Nikhil, from the US, and Hirva, from India, were two twentysomethings who met by chance in a crowded beach club in Goa, India one New Year's Eve.

"But it always does make me sort of pause and think, was this something that was meant to be? But it's hard to sort of put all the circumstances together and think otherwise." "He has a very intense personality, and that might have something to do with the fact that he lost his father at a young age. "But what stood out right from the start is that we were just really comfortable with each other, it was a lot of ease." "It certainly has significance," says Hirva of December 31. "It was typical club music," says Hirva of the songs playing in Tito's. Today, Hirva and Nikhil live happily together in a suburb in the midwestern US with their three kids. "She actually was very curt with me on the phone," says Nikhil. Hirva had never visited the US, and while Nikhil had been to India on vacation and to see family, he'd never lived there. And so I was trying to not share my phone number with him," says Hirva. "We agreed to do that and help them out," says Hirva. Nikhil, then in his 20s, and his brother, who are Indian American, traveled from their home in the US to western India to scatter some of their father's ashes.