BENGALURU: If you have been closely watching the men in blue in the recent India vs Australia matches, you surely would not have missed the cute proposal made by an Indian man to his Australian girlfriend. Dipen Mandaliya, who hails from Bengaluru, popped the question to Rosilie Wimbush at the Sydney Cricket Ground during the second ODI between India and Austraila. She said ‘yes’, and the world saw it.
It surely takes days of planning to make such a special thing happen and Mandaliya vouches for that. “I had been planning it for about a month now. The original plan was to organise it with a crowd of 10 people – just friends and family. But due to inter-state border restrictions here in Australia at the time, I couldn’t go to Sydney and meet my family. I contacted SCG the night before the game and let them know, and they had it all sorted,” says Mandaliya, who currently resides in Melbourne.
Though India lost to Australia that particular day, it was a big win for Mandaliya. However, even though both are ardent cricket fans, they have opposing viewpoints when it comes to choice of teams they support. “Cricket had been something that we bonded over. Needless to say, we are fans of the game. We go different ways when it comes to supporting teams. I will continue supporting India and she will back the Aussies,” says Mandaliya, who was over the moon when she said ‘yes!’, though Australia ended up
winning the game that day.
Everything went as per plan but he had never expected that the video would go viral. He had no idea about it till his phone started buzzing with calls from his friends and family. “The aftermath was unexpected. However, we are happy that it brought joy to many during these dire times. I started receiving phone calls and messages from friends and family immediately after. And that’s when I knew that this had gone viral,” says Mandaliya, who grew up in Benagluru and completed his Bachelors from St Joseph’s College of Commerce in 2015, before moving to Sydney in 2016 to pursue his Masters degree at The University of Sydney. He is currently working as a data analyst at Jetstar Airways.
On the other hand, Wimbush comes from Western Australia and moved to Melbourne in 2016 to pursue further studies. “When I moved into my apartment in Melbourne, like everyone, I received mails in my post which were meant for previous tenants. I always try and see if I can contact the person and send it directly to them (only if it looks important). And that’s what I did when I received a post which was meant for Rosilie (Rose). I contacted her on Facebook via a private group, for the occupants in the apartment, and asked if she wanted to meet to return her mail.
That meeting ended in 10 seconds with me awkwardly handing over the mail and murmuring ‘Bye’. A month later, I received another post in the mail. I did the same, messaged her and decided to return it directly. But this time, she offered to buy me a coffee as a ‘Thank you’ for the effort I made,” says Mandaliya, adding that they did catch up for the second time and 10-minute coffee chat turned into a two-hour long conversation about everything.
He continues, “Cricket, of course, covered a lot of the conversation. From then on, we decided to catch up again over dinner, and then for drinks.”