Shilpa's wedding

This is going to be the longest blog entry that I have written till date.

I would be doing injustice to myself if I don’t write the last couple of wonderful days I went thru.(April 16th to 18th 2009)

As I had mentioned in my earlier blog entry, I was looking forward for April 17th, 2009. I.e shilpa’s wedding day. As they say, Time really passes like wind. Weeks passed like days and we reached April 16th. The night on which we were supposed to catch train to the infamous Shivamogga(spelling changed frm Shimoga by recent Govt notification). I had applied for leave on both 16th and 17th (Thursday and Friday), since it was decades ago(atleast I feel like that, though it is exaggerated figure) that I took leave last time. And I had to create an un-married(both of my Cousin elder sis are already married) non existing “Cousin Elder Sister” for the purpose of getting leave sanctioned. And before putting the proposal for leave in front of my TL I thought of making the most out of my non-exsisting sis marriage and so took leave for two days instead of required one day. I had to bring in the sentiments of “MY only elder sister”, “My parents have already left”, “She will never talk to me if I don’t come atleast a day before” etc etc to get the leave sanctioned. Phew!!!!!

Well the story of getting leave will drag like anything if I don’t stop here. The other two dudes had no patience in creating any non existing human being on earth (due to the over population you see) for the sake of leave and with all courage, messaged their respective TL’s in the morning of 17th saying “Severe Headache, cannot make it to office today”. Sick leave Granted.

Now coming to the night of April 16th. As my parents really never take chance in anything, I had to get ready at 9.30 pm itself for the Train leaving at 11.40pm.!!! If I deliberately didn’t make delay in getting ready, I would have been ready by 8pm itself going by my Ma’s words. Ok, this is something which I would feel is not a object of fun, going by the fact that my mother’s intention is to make sure that I don’t end up missing my trainJ. So I was here at the railway at 10.20pm. Flat 1 hour 20 mins before the Train’s departure time. What next?!! I was really a bit tensed at the fact of finding myself alone in the State’s biggest Railway station. Heaps of people everywhere, some lying on the floor itself, some sitting, some running etc. To add to my anxiety, there were considerable number of Police and armymen moving around with larger than life size Arms and Ammo. I was soon found asking myself “Man what on earth am I doing here, escape I say”. Soon I called up my dude1(Vivek), he laughed when I told him I’m already there at the station, and assured me that he would be there in another 10mins. He asked me to go and stand in the platform, since there will be less rush there. I took his advice and went to platform only to find that the entrance was less rush than here. in next 5mins dude2(Vijay) called me to say that he reached the station and asked me where I’m. I was relaxed when he called me and in next 5mins we were together. We started searching for compartment(the train had just arrived) and the moment we went near S3, the dude1 was there showing all his 32 teeth (I would say 100). So here we are, together in the train. Another 1 hr passed like 1 sec with we doing all kinds of monkey acts much for the amusement of co-passssengers. The train chugged and in 10mins went past the IT city. It was time for us to sleep since we were not supposed to disturb the co-passengers anymore.
We could have had a nice sleep of 5 and half hours if not for the Idiot family who were there in the same cube with us. The person told us that we would reach the Shimoga old station at around 4.30am in the mrng and the train will stop there for only 2mins, so we have to hurry up or else we will reach the New station. We were of opinion that the two stations would be as far as Yeshwantpur and main Railway station in Blore and so didn’t wanted to take any chance. We kept alarm at 4 itself !!. but the anxiety was hardly letting us sleep peacefully. Every time the train stopped in some station either me or dude1 used to kick the other to wake up and take a look. Literally we didn’t sleep for the whole night. I don’t know about dude2 who was sleeping in another cubicle. The family which told us about the timelines happily got down at Bhadravthi at 4.15am in the mrng, leaving us cursing them enough for their lifetime as well as for their successive births. We didn’t had any other option but to look at nature’s beauty view outside and sit down as we didn’t wanted to take another round of battle with sleep. We were just laughing at ourselves for being made fool. It was nice view outside. When I yawned, I realized that it is time for me to take a face wash for the better of society. When I came back and sat for another round of funny chat with dude1 I got call from Shilpa at 5.30 am. Ellidiro? 5.30 aithu kanro, ennu half an hour nalli shivamogga barutte, eddu ready agi. God, she called us to wake up!!!. She was laughing unstoppable when we told our story. Soon it was 6 am and we reached the Old railway station(as they call it) of shivamogga. Time for us to get down.

We took an auto to the choultry. Any small kid of shivamogga would easily tell that we are not locals, and the same fact made the auto wallah to charge a sweet 20bucks for the distance less than 1KM!! who said Bangalore is expensive?!!!. The choultry was well decorated with the names of Shilpa and her Husband. We took some snaps and played some pranks there. When we reached the doors, Shilpa was already coming their with 100watt smile. (I guess someone might have flashed a breaking news inside saying that some insane people are there at the entrance). So here we are, all the 4 ppl of famous Bang1 gang together once again(for one day though). The loads of things which she wanted to share with us made her inarticulate for a moment. Spoke as fast as she could. Time for intro. Her father, uncle, brother and few more ppl came (I don’t remember exactly since I had a difficult task of hiding the fragrance coming out of un-brushed mouth).

Well soon we got a room for us to get ready. After some rest and play for 1 hour or so we got ready. Had breakfast. The boredom started from now. The guy was in mantap doing some rituals which the bearded purohit was making him to do and Shilpa was not where to see. We might have yawned like there is no tommorrow. We decided to go to room and sleep. The rest of the day went in similar fashion- come-sit-go-sleep. Took lots of snaps when I was around. The muhurat was really nice since this is the first time that I was witnessing the knot tying ceremony so close (I was on stage taking snaps). Soon after we gave the presentation and went back and slept again. After some 40 mins we came down for lunch and went to room back again. The next 1 hour was really very funny. We had a good fun in teasing dude2. suddenly dude2 realised that there is some tradition followed when the couple have lunch on wedding day. So we went rushing down to witness that. Luckily it hadn’t started. They had this tradition of joining some 4 to 5 leaves with rangoli and lamps around it decorated nicely. The guy will first offer the sweet to girl and vice versa. They will then have the lunch in same leaf. It was really nice to see that.

Fine, all the rituals were over and we decided that it is time for us to go out and explore. When we told this to Shilpa, she was so reluctant to let us go. Her cause of worry was that we will make fun of her place shivamogga if we go out and find out its sorry state. The govt is building new domestic airport there and so they have crushed the front portion of bldngs on either side of the road to expand the road. The whole town was looking very much like as if there was some mild earthquake. Somehow we convinced her and decided to go to TB dam in gajanur. Some 10 kms from Shivamogga. The journey was really horrible. Too hot and too dusty.

When we came back from there it was 7pm. We had decided not to go back to choultry again and disturb them. But Shilpa called exactly when we reached shivamogga. We had not other option but to go back. We had a good chat for some half an hour. She was also free that time. So had a gr8 time. She went back to attend reception and it was business as usual for us. We finished dinner around 8.15. it is time to kill time again. Shilpa came for phot session with 3 different typees of saree I guess. I was in no mood to take snaps as I was really tired at the EOD. Around 9 we got up to leave. Shilpa came with us till the gate and we chit chatted for 5 more mins.

We took the auto to “new Railway station” of shivamogga. After some initial hiccups in finding the coach of dude1, we setteled in our respective coach. Train left shivamogga at 10pm. We reached blore at 4.30am in mrng and dude1 reached mysore at 6.30am. The great day thus came to end. I am really very happy for having made it there and witnessing the wedding. I really enjoyed nicely.