Why did I have to fall in love with Rose? Out of all the girls in the world, in India,in the city... why did I fall in love with her?

It was a drab Chennai morning. That day. I finished taking my engineeringcourse, but only for my family’s happiness.I decided to finally tell my dad I that want to be a film maker. A director. To beamongst the top movie makers of Tamil cinema. Then Hindi cinema. Next, I willlearn Hindi and start working with Sanjay Leela Bhansali and other directorial legends. Then I will go international. Hollywood. My aim.

My dad, he is a teacher. He always wants to save time. Always. Instead ofbuttons on his shirt, he will stick Velcro on the underside. He writes with bothhands simultaneously. I think you can call him efficient, or autistic.

So, now I had told him. He did not seem as shocked as I thought. He asked mewho I wanted to work with first. I said Gautham Menon. He replied with a contradiction, “but he takes 2 years to make a film”.

I say, “Maybe that’s why they are so good.” We talked for a long time.

Then I saw Rose for the first time. She paced across the street, seeming to be inmoderate rush. I was standing behind the white gate. The one in front of ourapartment. She stood in front of me, in her blue sari. She was telling mesomething- but I did not pay any attention to her words. Her long hair flowed inthe wind. Her facial expressions formed anger and distress. I started to payattention to what she was saying.“Please open the gate and move so I can go to my apartment”

“You live here?!”

“Yes.”I opened the gate quickly. That was all. She left. Meeting her after a heated discussion was like an aura of positivity. At this point I didn’t even know her name. So, I just stalked her. When she was putting herfamily’s clothes on the washing line on the balcony-roof, I went too. She didn’t speak and just ignored me.

The next morning, I went to the balcony again.

Not to stalk her. At least that’s what I told myself.

She was already there, pinning a white shirt to the line. The sky was pale and undecided. I stood there pretending to shake out a towel that was already dry.

She noticed.

This time she didn’t ignore me.

“Do you need something?” she asked, not angrily — just directly.

Her voice pulled me out of whatever cinematic slow-motion fantasy I had been living in. This wasn’t a film set. There was no background score. No dramatic lighting. Just two balconies and an awkward silence hanging between them.

“I… I just wanted to say sorry,” I said. “For yesterday. For blocking the gate like an idiot.”

She looked at me for a second. Measuring. Evaluating.

“You weren’t blocking it on purpose,” she said. “You just weren’t paying attention.”

She went back to her clothesline. I stood there, unsure if I should leave.

“You just moved in?” I asked.

“No. We’ve lived here for three years.”

Three years.

And I had only noticed her yesterday. Maybe love wasn’t lightning. Maybe it was attention.

“I’m Arjun,” I said finally.

“Rose,” she replied.

So that was it. A name. Simple. But it felt like unlocking something sacred.

“Engineering?” she asked, glancing at the textbook under my arm.

“Finished,” I said. “Now I want to become a film director.”

She raised an eyebrow. Not impressed. Not amused. Just curious.

“That’s… ambitious.”

“I know,” I said quickly. “But I’m serious. Tamil cinema first. Then Hindi. Then international.”

I waited for her to laugh.

She didn’t.

“Good,” she said. “At least you know what you want.”

That surprised me more than anything else she had done.

For the first time, I stopped seeing her as a dramatic entry shot in my life story. She wasn’t an aura. She wasn’t destiny walking in a blue sari.

She was a person.

And she had her own pace, her own rush, her own anger, her own thoughts.

“Why were you in such a hurry yesterday?” I asked carefully.

She hesitated.

“My mom wasn’t well. I had to get medicines.”

That shut me up.

All the slow-motion hair, all the cinematic framing in my head — gone. Replaced with something real.

“I hope she’s okay,” I said.

“She is. It’s nothing serious.”

There was another pause.

“You don’t have to come up here every time I do,” she said, but there was no sharpness in it. Just honesty.

My face burned.

“I know.”

And I did know. Or at least, I was starting to.

That evening, instead of watching her balcony for movement, I opened my laptop and started writing. Not about her beauty. Not about fate.

About a boy who confuses fascination with love.

About how ambition and emotion collide on a random morning in Chennai.

About how sometimes the person who catches your attention isn’t meant to be chased — they’re meant to wake you up.

Maybe falling in love with Rose wasn’t about her at all.

Maybe it was the moment I realized I wanted my life to be larger than fear.

And if I was going to direct great films one day, I needed to learn something first:

In cinema, you can control the frame.

In life, you can’t.

And maybe that’s where the real story begins.