The Wedding Part 1

As stated in the earlier post, there is nothing bigger for an Indian family than a wedding, suffice to say Chintoo's family quite rightly feel the same way, especially when the marriage is of an elder sister.

Tension and nerves are on the max since they were on the female side of the marriage, Chintoo however was always of the belief that everything and everyone should be cool and calm rather than freak out about the smallest and most minor hiccups.

The wedding was not just big in terms of us being from the bride's side but rather it felt like a proper family wedding, "You guys have to work" said chintoo, yeah right.

To be truthful weddings are boring and quite stressful for both families, this one was not going to be that, with the retardness of the Babla, Nagu and myself, plus the fact that bhabhiji was to come to meet chintoo, it was going to be one hell of a marriage.

the first day I went over to chintoo's place, I met his sister for the first time, the only other time I think she got a glimpse of me was when I blatantly showed the middle finger to Rohit on his terrace while we played football and his sister and mom were looking at us from an adjoining terrace, thank God she did not recognize me. That day was the first time I would get to meet the groom's family as well, since we decided to go to their "sangeet".

The one fear I had was they were Kashmiri Pandits and well one thing everyone knows is that they beat the shit out of Kashmiri muslims and vice versa, plus it does not make it any better when you are known to make racist comments and that your friends are constantly pulling your leg and reminding you of that.

Nagu, Chintoo and I got into the back of a sumo with a few of his relatives and this one girl who seemed to be the typical hoity toity that one expects to find in every wedding, while she is blabbering away about how life in Italy is and how it is not affected by the credit crisis as much as the other nations and how she is a student there and how they have a 3 hour lunch break, Nagu looks at me, makes a stupid face and shakes his head like he is trying to tell me something, that something was that miss hoity toity was a long time back a crush of Rohit's, as Nagu kept on saying

"Life comes full circle,man"

We reach the place, which was somewhere in salt lake, Kashmir house it was called, just to scare me off as well. We get off and are welcomed, Rohit, la familia minus the bride, All of us were wearing something fitting the occasion, be it a suit or a kurta, yes even I was in a kurta, Nagu however seemed like he came from some crazy literary meet and that his soul has been hounded by the dead poets society or some shit, unshaven, hair a mess, crazy half jacket and a half arsed sense of style does not help either.

Calling him a fucking "porter" the entire journey would affect every normal person but Nagu takes it in his stride, as said we reach "Kashmir house" and are warmly greeted, then they start serving us tea, the dick that I am always refuses tea, so I politely say

"Am sorry I don't drink tea"

Somehow , someone seems to get offended, pop comes a lady and forces me literally to take the cup and drink the tea in front of her
"Its Kashmiri chai, its not normal tea, do try, you must try, you have to"

I can't say no now, since half the bloody place is looking at me, like I have sinned massively and am going to spend the rest of eternity in hell. The other ceremonies now start taking place, which means, I get the same lady coming over to me and explaining every single detail of every single custom there is. I know she means well but come on, me , customs? really?

Babla arrives in all his grandeur ,like a star, late and right from a show. Enters and is specifically told not to abuse much and also about the presence of Rohit's wanna be ex.

Anyways, they start the singing bit and oh dear lord can they sing and play, apart from being hot kashmiri women, they can sing and belt out songs like a jukebox, constantly going on and on and on, like there is not stopping a class 5 hurricane.

When its time for food as usual I get a little shock since there is no chicken but a brilliant substitute is there, lotus stem, yes, lotus fucking stem, and its not just one preparation , its like the main course there. The kashmiri potato was brilliant and so were the papads but the star of the show was the fried lotus stem. Of course we must have a substitute for the tight bengali preparation of mutton in which we need teeth like a lion's to eat, here we had some lotus curry which Nagu seemed to enjoy and eat like well he is a lion eating a dead rabbit, ripping stuff out with his teeth, our constant whining about his dress sense brought the beast out in him.

Food done, groom met and all done, we head back to the car, 4 fat arses in the back of a Tata sumo and a few relatives and miss hoity toity in the same car. Babla starts singing out random songs and all, then we start the crazy business of singing

"Phooolo ka taaaaro ko sabka kehna hai, ek lakhon mein meri behna hai
saari umaar humme sang rehna hai"

for the southies and mallus out there who don't know hindi
"Flowers and stars all say that my sister is one in a 100000
we shall stay forever together"

We all were directing it , not at Rohit's sister but rather his wanna be ex for an absolute legendary dialogue that was spoken around 10-12 years ago when love first starts to hit our hearts. Crushed back then not anymore cos move over hoity bitch, Bhabhiji is here and thank God for that.

PS: rohit's mom understood the entire context of the song.

Part 2 coming up

Bhabhiji

Weddings are completely crazy, especially in India, you get the crazy relatives always asking you "When is your wedding?" or "Oh my how much he/she has grown". Pretty embarrassing stuff happens, of course there must be some drama from some family member at the wedding.

I never really work hard during my relatives weddings, so when Chintoo told me that Nagu, Babla and I would do at least some work for his and now my sister's wedding, it seemed quite odd, nevertheless that whole wedding bit is for the next blog post, this time we have just one thing to discuss, "Bhabhiji"

You see, a long time back I had made a prophecy , Rohit would be the one who would get married first amongst the 4 of us, chintoo might have been small, shy and bashful with women but he seems to have the strongest bond with the female species, one specimen in fact. Babla might have some argument with that but lets not dwell into that.

While jokes have been made about how they got together, rejection, approval, that whole romantic beach thingy and all, Babla and I only cared about one thing, meeting the lady who took dear Chintoo's heart away.

When we found out that we would be receiving Rohit's better half from the airport, we thought "Screw the other southie buggers coming over, we just wanna meet her", the typical kameene we are.

The flight was at 6 in the morning, babla and I stayed over at Rohit's where we had a meeting with another of his NITK pals, Buddhesh, nice guy and all, when we were chatting I found something rather freaky

Buddhesh " You know Prasoona and I were............."
Me : " what? i didn't hear"
Buddh " she is my girlfriend"
Me : " WHAT????"
Buddh: " Yeah, you didn't know that, Rohit didn't tell you?" he says with a straight face
Me : "Fuck no!"
He calls Rohit over and I ask him
"WTF man? Buddhesh and Nalla are a couple?"
He looks at me like I am some crazy bugger, so does Buddh
Chintoo "WTF are you on?"
Me :" Arrey that's what Buddhesh said"
Buddh: " No, I said Classmate"
Me : "Fuck my hearing"

Anyways while Babla gave a nice night time lecture about Pagans,Belief, Religion and jinns till 4 in the morning, we were up by 6 to reach the airport since now rohit told us the flight was at 7:30. Screw bathing and all, we just put on some random clothes in the winter morning and off we went, Nagu joined us from his place.

We reached the airport by 6:30, having more than an hour in hand, since planes are always late, we went over to a CCD to have a good old breakfast, chocolate cake slice, sandwiches and the lot. After we were done, which took a good 45 mins, Babla went to the loo, he came back in 5 mins.

Me :" You went for a crap?"
Babla: "yes but, the toilets suck ass"
Me :" yeah I know its bad in almost all places here, hence I have a list of places where i can crap, like Malls and all"

We continue this conversation while we are waiting at the arrival gates, I keep blabbering about how shit these toilets in the Calcutta international airport is and how I don't even dream about pissing there, when my dear Nagu bursts out

"You know about Railway toilets?
i have fucking stayed over at railway stations
I have pissed there
I have crapped there
I have even had a bath there and changed my clothes there"
In his typical loud voice

We look around, every body who was there, especially this old uncle are staring at us like I walked in with a bomb and yelled something in the airport.

Now we had not met bhabhiji at all, Nagu had met her when he was in Bangalore for the Metallica concert, so he was our eyes, as you know a picture is different from reality, so every time some lady was walking past the gate we looked at Nagu for the sign if it was her or not. The arrival board first showed her flight status at around 7 AM, flipping wildly, we are expecting it to show "arrived" but it shows "DELAYED".

I let out a FUCK and start dialing Chintoo's number, babla tells me to wait and then it starts flipping again and baam this time it has arrived

"YAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYY" we all scream, again said uncle looking at us like we just shot him in the leg.

After a little time this short sweet lady comes out and she looks at us and smiles at us, we turn back , nagu gives us the nod of approval and I scream out in this shrill voice "BHAAAAABHIIIIIJIIIIIIIIII", again everyone is looking at well me.

The first meeting with the bhabhiji was good, I mean the 3 of us ate her head when we were going back to Rohit's , was a long 90 minute ride, which I don't think she will ever forget.

Oh and now after being part of the nonsense and merryment we can safely say that bhabhiji is part of the group

Not just coz we got a name for her, like every member of the group but that she can take a joke and I mean a lotta jokes.

A toast to bhabhiji!!!

May the next time you come to calcutta say "Chintoo Weds Bhabhiji"