The Proposal: (his version)
After months of ring hunting and meetings with the jeweler, I got the call that Shar's ring would be ready 2 weeks earlier than expected. While I had some general ideas on how I wanted to propose, I had not finalized the details as I thought I had more time. I had to somehow get her into a romantic spot to propose without her figuring out what I was doing. This would be an easy to task if it weren't for the fact that I almost never plan anything exciting. The week prior to getting a call, my company had sent me on a recruiting trip down to Cal Poly (my alma mater) to attend a business club banquet. Shar had come with me as she wanted to see San Luis Obispo again.
I decided to use a similar story to cover for the proposal. I told Shar that UC Berkeley was having an event in San Francisco that I had to attend in a few weeks and told her that my company would be paying for accommodations if she wanted to hang out in the city that weekend. I knew she would be game to go as Shar never turns down the opportunity to go on a trip (no matter how close to home)! I also began to ask her what she wanted to do in the city. We talked about several locations and I slowly turned the conversation to our first date and if she could remember the name of the restaurant where we had our first date on Pier 39 in San Francisco. She could not remember the name of the restaurant and neither could I; however, we both remembered where the restaurant was located. I thought it would be fun for us to at least get a drink, check out the sea lions (who wouldn't?), followed by some Burmese food. Thus, the proposal groundwork was laid...
Side-by-side, I had also started discussing my plans with Mithil (my brother) and let him know that I would need his help to get it done. I had known for a while that Shar really liked proposals caught on camera so I made sure to put Mithil on camera duty. Fortunately, Shar decided that it would be even more fun if Mithil, Pooja (Mithi's girlfriend), Karthik (Shar's brother), and Sandhya (Karthik's friend) also came to dinner with us. This provided excellent cover to get Mithil up there. On proposal day, Mithil, Pooja, and I left work early to get to the city before rush hour to check out Pier 39 and finalize logistics (who walks where, who hides where, where will it happen, etc.) Once we got our plans all sorted out, he dropped me off at my hotel and the waiting game began.
I had initially told Shar that I would be at an event till 7:00 and then would be free to hang out with her afterwards. She was also planning to be in the city at 7:00 so we agreed that it was perfect timing. On the day of the proposal, Shar texted me that she was going to be leaving early and would be in the city by 5:15. This left me with almost no time to get ready and worse yet, threatened to ruin my story that I was at a work event. However, I kept with the story and texted her as if I was at the event. I also made sure to use FourSquare to "check-in" to the restaurant, in the event she thought I was bluffing. Fortunately (if you want to call it that), the Bay Bridge and San Francisco traffic kept her from getting to the city till 6:00. I told her that I had left the event early as my boss wanted me to send him a report ASAP.
When she arrived, we dropped off her stuff at the hotel and headed out to grab drinks at Pier 39. When we started walking through the shops, she pointed at the restaurant and said that was the one. I told her that this was not the right restaurant and the one we had our date in was further back. We argued for a bit but she let me take her to where I thought the restaurant was. I took her to the back of Pier 39 and pretended to get lost but then pointed at the walkway over to the sea lions and headed there instead. We went and saw the sea lion (literally, there was only one) and I started walking over to the spot Mithil, Pooja and I had picked out earlier. From here on out, things went into a bit of a blur. (Heads up guys - this will happen to you as well!) I remember mumbling some things and then getting down on one knee and proposing. I finally regained awareness as Mithil and Pooja came around taking pictures.
The Proposal: (her version)
On Friday June 21, 2013, Munjal and I had plans to get dinner and go out in San Francisco that night because he had a "work event" in San Francisco earlier in the day (at least that's the excuse he gave me!). We also made plans to visit Pier 39 before dinner since we hadn't gone there since our first date four and a half years ago. Ever since he told me about his "work event" in SF in the beginning of June, I had a hunch that he was going to propose that Friday. Every little thing he said from the beginning of June to June 20th, I read into it as another clue that surely he was going to propose- i.e. when he said specifically not to invite our brothers to Pier 39 even though we had plans to meet up with them for dinner that night or when he first suggested we should go to Pier 39 to “look at the seals” (If you know Munjal, you know he’d never offer to go look at seals!).
Munjal knew that it would be hard to surprise me with my CIA-like reasoning skills and did everything he could to throw me off the day of the proposal. As I was driving to the city from work, I realized that he actually checked into the restaurant where he told me his work event would be on foursquare- suddenly making me wonder whether I was making up this whole proposal thing in my head. When I got to the city and saw Munjal, the first thing I checked was his pockets to see if I could find a ring box… and I couldn’t find one! At this point I thought I had made it all up in my head and was starting to get sad that he actually wasn’t planning on proposing. When Munjal suggested we head over to Pier 39 before it got too cold and dark, I went grudgingly- upset that I wasn’t getting a ring that day. But when we got to Pier 39, Munjal was texting on his phone every 2 minutes and seemed very distracted. I then had a new idea that maybe his brother (who I knew was in the city too that day) had the ring and we were going to run into him and then Munjal would propose (do you see why it’s so hard to surprise me?). But before I could formulate and finish my thoughts, Munjal got down on one knee and proposed right in front of the water.
Of course I cried and his hands were shaking as he put the ring on my finger! And it turns out he was texting his brother who was hiding with a camera and got pictures of the whole proposal (he actually remembered me telling him two years ago that I would love it if our proposal was caught on camera)!