My grandma caught me talking over the phone in a different language. she doesn’t have an idea what language it is. I gave a kiss over a phone call, and other people on the call did the same in return. I hung up that call saying “I love you too.”

Later that day my grandmother shocked to see my web browser history when she sneaked out my mobile to check who I am talking with

All the searches about “how to do MBBS in seoul ?”
“how’s the weather in south korea right now?”
“flight tickets from hyderabad to seoul ?”
“do long-distance relationships really work ?”
After seeing all these things, my grandmother became super angry, but her friend who came to have a coffee and waiting in balcony stopped her.

then my grandma called her another friend and started telling things about me to her. my grandma and her friend are super close. so close that she started narrating his grandson’s love story to her… how funny? who will share things like this…

grandma handed over the phone to me to talk with that lady, and she started asking me some questions. the first important question from her is, “Is she our caste or not?” “what did her father do?” “which city she is from ?” so many questions continued.

i skipped every other question and answered one question so that she would get an idea about what I am doing.. i answered for which city she was from, and I said seoul

that lady replied replied, is that town some where near vishakapatnam right?
I smiled at myself and replied. yes, but someone who listening her call of that lady started shouting that seoul is completely another country- south korea. she becomes soundless for a minute, and cut my call without asking me anymore questions.

all this korean love adventure of mine started with one simple question which i asked one of my classmate deepika about who that actress was on her phone wallpaper. she replied “jun ji-hyun”

I replied ” she is super cute. tell me which movie she acted in previously. i will watch this weekend.”

deepika ” not a movie star. she mostly works in korean dramas. I will suggest you a few good ones if you are interested Ravi,” she said a few korean drama names. I actually listened to those drama names previously too from my other friends.

I totally forgot those names and about korean dramas for many days until I went to my maternal grandmother’s house in the village where I have observed one of my cousins hiking all the trees and buildings in that village to get a network signal to see her korean drama next episodes. so in those boring days in village these korean drams saved me.

all the remaining days of holidays in that village me and my cousins routine probably same we get up, eat spicy food by my maternal grandma and the total remaining time we both watch Korean drama that’s it. if anyone disturb us we will curse them in Korean language, those curse words in korean language only we learnt initially, watched those series for romance but learnt curse words how badboy i was back then.

at the start I just want to see serials for just 2-3 minutes to get a glace of it and tease my cousin for seeing those types of drama. to my surprise, these dramas are super different, not like any other movies I have seen before. good storylines, no extra BGMs for the hero(I’m not too fond of that loud music in our movies when the heroes entry in our tollywood movies). But these dramas are super pleasant to watch.

most importantly, the actresses are super perfect and cute, just like barbie dolls. though they look that cute, they still had so much character to play in the movies. for the first time, the drama I watched was a sci-fi movie where the heroine had some superpowers, and I loved it. I end up seeing more interesting korean movies later on after coming to vijayawada also.

After completing what deeepika suggested I went back to her asked for more drama suggestions. you should see her happiness in her eyes when I asked for that, probably even if I present her a unicorn I don’t think her eyes wont be that much sparkled with joy and happiness.

I started sharing a few quotes from korean dramas in my whatsapp status. one day, vikram replied to me, “arey chinnu, do you watch korean dramas too?

i thought he may tease me if I say yer so I replied ” yeah, but not so regular only a few when I find the story interesting”. later whenever vikram started watching any new series, he would call me for company. we used to watch a few series together and cry together thinking why we wont have that kind of girlfriends.

One vikky announced ” chinnu see our class girls, see this korean drama heroines, not only heroines even side characters too look super cute.

I replied, ” they are as different as the moon and mars. we laughed. I continued ” vikky, how about we can go to south korea, settle there, and do our MBBS in south Korea itself? At that time, he didn’t reply to anything but that idea stuck in my mind for so many days.

In our study hour, I said the same idea of doing an MBBS in korea to seepika, and she replied “I had the same thoughts in the initial days of my Korean drama journey, it is so colourful, but now it all settled, probably you too come out of those rosey dreams one day, so don’t worry Ravi” I said nothing keep reading for the upcoming zoology weekly test.

But that idea of me going to south korea got increased when I saw my friend vikram sending Instagram requests to south korean girls frequently, and I too started sending friend requests after seeing him. I said to myself, “why not”

after a few days, I started getting replies to my friend requests.
one rainy saturday afternoon, I got a message.
“naega dangsin-eul algo issseubnikka (may i know you)

you know what by that time me and vikram could write and speak in the korean language, that much dedicated we were. so I am translating our conversations from korean to english for you comrade.

I replied “I am the one who came to your dreams last week, after that dream, you’re not sleeping properly, thinking about me, so not to bother you much I sent a hie here ( this is korean drama effect on me, i am not afried to flirt when i like someone but that likeing someone is very rare thing to happen so)

she sends a wink smile and “great opening line mr.Ravi from India.”

our conversations started and continued for so many days. though I talked with many other korean girls later on, I felt this one girl is super different. we started talking like we had known each other for so many years, silver also said the same to me once about she is also feeling that i sounded like very known person to me since many days and said you look familiar to me though I have never seen a person like you in real life, I do doubt sometimes are you really from my dreams”

I blushed at those words for so many days. later I started learning some korean recipes so that it wouldn’t be that difficult if somehow I settled in korea. by the way, I didn’t tell her name until now.

It’s “choon hee”, but I call her silver, I am calling her silver don’t have any particular reason other than if I can’t pronounce her name correctly, she may feel bad, so I prefer calling her silver, by the way, I love silver more than gold.

we started sharing everything we are currently doing everyday, and she started caring about where I was and whether I was eating on time or not. to answer that question, I shared one pic of me eating biryani in my house to her.. to my surprise, she shared her picture of eating biryani in an Indian restaurant in seoul the next day. you know what? me eating biryani here is not a big thing, but she searched all her town to go there just to eat biryani for me, and I felt super happy about this.

Meanwhile, vikram also started talking to some korean girls seriously, but those conversations are not turning to be good friensdhips, i felt bad for him but that was not the case with me. i quit sending friend requests to any other girls now any how became little busier with my studies and remaining time spendid with silver alone.

I genuinly started liking silver for what she is and the way she is caring for me rather than she is from korea or something else.

one day she said all my korean language was funny and full of errors. i kind of killing their langue so she said, “I started learning english. I know a bit already chinnu, but I can’t talk in english, so I want to learn it in full.”

I replied, “why to take the stress? we can manage this way”

silver “ravi, when you are making that much effort to talk in the korean language, why can’t I a bit? Let me learn a few lines at least.”

then I replied, “In that case, you should learn telugu instead of english. telugu is my mother tongue, and I wrote a few letters for you in my diary in telugu, so at least to understand what I wrote about you in my diary, you should learn my own language instead of english.

she felt super happy and asked me to share some good telugu movies
I shared website links to watch my favourite telugu movies with her.

I was on cloud nine when silver made an effort to see my favourite telugu movies. probably its so difficult for us to understand our regional movies since they wont provide any subtitles unline korean dramas for us most korean series will be available with english subtitles.

when she used some flirting telugu lines on me, we laughed out loud together on video calls.

one day she called me at not-so-regular hours of phone calls, we talked for a while, and I asked her.
“what happened silver? you are looking so active and full of josh today.”
silver replied, ” I don’t know, but I am happy at the same time little confused about what is love and what is not love.”
I replied, “really? i never expected you will be that dumb girl who never know whats the love”

silver “what dumb, you know chinnu, we have a famous proverb in south korea that says ‘you can’t understand what is love, though you may be as intelligent as einstein, as artistic as picasso and as expressive as lee min hoo, you just need to feel it than to understand it so don’t call me dumb or something if an opposite person can’t understand that, I don’t care, I can understand what is love and I am feeling that love right now”

me replied, ” so you are feeling that love right now?”
silver ” right now if i was there beside you I want to give you a tight slap on your face for asking me this question, can’t you feel it in my voice.”

I replied ” no” with a wink face emoji

Our conversations continued with so many memories and the most memorable of those was happened on my birthday. silver cut the cake in her house in seoul over video call and said, “I wish I were there with you right now chinnu” though we were so happy then, but seeing each other like that water drops rolled out of silver’s eyes.

after some day i felt but nothing worked as I planned. after my intermediate, I settled here in kurnool, and we slowly stopped talking. no, it’s not like we stopped talking suddenly. slowly, slowly we lost touch. everyday become every alternate day then it became every week and that gap between our conversations is increasing.

one fine day I said to her, “we are not from the same world, it’s not gonna happen i think”

silver replied, “chinnu as you said, If we are not from the same world, I will come and be with you, I am ready to swim any ocean, and climb any mountain just to see you, how about me coming to India but not right now, after few years or so, but that’s for sure one day.

I was really shocked for a minute after listening to her, I didn’t reply anything at that time, but we came to a reality after some days. i think silver also realised it how difficult it was. as teenagers, we think everything is possible in love, everybody, and every novel tells us love has all the power to make things happen, but it’s not, at least in our story.

still, it is a great memory and so many memorable things to remember for life. when I talked to my friends about my relationship with silver, they laughed and doubted, I too doubted a little at the start of our relationship, but she is the only person who didn’t doubt it from the start if our relationshiop was going to work or not. though silver didn’t say directly I love you to me so many times, as she said in the beginning, I felt that love in her voice every time she talked over the phone. it was still like a dream. a fantasy came true for me.

I didn’t realize how awesome it was to get a girl like silver back then, who said those words for me that she will leave everything and come for me at that young age. though she may told it just out of innocence or not knowing the problems involved in it, but i am the one who even think about that far, simply choose to give up on the difficult situation came in our relationship. It’s okay. I learned a lesson the hard way. I should have stuck with her no matter what. probably me and silver walking on the streets of seoul, my phone, and google would be happy to use all those search results.

still searching now and then ” how to reach seoul from vijayawada.”
“how’s the weather in seoul today.”
“do long-distance relationships really work ?”

This is Ravi Yalavarthi and I will see you soon Comrade.

This is Ravi Yalavarthi and I will see you soon, Click here to read about other women who influenced me