This man Rahul, my friend, evokes extreme emotions. Rather, I must say that he survives by shocking people the moment he opens his mouth and speaks his mind. A lot of people get mini-attacks on account of his super-sarcastic jibes. I am sure a couple of them might have contemplated suicide or considered renouncing the world. But he is my one of my best buddy for he is my 4:00am friend. Though it is another matter that if I ever called him at 4:00am for a piece of advice, he would confuse me enough by trapping me in his twisting sarcasm! At the end of the call, I would feel peaceful for I ended up forgetting why I called him at the very first place.
It is for this reason that I apprehended that my best buddy would find it very difficult to do the sacred seven rounds around the holy pyre and settle down in the blissful bond of matrimony for the simple reason that he would not find a girl courageous enough to walk ahead of him while doing the seven rounds. A faint hearted girl would definitely melt away under the heat of his witty jibes. I was worried for my friend. More than me, my wife Esha was worried. She literally took the task of settling down Rahul as her pet project.
Esha once said, “Agar Rahul ki shaadi ho jayegi toh hum Ganga Naha lenge”. My buddy, on the other hand, was least concerned for he was leading a happy and peaceful life by shocking people around. Esha, on the other hand, is not the sort of person who would easily give up on something she signs up for. It was for this reason that when in the month of June 2015, we all friends met in Café Coffee Day near my house, Esha snatched Rahul’s cell and asked Kaivan to download Shaadi.com app. Though for Esha, it was a super serious matter, for me and Kaivan, it was the beginning of a fun filled evening for we all started the task of creating Rahul’s profile. In this task, our biggest source of distraction was Rahul as he refused to treat the exercise of creating his profile with any level of seriousness. We then pulled out the best pictures of Rahul and uploaded it on the profile.
Though I entirely do not recollect what we wrote, but I think that what we wrote did make some sense as the moment the profile was ready, Rahul started getting numerous invites from prospective brides. Rahul, who was taking the whole exercise in lighter vein, got curious the moment he saw a couple of profiles. I could see the satisfactory look on Esha’s face on seeing Rahul getting interested in the whole business of Shaadi.com. But I pitied my poor wife for the simple reason that I was convinced that no girl would be able to withstand Rahul’s endless sarcastic banter.
While I was busy feeling sorry for my wife and her innocent hopes, God, it seems, was finally busy writing the script for Rahul for he finally got introduced to Rashi through Shaadi.com. This led me to believe in divine intervention. The universe conspired to find out a girl who could be an equivalent counter force to my best buddy. The moment Rahul saw Rashi’s profile, he was floored by her cuteness, he was sold to her charm, he was taken by her elegance. Rahul was head over heels in love with her without even speaking to her. Now this got me worried. I did not want my love stuck friend to suffer from a heart break on account of his sarcastic tongue. Fortunately, again God intervened. I will tell you guys how… Rashi is a Punjabi born and bought up in Chennai. One of the qualities that she was looking out in her guy was that he should speak fluent English. Now my dear friend, Rahul, who is also an Engineer by profession, is a patriotic Indian and never learnt to speak super fluent English like some of the others around of him out of his sheer sense of devotion towards Hindi. So in order to impress his lady love, Rahul deliberately conversed slowly by converting each sentence in his mind from Hindi to English. This effectively nipped his sarcasm in the bud and the trick worked… The lady was taken. She gave Rahul 10 on 10 on his conversation skills. I still remember the happiness on my wife’s face the day Rahul informed that the deal is sealed. “Ganga Naha ne ka time aa Gaya”. We felt as if “Subaha Ka bhula Shaam ko Ghar Laut Aaya Finally”.
And then it was the beginning of the end of the never ending madness. It was Rahul’s wedding after all. It couldn’t be uneventful. The universe conspired to make it into the most happening wedding. Let me tell you how…
THE DANCE PRACTICE:
My love stuck buddy and the bride-groom to be has two left feet. Even when we went clubbing in the past, we danced encircling him and he merely used to stand in the centre. He just refused to move or sway. Dance was definitely not his domain. He wouldn’t dance even to save his life, the max he would do is the ‘Yaara oh Yaara’ step of Sunny Deol. However, love makes a person sign up for the most challenging task. Rahul decided to dance in his Sangeet. We all were pleasantly surprised. Now the other quality that my friend possesses is that he is extremely competitive in nature. When he got to know that Rashi’s cousins and friends would also perform, the competitor in him got extremely active. He whipped us all to get our acts together. Thanks to my profession, I met Riddhi, one of my student who also happens to be a wonderful choreographer. Riddhi took it upon herself to discipline us and teach us the moves. I literally felt as if we were practicing for participating in “Dance-India-Dance” competition. Riddhi was a strict teacher and made us practice each of the songs so many times as if the final performance was a matter of national honour. I remember coming back at 10:00pm after meeting almost 40 to 50 students after taking non-stop during the course of the day and thereafter practicing for 3 hours at a stretch in the night. After all we had to beat Rashi’s friend in the Sangeet. Riddhi had a tough time getting Kaivan to pull it off. Kaivan often did the “Namaaz Pose” in the song “Munda thoda off beat hain” instead of doing the delicate hand gesture that Riddhi was sweating hard to get him to do!
After all it was Rahul’s Sangeet practice. It couldn’t be uneventful. After toiling hard for over two months, when we were wrapping up the dance practice, Kaivan sprained his leg in his football practice. Kaivan and Rahul are like Jai and Veeru. Kaivan practiced for Rahul’s Sangeet with the sprained leg. Though it appeared to me as if he was playing langdi rather than dancing.
My sister Bhumi who happened to be in US just got the chance to see the dance videos. We made poor Bhumi practice for 6 hours non-stop the very day she landed. By the end of the final dance practice, my poor sister was red-eyed and tired out of the combination of jet leg and physical stress.
After all it was Rahul’s Sangeet. So what if Bhumi was jet legged. She had to practice!
And this is how we wrapped the dance practice finally…
SHOP TILL YOU DROP:
Esha was on the moon during the whole phase. My highly frugal wife decided to wake up the woman in her. Esha hates shopping with the same passion as Rahul hates dancing. But both of them, it seems were ready to play different tune contrary to their true nature. Esha indulged in the dangerous zone of shopping as if this was the last wedding that she would get to shop for. She shopped more for Rahul’s wedding in comparison to our wedding thereby leaving a hole bigger than black hole in her bank account.
NOTE-BANDI:
Rahul’s wedding was scheduled on 9th December 2016. It seems the universe started conspiring again to make it the most memorable, though I cannot figure out whether it was in good way or bad. When on 8th November 2016, PM Narendra Modi addressed the nation by kick-starting his address with the word “Mitro”, all that I could think off was about my “Mitra” “Rahul”. Shaadi ka ghar hai after all, how will he manage? With unavailability of cash and limitations on withdrawal of cash from bank, how would the marriage go ahead? I called up Rahul and all my doubts were laid to rest. When I asked Rahul, how will you manage, he replied, “Tension mat lo, sab ho jayege” in a tone that led me to believe that wedding would go ahead even if the RBI stopped printing the notes all together thereby forcing Rahul to resort to the age old system of barter trade to get things done.
AMMA PASSING AWAY:
After bracing the storm of ceaseless dance practice, unending shopping spree and the nerve wracking note bandi, we finally pulled our socks together to travel to Chennai for the D Day. We thought that we had survived the worst and things could not go further downhill. In the hindsight, it occurs to me that the Divine Force was preparing us for something bigger. J Jayalalitha, the then Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu suddenly took gravely ill and was nearing her final moments. All the preparations for the wedding were complete and Chennai it seems was under some siege on account of Amma’s health and the mystery surrounding it. Rashi and her parents were super tensed and rightly so. In the middle of this confusion I called Rahul to get an update on the ground reality. Rahul was already in Chennai. The venue of the wedding was hardly half a kilometre away from the AIADMK office in Chennai. However, Rahul, in an attempt to convey that everything was under control, informed me that the wedding venue was at a considerable distance from the main city centre. Knowing Rahul, I bought Rahul’s story with a pinch of salt. However, Amma passed away just 2 days before the commencement of the wedding functions. The situation was fortunately handled with brilliant strategy and planning by the authorities. It seems God again intervened to work things out for Rahul and Rashi. I called up Rahul again after the death to ask if he needs any help from Mumbai. He said, “Bottles leke aa yaha…” That was it and we had around 8-10 Bottles transported to Chennai on flight with every person who was travelling there from Mumbai. Just before the wedding, Chennai was bracing back to normalcy.
WHAT HAPPENS AT THE BHAVAN DOES NOT STAY AT THE BHAVAN:
Rashi’s parent’s had made arrangement for all the guests to stay at certain Bhavan. I am unable to recollect the name of this hotel (or I don’t wish to name it on a public portal). Now this place, it seems, was an epitome of discipline for it did not allow the consumption of non-veg or alcohol. This was a grave injustice to the Punjabi’s in the house. I reached just a night before the mehendi function straight from my office in Mumbai. Me, Anagha, Riddhi and Kaivan were packed off in the same room. Rahul’s other friend from Engineering were in the adjacent room. And when Engineers meet Engineers, they beat the Punjabis in the house when it comes to drinking or indulging. After all it was a Punjabi wedding. It couldn’t have been complete without chicken and alcohol. And we ensured that this Bhavan was not deprived of the true Punjabi flavour. We flouted the rules with all impunity and secretly smuggled non-vegetarian dishes and alcohol in our room. During the Haldi and Mehendi Ceremony the next day, while Esha, Bhumi and the rest were busy enjoying the function, we got drunk to death. Esha incessantly called me to attend the function. When I did come down, I was happy drunk. My mother, asked me to take a U-Turn and disappear…
SANGEET FUNCTION:
The Sangeet function was scheduled in another top notch hotel. The Punjabi’s in the house were depressed on account of restriction on the availability of alcohol. All the Engineers in the house ensured that the Punjabi’s wouldn’t go dry throated by getting in the alcohol in non-transparent black gym bottles in the venue. Finally the moment arrived for which we had invested our heart and soul since the past two months. It is for you guys to see:
THE GHODI STAMPING MY FOOT:
Rahul’s Baarat the next day was a hyper-emotional moment for me. The Ghodi, unfortunately, couldn’t understand my emotions. All that I wanted was to walk next to the Ghodi to accompany Rahul. The Ghodi on which Rahul was seated, it seems, wanted otherwise for she suddenly stamped on my foot mercilessly. I yelped in pain and called Bhumi who was busy dancing in the Baarat to check out my foot. Once the Baarat entered in, I rushed to the room reserved for the guys. Instead of attending the Saat Pheras, I was busy nursing my foot under the apprehension that I got a hair line fracture. Poor Bhumi was forced to stay back with me to check on me. Fortunately, the pain subsided after a while and I could finally participate in the wedding function.
CYCLONE IN CHENNAI:
Immediately on the day after the wedding, Chennai was hit by a cyclone thereby forcing Rahul and Rashi to stay put in their house. What a thrilling start to the exciting journey or marital bliss…
It has been a year now and today is my buddy’s first wedding anniversary. Rashi is a brave girl indeed… Hats off to her courage and endurance… Sorry Rahul, please do not expect me to shower praises on you by stating the obvious.
A relationship that has sailed through note-bandi, political turmoil, and cyclone can indeed face any challenged, big or small and survive to tell the wonderful tale of love.
Happy Wedding Anniversary Rahul and Rashi… You guys rock…
Yours Lovingly,
Esha & Hiren Rathod.