We go back to where it all began: Aria and Dylan's first kiss. Christmas. Ice skating. The moment before everything got complicated.

Then we come all the way forward to Aria's wedding day, down the aisle, into the life she chose.

The epilogue shows us newlywed life and what it looks like when someone finally figures out which pieces of each culture she actually wanted to keep.

There's a big announcement at the end. Don't skip it.

Thank you for every chapter. This one's for you.

All episodes available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you listen. Start from the beginning, you'll want to.

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The Indian wedding is everything: ceremonies, food, dancing, Bollywood energy from the cousins who have been ready for this for months. It should be the best week of the year. Of her life. But Aria can't quite get there. And then, the night before the big day, her phone rings. A call that could change everything. Will she pick up?

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It's Aria's turn to get dressed up to meet a boy. The story is narrowing. The question she's been circling all season is almost answered. Which one? The one who fits her parents' world, or the one who fits hers?

Or maybe the one who fits both.

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Hayleigh and Todd's wedding day. Aria and Dylan have agreed to keep things civil. They have genuinely agreed. And then the fairy lights come on and the music starts and everyone around them is in love, and old sparks do what old sparks do. Is it possible to keep the past in the past when it keeps showing up looking like that?

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Maid of honour and best man. Ex-lovers. One week of wedding events to get through together. There will be slow dances and champagne toasts and a complicated history that has no intention of staying in the past. Will they keep it civil? Will old feelings surface? Or is this genuinely their final goodbye?

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Aria and Dylan's breakup feels final this time. Which would be difficult under any circumstances, except that she's maid of honour and he's best man at their best friends' wedding, and they have to hold it together for people they love. Awkward doesn't begin to cover it.

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Aria drunk-dials Dylan. He shows up. What happens next is messy in the best possible way. Some feelings don't stay put just because you've decided to move on. Will they, won't they, millennial situationship chaos at its most honest.

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Aria and Rahul go on their first official hang. They choose bowling. It's awkward in a way she can't quite put her finger on. She comes home, crashes out, and then makes the decision she'll immediately question: she calls Dylan. Will he answer?

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Aria and Dylan meet at the diner. It's time to talk about what comes next, for them, for the situation they've been navigating, for the plans that keep shifting. Coffee, a booth, and a conversation that actually matters.

Some talks can only happen in a diner.

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First: 1991 Virginia, and young Aria hoping desperately to go to a sleepover with pizza and scary movies and everything she wants.

Then: present day, the whole Kohli house walking on eggshells. Until Rahul's family comes for dinner. The parents are meeting. No one will admit they're conspiring. It is completely obvious to anyone who has ever met any of the four of them. Afterwards, Rahul and Aria go for a moonlit drive. They talk.

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Aria puts the kettle on and waits for her parents. The conversation she's been putting off can't wait any longer. Her own choices, her own terms, her own life. Hard for any millennial. Harder for an eldest daughter. Genuinely terrifying when that eldest daughter is Indian. It's time. How will Sunita and Anil take it?

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Rahul comes by for chai. Ends up spilling the tea on what everyone around Aria expects from her life. She needs to talk to Dylan. Everyone has a vision for her future, her parents, Rahul, Dylan — and it's time for Aria to figure out her own. If she knows it yet. Does she?

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Aria and Rahul are mid-argument in the hospital corridor when Sunita needs emergency surgery. The whole Kohli world shows up immediately, family, friends, relatives, everyone, because that's what they do. Before she goes in, Sunita asks Aria for a promise. It's impossible to say yes. It's impossible to say no.

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Aria is stranded at the hospital with nothing to do, so she eats terrible vending machine snacks and doom scrolls into oblivion. Then Rahul shows up. He works here. He is a doctor, as he never forgets to mention. What happens when you keep being stuck in the same place with someone you're trying not to think about?

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After the engagement party drama, Aria finally gets a day to herself. Takeout, mindless scrolling, comfort TV. She needs this badly. Then Lucy comes home with a potential career change she wants to talk through. Manageable: couch and bestie, very doable. Then Rahul calls and says she needs to get to the hospital. Now. There is no such thing as a quiet day off.

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Nikki and Jags get engaged, and they are joyful in the most complete way. The celebration is everything it should be. But the cumulative weight of family, career, love life, and friendships is starting to catch up with Aria. Holding it all together is getting harder than she expected.

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Aria and Paul do the Sorkin walk-and-talk. Big career opportunity incoming. But the aunties have sent her on a mission to the Indian store, and Nikki tags along. Together they compare notes on what it actually meant to grow up Indian-American, how it shaped their teenage years, their romantic choices, and who they've become.

The West Wing meets the desi diaspora experience.

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Time machine to the year 2000 — the mall, Hot Topic vs. Abercrombie, the very specific energy of early-2000s fashion debates.

Then back to present-day Virginia: the friends are catching up at the Kohli house, and everything is fine. Until Rahul crashes the party. Crash, bang, pow. Lane Kim would understand.

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It's Dylan's big night. The launch of World of Witches, everything he's been building, and the pressure is on. Aria arrives with Rahul. They bump into Rahul's cousin Ruhi, plus Louis, Lucy, and Todd. The evening has its own tensions. Whether Aria makes it through to the end depends on more than just whether the graphics render.

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Aria and Sunita work through the New York Times crossword at the hospital. Rahul hovers, because he's her doctor, but also because he's always just around, which Aria finds disconcerting in a way she can't quite name. Then he offers to drive her to Dylan's launch event. Fall Out Boy and Vampire Weekend are not enough to fill the silence. He starts asking questions. Real ones.

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Three Kohlis. One house. Too much togetherness. Aria builds a home apothecary. Anil's frustration about Dylan is building. Sunita wants kichdi and her sister. Aria takes the Beatles' advice and meets the gang at Marcos, where things immediately feel more manageable. To paraphrase Taylor Swift: help, we're still at the restaurant.

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The family is deep in illness and healing, until the parents decide it's time for Aria to go on an app date. So she goes. To a Starbucks. To meet a potential groom. While already in a relationship. The group chat is extremely involved. And who she runs into there is the actual story.

Later: Aria recaps the date for her parents, the aunties, the uncles, the neighbours, and everyone the Kohlis have ever met.

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A warm evening, parents reminiscing about their wedding, Aria quietly lobbying for Dylan. Then Sunita becomes unwell and needs to be rushed to the hospital; where Dr. Rahul is already there, calm and capable, which Sunita takes as something like a sign. The night ends with her hoping for a future that looks nothing like the one Aria is planning.

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Dylan and Aria attend Hayleigh and Todd's engagement party together. With Sunita and Anil in tow. There are speeches, family, banter, and a ballroom dance lesson of aspirational quality. The real question is what the aftermath means for these two. Romeo and Juliet, Jack and Rose, Devdas and Paro, or could this actually be something with a better ending?

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Dylan encourages Aria to call her parents. She doesn't. He calls them himself. Sunita invites everyone for tea. A simple sit-down becomes exactly as complicated as you'd expect when you put Indian parents, an American boyfriend, and the unspoken rule about not discussing business at the table all in the same room.

Avril Lavigne said it best: why'd you have to go and make things so complicated?

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That dinner. Where Dylan was charming and well-dressed and on his absolute best behavior, and it still somehow became a disaster. Because this is a traditional desi household, and introducing the boyfriend is never without risk. Aria is upset. Dylan is looking for her. The days of our desi lives continue.

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Sunita and Anil sit down with Dylan, charming, well-dressed, on his absolute best behavior, someone they've met many times as Aria's friend. None of that makes this less awkward. This is the rite of passage every Indian girl faces: the night her two worlds officially collide at the dinner table. Friday night at the Gilmores had absolutely nothing on this.

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1997: Aria gets her first Valentine and has to hide it from her parents. The secret double life of the Indian-American teenager begins, lying just to have a normal school life. Fast forward twenty-something years: those same parents now want her married. After telling her not to date. Make it make sense. Tonight, Aria is bringing Dylan home to meet them. She stops at Hayleigh's first for tea, or something stronger, to steady her nerves.

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A deal is a deal. Aria goes on an arranged marriage date in exchange for her parents meeting Dylan. The date is with a Literature Professor who is extremely passionate about The Great Gatsby. There are analyses. There are competing interpretations. There is the question of whether a green light will shine on any of this, or whether they'll both swipe left before the coffee arrives. Dylan is mostly fine with all of this. Mostly.

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Back to 2001 for the first time Aria and Dylan meet. A truly pretentious exchange that could only happen between two college students who believe they're the main characters of their own story.

Then, present day: Aria and her friends bump into Rahul and his at the bar.

Her two worlds collide in real time.

If you've ever been a desi girl at an American bar, you know exactly how that moment lands.

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Aria is home, keeping her head down, being supportive. Then her parents ambush her with a full Indian night, complete with samosas, salvar kameez, Bollywood beats, and a surprise suitor who is very eligible and very much not who Aria was expecting to meet tonight. No one outmanoeuvres an Indian parent on home turf. Will Aria's independence survive the evening?

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First, 1999 — Aria and Hayleigh getting ready for prom, butterfly clips, the giddiness of being almost done with high school.

Then, present day: Aria, at 29, is telling her parents she likes someone. For the very first time. They have opinions. Whether those opinions involve a quick arranged marriage pivot depends entirely on how this conversation goes.

The oversight committee has been waiting their whole lives for this moment.

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It's Lucy's turn for a breakdown, and Aria has been there for every one of them. Parents' divorce, high school heartbreak, college pressure, and now? The career moment where your life doesn't look like you thought it would. The tribulations of the burned-out millennial former gifted kid, only manageable with your best friend. Welcome to the 30-something gang. Only Taylor Swift can help.

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Aria surprises Dylan with dinner and a rewatch of their favourite early-2000s show. The nostalgia is warm — layered tanks, boot-cut jeans, the whole era. Then Dylan wants to have a real relationship talk. Aria really listens. Whether she can give him what he's asking for is a different question entirely.

TV revivals were never this emotionally complicated.

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Aria wants Dylan to pick her up. Rahul insists on driving her. Her mother conspires to extend the trip into coffee, which becomes the diner, which becomes hot chocolates and bumping into Dylan and Todd. Rahul asks real questions: about culture, family, love, what she actually wants. Fall Out Boy and Vampire Weekend are not enough to fill the silence. Grey's Anatomy or Scrubs? The jury is still out.

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Mid-lunch, Aria gets the call: her mother is in hospital. She and Hayleigh rush over to find Dr. Rahul very much in charge of the room, which Aria's parents interpret as a sign from the universe. Aria is not swept off her feet. Hayleigh is even less convinced. Sunita begins quietly playing matchmaker anyway. The doctors of Seattle Grace had less drama. Grey's Anatomy, anyone?

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Aria wakes up in her childhood bedroom, across from a Jonathan Taylor Thomas poster that has absolutely been there since Home Improvement was still on air. Then she meets Hayleigh for wedding prep — pizza, tiramisu, their favourite Italian place — where they talk seating charts, Dylan, and then a phone call arrives that changes the whole direction of the episode. The 90s never fully leave you.

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The whole gang at Hayleigh and Todd's for dinner. Dylan and Aria are in that nauseating early-relationship phase everyone pretends to hate. Louis and Alex get an update. Lucy has news, not romantic. Wedding planning is apparently all-consuming. And somehow, conversation lands on whether the good doctor might be a contender for something more than Sunita's care plan. These dinners always end up somewhere unexpected.

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We jump in the DeLorean to 1982: Sunita and Anil, before Aria existed, before any of this. Then we're back to present day, scrolling through Indian marriage profiles with Aria and her mother. The bachelors are lined up. Dylan has thoughts about this situation. So does literally everyone else.

Back to the Future, but make it desi.

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Aria's company lands a big opportunity with a TV entertainment network, the kind of break they've been working toward. Dylan is deep in the launch of a new video game and feeling the weight of it. Louis and Alex's situation continues to develop. And Aria fills Dylan in on the full Rahul situation. Michael Scott not included. Ambition looks good on both of them.

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The Kohlis face the big C. Cancer. And Sunita's doctor turns out to be someone Aria didn't expect, which her parents interpret as a gift from the universe, and Aria interprets very differently. Spending this much time under the family roof means everyone has opinions about her clothes, her life choices, and her future. She is an adult. She would like that acknowledged. Pick a side: Team Kohli Parents or Team Aria.

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Dylan and Aria have The Talk, the actual one, over cupcakes and The Office casino episode on Valentine's Day. Cards go on the table. Commitments get discussed. Are they the Jim and Pam of season 3, or the Kelly and Ryan of every season?

Cupcakes, conversations, and the moment everything changes.

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Hayleigh wants answers about Aria and Dylan. She is Team Daria, she is not subtle, and she wants to know where things stand before the next wedding function. Aria is not ready. The friends-with-benefits situation is working fine, as far as she's concerned. Old habits die screaming, if Taylor Swift is to be believed, and she usually is. Where is that scarf, though?

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First, 1992 — the Kohli family in India, a nine-year-old Aria who really just wanted to be at summer camp with her friends, and a grandmother's house that is nothing like anything she knows.

Then, present day: Sonia's actual wedding, finally happening, and Aria's parents choose the moment to drop a bombshell and offer her a deal. The deal. You'll want to hear it.

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Back to college first, the dorms, the girls, and how Louis came into their orbit.

Then present day: Aria and Lucy are shopping for Hayleigh's bridal shower, debating dresses for every single event on the calendar, and talking about the c-word that's starting to cast a shadow over everything. Louis gets some bad news. The group rallies. These friendships will be the thing to get them through.

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Sonia's wedding kicks off properly with the henna and mehndi ceremonies. Aria's parents are not thrilled with her choice of company, because for a third-culture kid balancing an Indian family against an American social life, a friends-with-benefits situation does not exactly fit the traditional script. And everyone has opinions about it. The mehndi is beautiful. The subtext is not subtle.

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Aria is juggling maid of honour duties for two weddings simultaneously, which is a lot under any circumstances. Add a big Indian family who can't stop setting her up, and it starts to feel like a full-time job she didn't apply for. Dylan is supportive. At least there will be champagne.

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Sonia and Vivek make it official, a diamond ring, Indian sweets, extended family crowded into the Kohli house, and all the rituals of a Hindu arranged marriage. Aria plays the role of good Indian daughter with varying levels of enthusiasm. Her mother notices. Dylan wants to talk. The wedding season has officially begun. There is no going back.

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Two Indian women. Two different eras. Two versions of what marriage looks like when it's arranged by people who love you and are absolutely convinced they know best. Sunita meets Anil in 1980s India. Sonia gets engaged in Virginia in the 2020s. Meanwhile, Aria holds her ground, and we finally meet Dylan. And someone else.

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We're jumping timelines again. First, 1991 and Totino's pizza rolls. Then the millennial present, a country club lunch with Lucy, Hayleigh, and Aria, where the conversation moves between dating, wild nights out, and the particular chaos of having boomer parents who think they know best. Aria's South Asian family and the looming big Indian wedding are never far from the conversation.

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Two timelines, one episode. First, New Delhi 1978 — Sunita, long before she was anyone's mother, and a Bollywood classic love story setting the scene. Then back to present-day Virginia, where the Kohli cousins are out for cocktails, tater tots, and the kind of conversation that always finds its way back to weddings. Because in a desi family, it always finds its way back to weddings.

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A double dose this week. First, we flash back to 1998 — AP Bio, Juicy Couture debates, and the particular high-school drama that only makes sense in retrospect. Then we're back in the 2020s, where Hayleigh's wedding prep continues to consume everything.Two timelines. One story. The 90s girl and the millennial woman she became.

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The gang gathers for happy hour. Drinks, catching up, the comfortable ease of a friend group that's known each other long enough to skip the small talk entirely. It's lighter than what's coming. Enjoy it while it lasts.

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Away from the weddings, the family expectations, and the situationship she's definitely not overthinking, there's Aria at work. A rare glimpse into the one corner of her life she actually has under control. Or at least, mostly. Every millennial needs one thing that's theirs. This is hers.

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Aria, Hayleigh, and the whole crew are out shopping for Hayleigh's wedding dress. Which sounds fun. It mostly is. But when you're the only one in the group without a ring, wedding prep has a quiet way of asking questions you weren't ready to answer.

First-gen problems. Best friend goals. The wedding season that changes everything.

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#IndianAmerican #SouthAsianFiction #AudiobookPodcast #RomCom #DiasporaStories #FirstGenProblems #Situationship

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Before the weddings, the marriage profiles, and the situationship getting out of hand, there was 1996, a best friendship, and the kind of bond that shapes everything that comes after. We flash back to meet Hayleigh, Aria's BFF, and where it all started. Because every story about who you become begins with who was there first.

IG & TT: @leeladua

#IndianAmerican #SouthAsianFiction #AudiobookPodcast #RomCom #DiasporaStories #FirstGenProblems #Situationship

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The story begins. Aria Kohli is first-generation Indian-American, living her carefully curated millennial life, good job, great friends, and a situationship she's not examining too closely. Her parents told her no dating till she's married. She's fine with that. Except now everyone around her is getting married, and the rules are suddenly changing.

Debut author Leela Rani Dua reads Chapter 1 of her coming-of-age rom-com. New episodes every Thursday.

IG & TT: @leeladua

#IndianAmerican #SouthAsianFiction #AudiobookPodcast #RomCom #DiasporaStories #FirstGenProblems #Situationship

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Meet Aria Kohli, first-generation Indian-American, commitment-phobe, and the only person in her friend group not planning a wedding.

Every Thursday, debut author Leela Rani Dua reads a chapter from her novel: a cross-cultural rom-com about Indian family expectations, millennial adulthood, and a friends-with-benefits situation that's getting very complicated. Think Gilmore Girls meets Crazy Rich Asians.

Shortlisted for the Mo Siewcharran Prize 2019. All episodes available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you listen. Start from the beginning, you'll want to.

IG & TT: @leeladua

#IndianAmerican #SouthAsianFiction #AudiobookPodcast #RomCom #DiasporaStories #FirstGenProblems #Situationship

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.