Marrying the person you love is the biggest blessing: Pratik Gandhi & Bhamini Oza Gandhi

For Pratik Gandhi and Bhamini Oza Gandhi, who got married in 2008, “love is all about the comfort you share with your partner.” Pratik elaborates, “I have never celebrated Valentine’s Week. In fact, in college, I would laugh at people who celebrated Teddy Day.

For me, love is when you don’t have to think before talking to your partner. And even when you are not talking to each other, even that silence should be comforting. You can be carefree and let your guard down when you are with the person you love.” Bhamini playfully adds, “You shouldn’t laugh at people who celebrate Valentine’s Week. I used to celebrate it while in college. Celebrating Teddy Day is fun. Even Sunny Deol loves teddy bears, isn’t it?” On Valentine’s Day, the actor-couple, who will be sharing screen space for the first time in Hansal Mehta’s Gandhi, which created history by premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) last year, talks about their idea of love and how their bond has evolved over the years. Excerpts:‘Honesty & consistency are the keys to our relationship’Pratik: Honesty and patience have been the secrets of our successful marriage.

That honesty can sometimes be scary too, but it has worked wonderfully. Bhamini has always been full of life and her laughter is contagious. I am a big fan of her comic timing. I constantly try to plan surprises for her, but I fail every time.Bhamini: I feel consistency has been the key. We are constantly fighting, and then always laughing together. What I love the most about Pratik is that he is never pretentious and there has never been any awkwardness between us.

I can talk to him about anything and be myself in his presence. Today, I have developed a taste for coffee also. We have coffee together daily and talk about what happened throughout the day. The day feels incomplete without this ritual.‘The wedding still feels like a dream’Pratik: We met for the first time at the Prithvi Festival two decades ago. I was performing and after the play, Bhamini came backstage and we spoke for a bit.

We would share information about auditions, and rehearsed together for plays. Our first ‘official date’ was almost two-and-a-half years after our first meeting. On our first date, we went to a cafe in Andheri. None of us were coffee people, and we didn’t know what to order.

Finally, I called up my brother, who told me to order a cappuccino, which cost ₹160. We shared it (smiles). I always liked her and when I met her father for the first time, he asked me, “Barabar soch liya hai na sab? Abhi bhi time lena hai toh le lo (laughs)!” The wedding still feels like a dream. Marrying the person you love is the biggest blessing.

We still argue and fight a lot. But the beauty of our relationship now is that the recovery time after a fight is way faster. We have grown with each other and at times, it feels like we are parenting each other too (laughs).Bhamini: Kajal, a common friend, introduced us and we bonded over our common love for theatre. Once, during our dating days, Pratik booked a car for a few hours on my birthday. We had a great time and the day ended with dinner at a fancy restaurant. It felt like a fairy tale. Since we shared the same work ethics, we became very good friends. Pratik’s parents loved playing antakshari and he told me that they were excited about having a bahu who loved old songs and could play antakshari with them (laughs). It has been a fabulous journey together so far. It feels so good when Pratik says we have grown together (smiles). When we were in our 20s and people would tell us how they had been married for 25-30 years and grown together, we would envy them and think, ‘Apna bhi din aayega.’ And that has finally happened.Will never forget the day I proposed to Bhamini: PratikI used to stay in Parla (in Mumbai) with my brother and cousin. One day, I told them that I would propose to Bhamini, who was to visit us around 7.30 in the evening. When I was out for some work, my brother nicely decorated the house with flowers and candles. He also told our cook, Sunita taai, not to come that day. When Bhamini came, she was surprised to see me alone. Just when I was thinking how I would pop the question, Sunita taai arrived and said, “Main thepla banaungi. Aap log kya roz baahar ka khaate ho!” Eventually, my brother called her and then she came out from the kitchen, smiling, and asked me, “Achha, aaj nahi banana hai khaana?” She made it so obvious! I will never forget that day. It was hilarious.‘Excited about sharing screen space’Talking about Gandhi, the first Indian series to premiere at the TIFF’s Primetime programme, Pratik says, “While we have worked a lot together on stage, we are excited about sharing screen space in such a huge project. Our off-screen equation helped us create more depth for our characters.” Bhamini adds, “This (sharing screen space) has been on our wish list for so many years! I am delighted that it’s finally happening. Every day during the shoot was like a treat for us.

”