Actor Aryan Vaid is a bit offended by widespread suggestions that his romance with Anupama Verma on Sony TV's reality show "Bigg Boss" was merely a publicity stunt.

"In all these years in the entertainment business I've been around with a lot of women. I've been with other women and had relationships but nothing like this. In fact, I fell in love with Anupama 10 years ago and wanted to marry her. But our relationship didn't culminate as I wanted it to.

"Now in that house with her I rediscovered what a beautiful person she is. I fell in love with her all over again. Anupama is one of those rare people with a beautiful soul," Aryan told IANS.

He said Anupama's company made his stay a lot easier in the "Bigg Boss" house.

"It's that rare quality of hers which kept me going in that crazy atmosphere where two of the girls, Carol Gracias and Rupali Ganguly, were constantly massaging Ravi Kissan's legs and head.

"Even I massaged Anupama because she had a back problem, but only to the knees because I was well aware that the TV cameras were constantly watching. The guys all pretended to be friends with me. But except Deepak Tijori they all voted me out of the house. Can you imagine?"

Aryan is particularly pissed off by Ravi's betrayal.

"I thought he was a friend. I thought he wished my relationship with Anupama the very best. In fact, Ravi came up to me and said he wished me and Anupama could get engaged inside the house under the supervision of 'Bigg Boss'. He kept saying how grateful he was that I pushed him into workouts and in losing five kg inside the house. And then he voted me out."

Aryan felt this could be Ravi's revenge on him regarding a woman that came between them a few years ago.

"Everyone knows Ravi was dating his co-star from Bhojpuri films. I had no clue about it when she decided to have a relationship with me. In fact, she got so close to me that we had a puja in my house to fob off all the evil influences that came in our way.

"Ravi tried to instigate her against me by saying he had seen me picking up white girls from a club in Dubai. He forgot to mention he also tried to do the same. I succeeded, he failed."

Today Aryan has left behind his footloose and fancy-free days forever.

"I've never been more serious about any woman. I've proposed marriage to Anupama at least 20 times inside that house. Now it's entirely up to her."