You must be kidding!

In 1978 a Sanjeev Kumar starrer movie was released by the name Pati Patni Aur Woh, which went on to become a hit. Around 30 years later a same named TV series was born in which Woh – the secretary in the movie was replaced by a baby. The couples in the series were to take care of a baby (someone else’s) as if their own (for a week or month?). That really brought to fore the difficulties couples face while raising a kid, especially when they are not ready to face them. Teachers and parents have the pivotal role in shaping a child’s life so the people who play these roles must be mature enough to handle it. It is not a task which one can put a tick across to mark it done. I was reminded of that TV serial after I spoke to one of my friends.
“Sure I will forward his resume. How is R (his wife)?”
“R has gone to her native place. We are expecting a baby.”
“What? Err… I mean congrats. Sorry, but isn’t it a bit early? You guys are just 25-26.”
“Yeah, I did not want a baby now, but my parents were forcing us to have one soon.”
After hanging up the phone, unfortunately, my (perverted) mind drifted to visualize a scene where he was being forced to have unprotected sex with his wife, with his parents sitting beside commanding “Be good and be quick. We want a baby coming out now. Tick tick 1… tick tick 2…” Sick jokes apart, but seriously, just a year of marriage and being 26 is not a good age to have a baby is what I feel. And how can parents be that forceful to have a grandchild? I am not against my friend having a kid, but I feel he should have had a certain amount of time to enjoy his married life as well. A few days back while surfing TV channels I stopped for a minute on a channel playing Pyar Ke Side Effects. Rahul Bose and his brother-in-law are sitting on a see-saw in that scene and discussing how the former is not ready for marriage, and the latter for parenthood. The latter says he wants to take his wife to Las Vegas and the casinos there, but not with a kid in his arms. What I think is that there should be some time for a couple to get to know each other (even in a love marriage), enjoy each other’s company and see where they stand financially/emotionally/physically before thinking of extending their lineage.

I love kids (provided they are small and cute looking), but I don’t want one in my house as of now. Reading the previous sentence again won’t change the meaning buddy. My close friends almost hate travelling with me (esp. on long journeys in trains) as invariably kids flock around our seats. I am not sure if that is because the kids see me as a joker or something, but from experience they sure enjoy the company. My parents and in-laws are also waiting for the ‘good news’ from our end. I would say I am just lucky though that the topic of having kid(s) came up just twice so far after my marriage. First time my mom had talked about it when we were talking about our neighbour’s little daughter. Mom had then mentioned that I love kids, probably hinting to me and my wife to have our own, when I said I like kids and pets, but only if they belong to someone else. I need not mention that I had to make a quick exit from the scene. When dad had raised it later I had said that I did not want to have a kid for a few reasons, all of which were trampled down by his counter-reasoning. One of my reasons is that I (read we) do not think both, my wife and I, are mature enough to be responsible parents, and I doubt if a time would come when I feel that I have become a responsible adult. About a fortnight back we were having lunch with a couple and eventually the topic of kids came up (they have an adorable little daughter). The guy said that there would never be a time when you would be sure that you have reached the stage to have a kid, it is just that you guys will have to take a plunge taking into consideration your age factor and since every other friend is having a baby. Having a baby due to peer pressure? I haven’t logged into Facebook for a long time now, but I do remember seeing photos of babies posted on albums of many friends from school/college/office. There are four female colleagues on my same floor here who are expecting at the same time; we call it ‘the pregnancy wave’. A few years ago there was a time when all friends were getting married. Now they are gestating at the same time. I do not know how long I would be successful on my stand for no kid, but the thought of taking the plunge does scare me.

P.S.: Why do mothers of kids smile from ear to ear seeing a girl playing with their kid, and probably thinking, “What a great mother this girl will be one day!” While on the other hand if there is a guy in place of the girl, the first reaction is the stare, “Is he a paedophile?”

Miss Match

One of my best friends is in a confused state these days on his professional scene and I am confused on his personal front. I don’t want to browse through his girlfriend list from the start so cut-short to the one whom he had met in his company. Let us call her X. I had heard about X from him, but had never met her. One day he called me up and said that they had decided to get married and asked me to meet her. 10 minutes into the meeting and I was happy for him because no doubt X was wonderful. Unfortunately X’s parents did not agree and went ahead to marry her off to some super-brainy IT guy. Out of frustration my friend asked his parents to start looking for a girl and he was ready for an arranged marriage. Another friend of mine (D) and I tried a lot to make him understand, but he was firm that he had to get married to forget X. Flawed logic according to me, but he was not in a state to understand. So his mom and aunt started looking for some ‘suitable’ girls and finally zeroed in on Y. My friend met Y 2-3 times and never informed us about this development. We got to know this when he called us to say that he was getting engaged to Y. I was like who is Y? I saw Y for the first time at their engagement and met her after a week or so. Honestly speaking about 15-20 minutes into the conversation and I knew this was a wrong choice. There was not much wrong with Y, but knowing my friend for last 19 years I knew that the pair was a complete mismatch. The engagement was done and the families had started planning for the wedding, so there was not much K and I could do. One month after the engagement my friend calls me up and says he is not sure about Y as a life partner. I knew this was going to come up some day, but never gave a thought what to tell him when it surfaces. We met and discussed his issues; tried to hide Y’s shortcomings and instead highlighted my friend’s mistakes so that he doesn’t call off the wedding. They both started seeing a counselor in some time. His parents used to call me to help him understand. I tried initially, but then at one point K and I agreed that these problems will later come up even after the marriage, so better we supported our friend. Finally after a large hue and cry the families relented and the marriage was called off.

Last week my friend called me up and said he has now proposed marriage to a girl and wants me to meet her. I am completely confused whether I should meet her or not. Since then I am trying to amend my friend’s whimsical ways, but I know it is too late for it. Good suggestions on this matter will be appreciated.

She & Me – Part VII

‘Me’ visited a local branch of the marriage registration office for filing a request for a marriage certificate. He had filled up the form correctly and had checked and re-checked the list of attested documents to be attached just to make sure that all papers were in order.

Me was waiting at the office for ‘She’, the lady who checks and accepts the marriage registration form.

She (after arriving 1 hour late): Yes?

Me: I wanted to apply for a marriage certificate

She: Have you already married and want to apply for a certificate or you want to marry here and then get it registered?

Me: I have married a few months back and I have brought this form and the necessary documents

She: Do you live in this area?

Me: Yes

She: Ok, show me the form

She: (mumbling and ticking) Age… Proof… Address… Proof… Photographs

She: What is this? (pointing to the city of the marriage venue)

Me: Gurgaon

She: Is this outside our Pune city?

Me: (trying to suppress a smile) Yes, it is in Haryana

She: Outside Pune city but within Maharashtra state, right?

Me: (suppressing my laughter) Err… no it is in the state of Haryana

She: Oh ok! Gurgaon… hmmm… this is in Punjab state, right?

Me: (suppressing wtf! expression) No it is in Haryana state

She: Ok then you will have to file the request in that city itself or the District Collector office of our city

Me: Well ok… I will take this form to the DC office then

She: No this form is for marriages held within our city. You will have a separate form to fill up at the DC office.

Me: But nothing has been mentioned on this form about venue of marriage!!

She: (smiling)

Me: I understand that the 100 bucks I paid for this form have gone waste

She: (still smiling)

‘Me’ later went to the DC office and found that the ‘marriages-outside-city’ form was fortunately free; though that form also didn’t have a mention about venue of marriage clause. A few trips to the DC office for lack of address proof (I guess officer’s hints of a bribe) and Me’s form was finally submitted (without shelling a single rupee in form of bribe). A month later three witnesses will have to sign a declaration at the DC office and then ‘Me’ will get his marriage registered and a marriage certificate. Now ‘Me’ can ‘legally’ touch his wife eh?

Ek kunwara phir gaya maara

Last month end we friends attended a wedding reception of an engineering classmate. He lives in UK currently. Many of the guys in our group are scattered due to job related postings so I had written a mail to the group just to cheer up people who had missed attending the event. Posting it here to keep this mail stored on a shared site so that anyone of us can visit it in future even if jobs and mail ids’ keep on changing.

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From: Sudeep

To: “Ajit”, “Anky”, “Darya”, “Dukkya”, “Bhopya”, “Amdya”, “JP”, “Shirish”, “Suraj”, “Babaji”

Date: Tue, Jun 2, 2009

Hey guys or should I say Hey COETians :p

Wassup? Most of you missed attending JP's wedding reception on the 31st so thought to write down a detailed mail of the entire event so that you can relive the moment, virtually. After much discussion among the group of 11, finally only 4 could make it to the venue and the 5th one being JP himself. I am sure that by the end of this mail you would be either happy not attending with us or repenting for the same reason :D.

As decided over mails we were to meet at Amdya's place at 6:45. Much to our surprise Amdya was the first one to reach his home and a greater surprise that he was watching Da Vinci Code on his computer. I am sure that the movie must be an adult version of the original because I can't imagine Amdya all alone at home and watching Robert Langdon and Sophie, running across the Grand Louvre, completely dressed. Shirish, as usual, was late by around half an hour. Ok fine.. mostly I am the one who is late but this time I was the first one (leaving Amdya aside) to reach. Later someone had initiated the topic that I have become punctual after marriage, but someone else (yes, yours truly) successfully changed the topic. Now that it was clear, after a few calls, that only Amdya, myself, Ajit and Shirish would be going to the reception we quickly discussed about the wedding gift for JP. Amdya was the first one to suggest - his personal hard drive with his complete pr0n collection (spelling altered so that office id's don’t block the mail). 'His complete' in the sense, which he has collected diligently over the past few years. We had a good laugh over this suggestion and then Shirish suggested that we (mainly Amdya) gift JP a pillow. For those who are wondering whether a pillow signifies something nasty or $exually explicit, please hold on to your vivid imaginations. Pillow was suggested after the (in)famous 'Pillowgate scandal' at JP's room after Amdya's highly intoxicated state and later JP being (almost) pushed to tears saying "Arre! Amdya ne mere pillow ki waat laga di" in his inimitable style. Ajit was of the opinion that we would be embarrassing JP by gifting him in front of other people since it was specifically mentioned in the invitation card not to bring bouquets/gifts. But the others were already wondering how embarrassed he might be seeing us among all the erudite people there, so that thought was scratched out immediately. Thanks Shirish for mentioning about my initiative for the gift in another mail thread but actually it was Bhopya who had instructed me on phone to get a gift since JP would be leaving abroad and we were not sure how soon he would be meeting us again. Amdya blurted out Planet M in between and we 4 headed towards the music store to see if we could get something for the music lover JP. As Amdya and I were skimming through movie titles under the Romantic genre, Shirish insisted that we get some C-grade Bollywood movies. He also pro-actively fished out a list from his pocket which featured movies like Chetana, Radha Ki Jawani, Shaadi Basanti Ki Honeymoon Gabbar Ka etc. Sensibility prevailed and we bought Notting Hill, If Only, Music & Lyrics, 'i-can't-remember-the-name' and The Pursuit of Happyness**.

Then we headed for the venue with Ajit driving the car, Amdya sitting beside him and Shirish and myself in the backseat. Talks went on from Darya's accident (a new version was created of the incident since Ajit was not aware, sorry Babaji you were not the originator of this version like the other 3 versions :p) to Andaz Apna Apna. Most of the funny lines were re-delivered from the movie. Aila Juhi Chawla to Yeh Teja Teja kya hai, yeh Teja Teja. It was decided that we should all gather at someone's place and watch the historic movie together. Maybe after the T20 WC final. During the dialog deliveries we lost the diversion near the venue and had to go a few kilometers extra for taking the next turn towards the venue. While heading for the next turn we spotted Sadanand Residency, a huge building glowing with lights. A voice in the car said "Is the venue Sadanand Resorts or Sadanand Residency?". He he he.. so we decided to check out both the places and halted near the Residency building first. The car parking gave an impression that very few people would be inside the building so it was decided that 2 of us would go in and ask for JP :D. No one voluntarily came forward, so we went to Sadanand Resorts, which fortunately was the correct location.

When we entered the reception hall on the 2nd floor a single known voice ARRREEE!!! boomed through the crowd in front of us. Guess what guys, it was Mehta. Not the Electronics professor, but Pratik Mehta. It was quite (initially pleasant) surprising to see him there as no one from us knew that he was back in India. This guy has moved from Sweden to Switzerland to Germany to USA and currently he is in Austria. Yeah we also initially thought that his 'exploits', which we had heard during the year after our graduation, were the reasons for the countries to expel him but he has been around the world for various reasons like internship, studies and jobs (the regular ones). This guy will give a very tough fight to our original loudspeaker K.D. We guys were seated in the hall and Mehta, looking towards the stage, asked (should be read as shouted at) JP, who was posing for the camera, "Oye JP, change your position. Kya raat ko hi positions badlega kya?". The initial thought of JP being embarrassed by us was instantly washed away :-). With Mehta as company, naturally the topics of discussion were how-Mehta-accurately-told-us-about-adult-movie-timings-during-engg and how we all had troubled all professors of our college. The conversations as usual involved professors JSK, Nagoshe, Chinni, Chirmule etc. We also recollected how JSK had cried during one lecture and how Ranga had confessed of throwing the chalk towards Modak (which actually had not hit him) :D.

The ambience of the entire venue was very nice. A good thing was that the crowd was limited so the bride and groom could talk to every person on the stage at a comfortable length of time. We were not aware that JP had invited A R Rehman to play in the background. Rehman was performing exactly in front of the venue and when we were having food on the terrace we could see the Balewadi stadium lit up brightly and dazzling fireworks along with Rehman's music. The food was wonderful, esp. the non-vegetarians found it finger-licking good :-). JP and Nilshia were looking beautiful in the traditional wear and were smiling throughout the entire ceremony. We all wish the couple to smile like this forever and have a nice married life.

We clicked a few weird (actually these should be called natural) photographs which I am mailing in a few minutes. While driving back to Pune, Amdya was either sleepy or scared in the front seat coz he mentioned a couple of times to Ajit "Kasla raanti chalavtoy gaadi". In the backseat Shirish and I were stuck on Paresh Rawal's line from Daud, "Imandar baap ka jaandaar beta, roz use karta hai Colgate".

Darya, Sudeep, Dukkya and JP are the names which have been scratched out from the Eligible Bachelors' List. Who will be the next one? By the way, if you are not aware one of our good friends outside our group, Tathya/Narya is getting engaged to a Mumbai girl. Going by the fact that I have troubled him a lot I am sure that he won't invite me to the wedding. Nor do I see Shirish and Babaji getting an invite. So who ever will be attending it please do mention what happened to Elsa ;-).

** My company had screened The Pursuit of Happyness for us. Before the screening, one of my colleagues came into my cubicle and asked us, "You guys are not coming to watch the prostitue of happiness?". Had I written the spelling of coming as cumming (like many spell it in text messages), it would have led to an entirely different connotation for the question, right?

P.S.: In case you are wondering how I have managed to write so much, well I possess a skill known as multi-tasking. I assign all tasks (including mine) to multiple junior resources. Multi-tasking is in ;-).

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Have a great weekend everyone!

Guess who’s back, back again

The detective asked her the reason why people marry. Mrs. Clarke replied, “We need a witness to our lives. There's a billion people on the planet... I mean, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you're promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things... all of it, all of the time, every day. You're saying 'Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness'.”

On 4^th March I got a witness in my life and became one myself, as well.

I got engaged!!

Nice title for the first post of the year, isn’t it? Though like the last time I am not misleading anyone by the title :). By now most of you know and have seen the pics as well but well to let my blog know that on October 18^th (yeah I know I post quite late) I got engaged to Neha. We have been together in the same company for last two and half years now. Yep, I know I have to take back my words from that last post on people working in same company and getting married :-). But it has been a fun ride till now… the entire secret love affair thing and hiding it from other colleagues, confronting parents with the news of intentions to get married when they were thinking of other marriage proposals, being a good boy in front of in-laws (well I am good but you know..) and then facing the barrage of questions about future plans from parents and in-laws and then later from friends on the entire story how it started, who proposed and how etc. Phew! Looking back at the last two years it feels good that all pieces of the jigsaw puzzle* fell in the right place, somehow. The engagement ceremony too was a good experience as I never knew I had so many relatives ha ha. That too when, only the close ones were invited for it. I dread the fact that I am going to have a tough time recalling names of everyone in the marriage reception and plus names of relatives from Neha’s side as well… sigh!

I am not sure if it is a good time or not but before the engagement or marriage one starts remembering all the excess… err ex-s and the crushes till date. The infatuations which we thought were true love and the gut feeling that no one in this world could make us part our ways. When I was mailing the invites for the engagement pics, I did send out the link to all such. I remember the girl from college with whom I always thought of getting married to. Looking back it makes me laugh because I hardly ever talked to her. Then there was this one from school days on whom I had what we call now a childish crush. That time I could never think of any other girl and was dead sure that she was the one for me. On seeing her mail after ages I did not think I would be glad to read that she is married and doing well; in fact I was happier that I am with Neha. There have been umpteen crushes and the fond memories (some not so fond) associated with it. Such is life and memories! Well the marriage is set for March and we would need all your good wishes for the future.

I just had a look at my archive section and found this post written a year back. Memories, I tell you :).

*At the mention of jigsaw puzzle I remembered a story book I got as a birthday gift from my parents. It had a nice image of a jigsaw puzzle land and a boy who sets out to solve the jigsaw mystery. I distinctly remember that I loved that book a lot, sadly mom gave it later to a cousin (who must have thrown it away after reading). Did I mention memories?

Pssttt.. lemme tell you a secret

I was going through my reader last week and noticed that the number of unread posts from PostSecret had gone up as I had not checked it since quite a long time. I find this site quite intriguing. It sometimes amuses me, it sometimes saddens me, and most of the times it makes me feel that people are so talented to put down their secret so creatively. I had seen the PostSecret link many times on various blogs but never bothered to check it until one idle day when I subscribed to it. Going through a few posts had me hooked to it instantaneously. Till date I have gone through hundreds of secrets of hundreds of people spread all over the world and I am amazed by the courage people show to jot down their secrets which otherwise could have stayed buried forever. Amazed just for the fact that I never reveal my or someone else’s secrets. Secrets are just meant to be secrets, is my view. Might be it is this view point that many people show confidence in me to open up their hearts and minds. I have been stomaching many such secrets since school days and luckily I have been able to keep them with me. In spite of the fact that many people have shown me the skeletons hidden in their closets I have never had the urge to share my secrets with anybody. Not my parents or cousins and not even my best friends. I remember Sean writing in his post that it is confusing how much to reveal on the blog about his relationship. Blogs are double-edged swords as Parag had said, and it is difficult to keep the nosey-parkers in real life away if one starts writing minute details on the blog. I had successfully kept my relationship under wraps and now that I am marrying her next year I can openly discuss about it without caring for the real life pesky characters analyzing each post here to know who she is. Yes, I heard your congratulatory wishes and sincere thanks for that :). I have already conveyed the marriage information to my close blogger friends and a few guessed it right even before I could tell them. How much do you reveal about your life on your blog? Or to your closest friends in real life?
I got an e-mail today on eagles and one paragraph in the mail was:

When an eagle grows old, his feathers become weak and cannot take him as fast as he should. When he feels weak and about to die, he retires to a place far away in the rocks. While there, he plucks out every feather on his body until he is completely bare. He stays in this hiding place until he has grown new feathers, then he can come out.

We occasionally need to shed off old habits & old memories that burden us and add no value to our lives.

We skim through the old items in our households and throw away articles, which we had thought we would need some day but till date never used them. Life could have been better if we could do the same for the thoughts and memories in our minds. Try weeding out the garden of your mind from today and let colourful flowers bloom to make your own life colourful; after all we get only one life to live, don’t we?

Images from PostSecret

Attempted Live Blogging...

A/B styled update…

I am sitting at my company desk and frankly speaking I can go home now and check the installation scenario tomorrow morning. I can also stop scribbling this random post and put it off for some other day. But I am not in a mood to leave the office today. Might be by the time I reach the middle of this post I might just lock the computer and leave. Let’s see...

Race saanson ki song from the movie Race is playing at a blaring level in my ears in a loop. I loved this song. I generally play songs at medium volume but today is an exception. Yeah sue me! I saw National Treasure 2 and Turista movies last month. The recent kidney scam in North India reminded me of Turista.

I am removing the bulleted format, Sean. I don’t like bullets; paragraph is fine for me. But still your bulleted post looks much better.

Mom reached home now and called up to ask if I was coming home for dinner. There was a dinner party somewhere today and I skipped going there. Luckily I saw the cell display blinking otherwise I would have missed the call. Accidentally I dropped my cell on the floor a month back. The vibrator stopped functioning. Cell vibrator… you and your perverted mind. I always keep my cell on silent mode so since a month I have not been noticing incoming calls. The list of missed calls is increasing each day and people have started thinking I am avoiding them. I am too busy and bored these days to call them back. I hope I don’t have to explain the reason of my absence, to each of them.

I was talking to a friend a few days back about some incident and we both noted that a lot of time has passed since then. Time is flying a bit too fast these days it seems. I am totally confused. There seems to be no decision left to be made on instinct or time to do something out of the mundane routine.

The installation failed… yay!

My Google Reader unread posts count has reached to 560. I wanted to post a few things on Google Reader earlier. Another pending action item eh? I am also planning to start a WTF series. No, seriously WTF! But it won’t be related to the F word. I have 3 parts ready in my mind.

The developers are uploading their builds and they have thrown the bandwidth into a haywire. Blogger is throwing up an error. I will have to publish this post tomorrow. Also I don’t have a C&H strip ready for this. Some kind of live blogging this was. Ciao!

Back again today! Wow… what a bleh mood that was. I was really in a very good mood yesterday morning and something happened down the evening time. Sheesh what a depressing post this turned out to be when I read it today. Anyways I am posting this un-edited. Today I am back to my cheerful self because I am aware that tomorrow I am going to a cousin’s marriage and I will be one hell of an irritated chap by the evening. Happy weekend to all of you!

P.S.: Race song trailer link

P.P.S.: I remembered one of the good text messages I have received on 'marriage'. Old people used to annoy me at weddings, pinching my cheeks and telling me that I am the next. They stopped doing it when I did the same to them at funerals. Old people beware tomorrow… Muhahahaha!! Damn tomorrow is a wedding not funeral.

I got engaged!

This image is for you all who asked what did I gift my mom on her birthday :P

If you got ‘misled’ by the title (no pun intended Yashita :P) let me clarify that still I definitely have around 3-4 years to utter this statement. It was my team lead who said this one fine morning last month.

Good morning Sudeep!
Hey… morning!
*shows the ring on right hand*
Got a new ring?
Yes
Cool..
I got engaged!
Really? Then why are you wearing that in right? It should be left.
For guys it is on right and for girls it is on left

Ohh.. I thought it was the other way round

Keep aside my ignorance bit and see these pics taken later. The main thing is that he got engaged to a girl within the company. Now that was not a surprise coz we already knew that and in fact we all hang out in the same group. What made me think was that this was the second instance of intra-company alliance and our company policy states that a husband and wife can’t work together. Regarding the earlier couple, not one but both of them left the organization. Now before saying that the policy is right or wrong give it a thought coz this post is coming to that point itself. (Sean I know you would oppose it at Toys R Us coz of _ _ _ _ _ ;))

I have this firm belief that it is better not to take your work, fights and affairs at home. Sort and solve them outside your house but 2 people working together in the same company are bound to discuss an issue pertaining to the workplace. Leave aside same company but a couple in the same field also might be discussing it. I don’t know how much this is prevalent abroad but here I have seen lots of people choosing their partners preferably from the same field in which they are working in. Might be 2 doctors discussing back at home:

Hey honey.. hows was ur day?
Ohh wonderful! I had never seen before a cute appendix like the one I saw today. How about you?

I did 2 successful bypass surgeries today and in another hospital one man died before we could do anything.

Now there is nothing wrong in discussing this, but professional and personal life should not be mixed much is what I feel. If any doctors are reading this please don’t feel bad and I hope you get to see at least one cute appendix everyday and go home and tell your spouse about it. On another thought, it is better to have a partner in the same company so that he/she knows how much work pressure is on the partner’s shoulders and so the “You don’t have time for me” situation doesn’t arise at home. I have a friend who works in a company where they encourage marriage among colleagues (ohh yes I have applied there already :P) and gift a car to the couple. Whenever that friend meets me I pester him by asking how much his prospects of getting a car have grown.. he he. But again ego clashes might be there (remember Abhimaan movie?).

Okk.. now you keep thinking over this while I leave for the day. Happy weekend!

Marriages are made in heaven.. or is it Taj Blue Diamond

Came from Kashid on Sunday night (more on the outing in next post). Was totally void of energy but somehow got up on Monday n went to the office. After coming to the office I noticed in the washroom how horrible I was looking (tht day). The french beard i had was almost covered by the rest of unshaven part. Had worn a tee n a old pair of loose jeans, which could have easily slipped off if the belt was not in place. Could find no excuses for avoiding the work which is piling up, courtesy the pre-poned schedule of execution phase (I hate preparation phase now). Somehow as the day was reaching to an end, I got a call. (Not frm God like in 1 nite@Call centre coz i dont work there)


Anyways, the call was frm home. Mom was telling me to have food outside coz she was going to attend a marriage in Taj Blue Diamond. My mom has now stopped asking me to accompany for the marriages since last 4 years. Lets begin frm there...FLASHBACK --- I am originally a Rajasthani. But, our generations have settled in Maharashtra n 99% of my frnds are Maharashtrians since childhood. So, except the language i dont know anything about my supposedly native place. Now, in our community marriages used to take place in childhood. After modernisation has come into place, the age level has increased. But, still in some families gals are married off at 'bout 18 n guys around 20-21. Luckily my parents r not in this grp of thinkers n have not given a thought for mine. So, whenevr I went to attend marriages around 4-5 yrs back, I was cornered by ppl eager to give their daughter's hand. I m very opposed to this system n so after attending one such marriage, came home n a swear word slipped frm my mouth against an elderly person. So tht was the beginning of my mom not asking me to accompany later for any marriages (including my cousins')... n I am still grateful for tht.


So I agreed to have food outside (though frankly I wanted to go to Blue Diamond.. but no) n resumed my work. Around 20-25 min ltr my mama (maternal uncle) called me up n said tht he was waiting below my office n wanted me to come down. When I went there, he was in a car sitting with my mom n mami (uncle’s wife). They all were going for tht wedding nhe was insisting tht I too go along with them. I explained to him tht I was in no mood for attending a wedding but he didn’t budge. So I pulled on a sweater n went along. (I mean went up the stairs, luckily had a sweater in my locker n then went down) The hotel was buzzing with ppl in resplendent clothes which made me more n more awkward n giving me the feeling of being an odd man out. Soon enuf as the news spread tht Dr. Sharma’s son who has finished his graduation n is currently working is here.. I was literally dragged in a corner by 2 men n then started a barrage of questions Wht I was doing currently n then the date of birth n stuff like tht. In the mean time I was thinking how to while away 1 more hour so I started looking frm the corner of my eye at a grp of gals hoping to find a gud looking one n coincidentally she being one of those men’s daughter. But to no avail… atleast tht would have kept me busy during the wedding ceremony. Generally I restrain myself frm cracking jokes in front of such ppl, but then one of those gentlemen seemed cool enuf to bear tht so.... My mom had told him tht I wanted to study further for my PG n had no intention of marrying so soon. He countered tht with saying tht the right age for a boy to marry is 20-21. I shook his hand n said tht “I am desperate for marriage since last year but my mom wont let me think of it. Pls tell her to let me marry” n after saying tht took off frm there to meet another relative. I didn’t dare to look back at mom’s face… he he he. The wedding ceremony was over n when my turn came to congratulate the couple I was confused to whom to hand over the gift. Simply coz I wasn’t aware frm whose side I was attending. Lolzzz. But since the bride was shy n looking down (they have to act like tht???) I handed the gift to the groom, had food n then left for home.


Don’t know whether I will be attending any marriages in near future but…

Old ppl used to annoy me at weddings by pinching my cheeks n saying u r next. But they stopped doing tht when I did the same to them at funerals