Some cities don’t wait for you to fall in love. They nudge you into it. Udaipur is one of those places. The first time you step into its evening light, it feels like someone dimmed the world just enough for you to notice things you usually rush past. The slow water, the stubbornly romantic balconies, the way conversations sound softer by the lake. It is the kind of city that could change your life without even raising its voice.
So when Ranveer Singh started talking about Udaipur at that huge sangeet in the United States a few nights ago, there was this quiet shift in the room. You could almost feel the music lower itself out of respect. This was at the celebration hosted by Padmaja and Rama Raju Mantena for their daughter, all chandeliers and silk and people who look like they glide instead of walk.
Ranveer didn’t perform his memory. He just slipped into it.
He said, with that half grin he gets when he is remembering something dear, “Udaipur is like a lucky charm for love stories. I shot a movie there called Ramleela. It was during the long Udaipur schedule of Ramleela that our love story blossomed.”
That word blossomed it’s not dramatic, but it’s tender in the way real confessions are. Not noisy. Not attention seeking. Just honest.
The funny thing is, everyone already knew their story began around the time of Goliyon Ki Raasleela: Ram-Leela, the 2013 film Sanjay Leela Bhansali drenched in color and longing. Wikipedia knows it. Fans know it. Anyone who saw the onscreen chemistry knew it. But hearing him say it again, casually, like it still lives close to his heart, that did something to the room.
And here is the truth of film sets: when you spend long days drenched in emotion, even pretend emotion, something shifts between people. Not in a scandalous way. More in the “I see you differently now” way. You start recognizing how someone laughs when the cameras aren’t rolling. How they soften at the end of a long scene. How they hold eye contact a beat longer than necessary. That’s all it takes sometimes. A beat.
Udaipur gave them more than a backdrop. It gave them time. And that is the rarest currency on a film set.
I remember those early whispers in 2013. The speculation wasn’t mean or hungry, for once. It had this almost hopeful tone. People wanted it to be true. Something was refreshing about seeing two actors who were not playing the publicity tango. They weren’t dropping hints or orchestrating paparazzi moments. The connection simply leaked out around the edges.
And now, years later, at a glamorous event oceans away from where it began, Ranveer revisits it with the softness of someone who has lived enough life to understand how precious beginnings are. That is what struck me. He wasn’t trying to be poetic. He was just remembering. The way a person remembers their first apartment or the song they played on repeat during a messy summer or the place where something unexpectedly real started.
Honestly, the moment felt a little fragile. In a good way.
He said his line, the room reacted with that collective warm smile people share when they sense sincerity, and then the evening carried on. No drama. No gasp. Just a shared feeling that slipped into the atmosphere and stayed there.
What I love most is that he didn’t dress up the memory. He didn’t turn it into a grand romantic speech. He talked about it the way people talk when they’re tired of the noise and want to acknowledge something true without turning it into a spectacle.
And maybe that is why it felt so human.
Their relationship has lived through a decade of fame, pressure, milestones, the whole Bollywood circus. Still, the origin of it remains simple. Two people fell in love while shooting a film in a city that makes even strangers feel like they’ve stepped into an old poem.
Udaipur did what Udaipur does.
It gave them space.
It gave them quiet.
It gave them a beginning.
Ranveer didn’t say it in those words, but the way he spoke it carried that softness. That lived-in comfort of someone who knows exactly where the story started and still feels something when he thinks about it.
There’s always that one place.
The city where things didn’t just happen, they changed you.
For them, it was Udaipur.
And he reminded everyone of that without trying to make it sound profound.
It just was.
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Sana has been covering film, fame, and everything in between for over a decade. From red carpets to rehab rumors, she brings nuance, wit, and an insider’s edge to every story. When she’s not reporting, she’s probably watching Koffee With Karan reruns or doom-scrolling celebrity IG feeds.
