He had a massive crush on me, the whole school knew it: Prithi Ashwin on husband R Ashwin

Ravichandran Ashwin has enjoyed phenomenal success for over a decade and continues to weave his magic for the Rajasthan Royals in the IPL 2023. His wife Prithi Ashwin has been a pillar of strength for the 36-year-old for years. 

Prithi appeared on AJIO Match Center Live’s ‘Hangout’ on JioCinema to talk about her husband. The conversation was hosted by Sania Mirza, Veda Krishnamurthy, and Danish Sait and they got Prithi to open up about their relationship and also played a unique game of chess to find out more about their lives as a couple. 

Prithi recalled the early days, saying: “We went to the same middle school together. That’s how we got introduced to each other. But then, we grew up and met as adults again. I was working at an events company. He had a massive crush on me, and the whole school knew it... He moved schools to pursue cricket and we were in touch on and off, birthdays, neighbourhood, like that. I met him again when I was handling CSK’s account and suddenly I saw him as a six-footer. We knew each other from Grade 7.”

As luck would have it, they went from being childhood friends to falling in love later in life. Prithi described the simple way in which Ashwin ultimately asked her out after 10 years of being acquaintances. “Once he took me to a cricket ground and he’s a straight shooter. He said, ‘I’ve kinda liked you all my life and it hasn’t changed over 10 years. We’re adults and let’s try this’.” 

Later in the conversation, Prithi played a unique game of chess with the hosts where the King (Ravi Ashwin) and the Queen (Prithi) would advance one step based on the answers she gave. This revealed a lot about their relationship, as Prithi described Ashwin’s temperament as a father and a husband. This included her revealing which one of them is likelier to start a fight with the other. “It’s Ashwin. We fought this morning, I don’t remember about what. I think he was calling me funny names and it suddenly stopped being funny.”