Radha weds Raja

It takes me a while to digest anything other than food. I've now come to terms with reality. Raja is no more single (atleast officially). A wedding means different things to different people. For the bride's kid sister, it means moving up the queue. For the bride groom's parents, it means dealing with one more bugbear for the rest of their life. Pun intended. For me, it meant a weekend well spent. No night shows. No day time naps. Lot many nos.

Raja had asked me to come to their home on saturday morning to assist in (if at all there was) any household work. I reached there around 10 in the morning. Two months from now, 10 will not be the morning. It will be noon in this part of the world, mind you. I was really surprised. The house kept a low profile. There was no pandemonium, which had been the feature, when we'd gone to the housewarming ceremony. However, there were a handful of relatives. The electrician came at the same time, I reached. He had come to fix the expensive(?!?!!) chandelier which had come as a wedding gift from Raja's colleagues (actually, I'm one among them). We helped the electrician fix the chandelier. A not-bad choice of model. I'm just being modest since it was I who persisted in choosing that model.

The whole family waited not for the cars from the wedding hall. They were eagerly expecting Kumar and Divya. For the uninitiated, Kumar is Raja's elder brother. Divya is a friend sorry, another daughter (in Mr.Ganesan's own words) for Raja's parents. I've been using "in one's own words" for quite a few times. I want to shed this obsession. Raja had earlier, told me to remind taking his Reception suit, which, invariably, I forgot to do.

There was enough fun for a wedding party. The Kolkata Chithappa-Chithi is an interesting pair to watch. At one point of time, Raja complained that most of the men in the house were wearing his shirts. The complaint was, by default, overruled. The bride's uncle and aunt came home to formally invite the groom's family to the wedding. We reached the wedding hall in T.Nagar around 3 pm.

Along with the bride's family, two of Raja's friends were waiting. Oh, no. Is this the girl who came to the engagement? Is this the girl, on whom, most of our eyes were glued? This is Pavithra. She got befriended to Raja while climbing up Tirumala. The rest is history. By 4 pm, we had settled. Wait. Is it We or They? Let's better not delve deeper into these intricacies.

Sowmya (this is the much awaited sister of the bride) was asking Raja to keep things ready for the evening. I peeped into the conversation. Sounding innocent, I asked him, "Did you bring the Reception suit?". I could now see Raja on his toes. Ravi Chithappaa and I were given the task of getting the suit from the house by 6 - the time for the Nichayathaartham.

I came to learn in the bike ride, why Raja had chosen Ravi Chithappaa to accompany me. Just a couple of minutes into the ride, he started talking all praises for Raja. I, being an optimist even at the darkest hour, took his pep talk as to calm me down and make the bike ride a smooth one. He was telling why everyone in the family loved Raja. According to him, Raja, despite earning very well, respected and obeyed the elders, which was a rare occurrence these days. Someone was beating my conscience with a shovel. Despite all this, I kept my cool. We brought the suit at 6.10.

Ravi is a QA tester and happened to be Raja's roommate in Woodland Hills. I don't really know, what crime Raja had committed to this poor fellow. Ravi was on his elements all through the two days. He was pulling Raja's legs at every possible instance.

Day Two

If Day One was for acquainting with Raja's significant others, day two was for meeting few of our contemporaries. Bhuvnesh with his wife Ektha, Lalitha with her husband and her sister Aswini, Ramesh with his son Karthik, Srinu, Vasu, Manikandan, Vinod, Amar, Vidya with Kannan and Sanjana were few of the most important guests in the morning.

Earlier in the morning, I was fighting the cobwebs to get ready. One phone call made it all. Divya had made it. She informed me that, Raja was waiting and was refusing to have breakfast without seeing me. To avoid further discomfort to anyone, I decided to get leave. I broke my record in getting ready in the morning. This was 8 in the morning. They had sent some idlis and vadas for the groom to break his fast. Well, it was I who ate the idlis and Kolkata Chithappaa who swallowed the vadas. Raja finished a cup of halwa.

They dressed up Raja with a Dhothi and a towel to cover his biceps. Kasi Yatra is what this ritual is called. The groom sets on a material, renouncing the worldly pleasures. The bride's father stops the groom promising that, he would marry his daughter to the guy and the groom happily accepts it. Ravi had planned to kidnap the bride's father before the ceremony. However, Raja was not even let out of the wedding hall. He was way too happy to return. Obvious. Isn't it?

Another interesting ritual is the one where the relatives carry the bride and the groom on their shoulders and move towards the other group, the bride trying to garland the groom. They actually dropped Radha down in the hullabaloo. Still, she managed to throw her garland onto Raja's neck. During his turn, Raja avoided all the embarassment. He got down from the shoulders carrying him which were actually raring to take revenge. He walked straight towards Radha and finished his turn.

I took a break after clicking the moments of Kannikaadhaanam and Mangalayadhaanam. Did I tell you? I was the unofficial photographer for the day. I came home for a much needed break. I guessed someone would identify that I wore the same dress in the evening. But I did not expect anyone to ask on my face. Divya is this cute, no nonsense girl. She asked me, "Why are you wearing the same dress?". I looked around to make sure no one heard. Chaithanya was smiling stealthily. I have a poor dressing sense and I don't plan to improvise.

The evening was even more memorable, but in its own way. The distinguished guests included Sridhar Ramaswamy, Subbu, Balaji, RK, Nirmala, Sumathi, Chitra, Uma Palaniappan, Chandrasekaran, Sunitha, GKK, Varun, Koushalya, Sangeetha, Dinesh, Gopi, Arun, Anbu, Thiru and most other team members from Navisys. I was delighted to see Subbu, Sridhar, Vinod (his daughter was the cutest girl of the evening) and Nirmala who on an average day would be staying in the same city yet remaining far away.

Any day would have its embarassing moments. This one came straight from Raja. He sent me a note to take care of few of the distinguished guests and see to that they had dinner. I was left searching for empty seats in the dining hall. It was like searching for the needle in the haystack. Finally, they had dinner and I heaved a sigh.

The day was over. The newly wed couple have been missing since then.

Glossary
bugbear - a persistent problem or source of annoyance
handful - a small number
intricacies - hard to understand matters
pandemonium - utter chaos
peep - to emerge or become partly visible
shovel - a tool with a handle and a broad scoop or blade for digging and moving material
cobwebs - lack of order, usually after waking up from sleep