Be warned: This is one long post!!
The adventure started on Thursday evening with a flat tyre. We had picked Jeete from the airport, and proceeded to pick Sudeep from Nizamuddin. After fighting through the intense traffic, we picked him up and headed to Flaming Mustard in Vasant Kunj for dinner. The dinner was good, and fun was had. When we walked out, we realized that we had to ourselves a flat tyre and a flat spare. We quickly called Tk and Bharathi, and they readily gave us their spare. What we did not realize, however, was that this was the beginning of a series of delays that would hit us.
Next morning we picked up Ankit, a new spare, and headed off to Jhunjhunu in an Alto and an i10, accompanied by Kanika, Raheem, Aditi, and Pari in a Santro. The first quarter of the journey was pretty nice and we were driving along nicely when we had to stop at a railway crossing. Jeete and Bansal were in the i10, while me, Ankit, and Sudeep were in the Alto. Jeete got out to see what was up with the crossing while Bansal headed out to chit-chat with us. When the crossing opened, we realized to our utter horror, that the keys were inside and the car. Further, the Hyundai car can’t be opened as easily as the Maruti ones can. Anyway, after trying for an hour, we called the Hyundai dealership in Rewari. The chap arrived in an hour and half, and we started off in another half an hour.
Since we were behind schedule, and tried to cover some time on the Narnaul-Chirawa stretch, which we were successful in. Just when it seemed that we might get to Dundlod (which is where Misra’s wedding party had halted), we lost transmission on the i10 and came to a slow halt. It was like a huge blow. Plus the knowledge that there was no Hyundai service station within a 100 kms. We started towing the i10 using the Alto, no minor task for newbies. After snapping the tug rope twice, we finally used our engineering heads, and used a thrown piece of tire tube to reduce the stress on the rope and reached Jhunjhunu at around 7:30PM in the evening. A drive that should have taken 5 hours had taken more than 8!!
We started packing the gifts, and getting ready for the main event. It was funny to watch Misra in the sherwani, and that is when we realized (at least I did) that STAR-PLUS was a man down!! It was the wedding of two of my closest friends, and I like a smart guy, quickly jumped on the “ladke wale” bandwagon 😉 The rest of the evening was spent having a lot of fun. We danced a lot in the baaraat and tried to get everyone involved. But since we were slightly behind schedule, we had to let the baarat proceed without too much dancing. The customary Joey dance, the clothes washing, and cricket dance were still accomodated.
Me and Joy, decided to lift Misra right before the varmala and poor Parul (who looked amazing) had no chance at the garland game till we had pity. I must mention here that she played hard ball and decided not even to try till we did not reduce Misra’s elevation to a competitive level. After that it was snap time. Parul had no difficulty in mantaining the Colgate smile, while Misra looked a little bored. Misra played the spoil sport and did not pose for even a single wedding snap. Parul was much more game – oh, and did I mention that she looked gorgeous 🙂 We spent a lot of time pulling their legs and chatting with them up on the stage.
The food, to use Sudeep’s word, was “AWESOME”. It was a combination of good food, and Sudeep’s stay in US that the word was uttered with such regularity that we wondered if he was somehow related to Barney Stinson!!
The pheras were fun, and there were a lot of comments when the pundit was explaining the meaning of the various vows exchanged invoked a lot of interest from old timers. It seems that you need to disclose all your earnings to your wife – there goes the entire confidentiality of salary thingie!! Another point to note here was that Parul seemed to be in a lot of hurry and was walking very quickly (through the evening), while Misra limbered on in his usual style.
Anyhoo. After the wedding we headed back to Shalimar hotel and slept peacefully till eight in the morning. I was chatting with Misra, and Jeete and Bansal headed out to get the i10 fixed. It was then that Jeete and Bansal realized that the i10 needed to be sent to Sikar, 80 kms away, to be fixed. Misra by then had to go for the vidaai and we decided to skip it, mainly because we were too sleepy. Meanwhile, we also made a quick trip to Rani Sati temple in Jhunjhunu. Bansal asked the dealer to send a tow van, and headed off to Pilani with Kanika and company, while Jeete, Sudeep, Ankit and I stayed back.
… To be continued …