Arjun Vemula — Head of Cybersecurity at a FinTech company in Hyderabad —
had stopped trusting humans ever since a junior developer accidentally leaked the company's source code on Reddit.
So when his mother said,
"Choodandi ra! Sreeja Mallampalli. Calm girl. No Instagram. Good family. Very less voice."
— Arjun ran a background check on her entire street.
3 voter IDs matched. Her Aadhar didn't connect to any bank frauds. No suspicious activity on LinkedIn. Clean record.
So he nodded and said,
"If she drinks filter coffee, I'm in."
Three weeks later, Arjun stood on the marriage stage, sweating through his veshti like it was firewall test day.
His brain said:
"You're about to marry a woman whose Google history you've never seen. Scary."
The crowd clapped. His uncle live-streamed on Facebook. The priest looked like he was running a startup on the side.
And then... she entered.
Sreeja Mallampalli.
Maroon saree. Gold jhumkas. Calm face.
But her eyes? Too sharp. Too alert. Too observant. Like a biometric scanner wrapped in elegance.
She didn't giggle.
Didn't fidget.
Didn't ask about wedding hashtags.
She just looked at him — not with love, but like a central intelligence analyst scanning a threat level.
"Hi," Arjun said, adjusting his spectacles.
"Hmm."
No emotion. Just a controlled nod. Efficient. Suspiciously efficient.
The rituals began.
He dropped the rice a beat early and earned a priest-eye-roll.
She, meanwhile, orchestrated the entire pooja like she had a step-by-step memory module preinstalled.
At one point, she turned to him and murmured,
"Follow my hand signs."
"Hand signs?" he whispered, confused.
She signaled. He chanted perfectly on beat.
Arjun.exe has crashed.
His amma beamed. The priest nodded. His cousins murmured, "Ee ammayi top class ra…"
Photo Session:
Arjun smiled for 97 photos. She smiled in exactly two.
Before the final shot, she leaned in and whispered:
"One full smile. This is going on every WhatsApp group in Andhra."
He smiled like he just found a security patch for his own life.
That Night:
Rose petals. Fairy lights. Nerves.
Arjun sat awkwardly on the bed, half expecting her to scan his retina.
She walked in, still in saree, hair freshly braided, carrying two steaming mugs.
"Filter coffee?"
"I love you," he blurted.
She smiled. Just a little.
"Good. You'll need it."