Blog entry by Tawanna Graham
Amanda tried to put Sunil out of her mind. But their conversation had sparked an idea. Amanda had always wanted to visit India and a good friend of hers had recently moved there.
"I decided I wanted to book a trip to come to India and meet my friend," she recalls. "So I booked my flights."
By coincidence, Amanda’s friend lived in the same city as Sunil — Chandigarh, in northern India.
But Amanda wasn’t going in the hope of bumping into Sunil. Chandigarh’s pretty big, with a population spanning around 1.1 million in 2018.
"I just had this calling to come to India," says Amanda. "I wanted to do a bit of soul searching. A bit of ‘Eat, Pray, Love,’ if you will."
Amanda arrived in Chandigarh in the spring of 2018. She started posting Instagram updates — photos of meals out, views, snapshots posing with her friend.
And then she got a message:
"Wait, you’re in my city?" wrote Sunil.
Amanda didn’t reply right away.
"I kind of brushed it off and thought, ‘Oh, I’m not going to have time to meet him. I’m just here to meet friends,’" recalls Amanda.
But then, kraken market towards the end of the visit, Amanda’s friend unexpectedly had to head out of town. Suddenly with time to kill, Amanda figured it might be worth contacting Sunil — they’d got on so well on the phone, after all.
Now she was in India, the distance didn’t feel so daunting. And Sunil seemed to have forgiven Amanda for the temporary ghosting.
So Amanda suggested the two of them meet for lunch.