Loving someone five and a half hours behind

When I wake up in Bengaluru, it is still the middle of the night where she lives. When she finishes work, I am already asleep. For two years, our relationship has lived in the small windows where our days overlap.

We met at a wedding in Kochi — her cousin's, my college friend's. We spent the whole sangeet talking in a corner about books and bad dance moves. She flew back a week later, and we have been doing this ever since.

We have rules. Voice notes, never texts, for anything important. One video call on Sunday, no matter how tired we are. And every morning, a photo of whatever we are having for breakfast, so that at least one meal feels shared.

People ask if it is hard. Of course it is. I have missed her birthday twice and she missed my mother's surgery. There are nights I hold my phone like it might turn into her.

But there is something beautiful about being chosen across an ocean, every single day. Next year, one of us will move. We have not decided who. For now, it is five and a half hours, a thousand voice notes, and a very well-documented collection of breakfasts.