ViVAAh- THE FLIPSIDE

Last Tuesday, when I came home from college, my dad asked me if I could accompany him to a wedding reception. It was not a family wedding so we wouldn’t be hanging around for a long time. Plus there was some veg preparation for dinner & I thought “well if I have to eat veg food, I might as well eat it outside, coz it’s tasty & there is variety to choose from.” Hence I decided to join him.

My approach to wedding receptions has changed as I have grown up. When I was a toddler, attending a wedding was more a forceful act as my parents knew that if they keep me home, I’d harass my grandparents. This was followed by the ‘kid’ stage where it was more of playing ‘hide-n-seek’ & ‘cat-n-mouse’ with my cousins. I just didn’t bother about eating food or meeting anyone as I was busy running all over the place once I got there along with my cousins.

Next came adolescence where parties became a medium for ‘bird watching’, if you know what I mean!!! And now, its more of bird watching and eating FREE FOOD too. These days I don’t mind attending weddings which are non-related ones as I get to ‘watch’, eat and kill time. And as I said, eating is an important aspect.

Anyway, its time to talk about this wedding which I attended. Well, as it turned out, it was a series of unfortunate events rather (previous ceremonies attended were good actually). To begin with, the couple turned in an hour late. Now this is not good because if you are attending a non-relative wedding, the things that you want to are: meet the necessary people from the side that has invited you, sit for 10-15 minutes and unnecessarily keep on smiling since no one knows you but they shouldn’t think that you have come uninvited, greet the blissfully wedded couple, eat, & leave. All the activities are to be performed in one hour, MAX.

My dad didn’t have problem killing that one painful hour; he was busy chatting with his business associates. Meanwhile, I kept on checking out the ‘birds’ and I couldn’t believe there wasn’t a single good one. I mean, weddings bring out the best from female-kind. Even a plain-jane looks pretty in a Saree but this wasn’t the case here. It was indeed a sorry state of affairs when it came to LADIES. I kept assuring myself that the food would be good now that the prime objective was a complete disaster.

Then there was this Charlie Chaplin who was hired to keep small kids busy. The dude only had two tricks up his sleeve; one where he waved his hands & produced a toffee from anywhere and the other where he could wave his hand, twist his fingers & make a one buck coin vanish in thin air. Poor Charlie was getting F*CKED (I am sorry, words like ‘harassed’ & ‘pestered’ aren’t big enough to describe the state Charlie was in) by the little devils. The rambunctious little devils were all over him, shouting, pulling his coat, taking his hat away when he sat down to gasp a bit of fresh air, hitting him with his stick & what not. The entire party hall was reverberating with two words, “Charlie, chocolate”.

I then proceeded to the food corner, man I was damn hungry. It was time to satiate myself. They say that lightening doesn’t strike the same place twice. Well, here it did! Not only were the dames a disappointment, so was the food! Paneer tikka masala was magenta colored (I have only seen orangish colored ones before), the rotis, naan & parathas were made from rubber, rass malai had more water than milk (want me to continue? I can. But u get the picture, right???), & hakka noodles had more cabbage than the cabbage-field. Geez, I was better off eating daal-chawal, achaar & pulses at home rather than being here. Unfortunately, this story doesn’t end here.

Just as I turned around after “filling” my plate with food, a fat lady came towards me, smiling & waving and I was looking everywhere, confused, & with an expression, “who, me???”. The moment she was right next to me, she starts, “arre beta Manish, paichana? Mein, Roshni aunty; tumhari mummy ki mausi ki naani ke bhai ki potay ki phoophi” and I am like....... Woah! Woah! Woah! Lady, no need to throw a light on this relationship. I am not related to anyone of you here. I just came to hog free food and that too coz someone invited me.

Luckily, her daughter came there and told ‘Roshni aunty’ that I was not the ‘Manish’ she thought I was and by the way... what a daughter!!! Finally, a good no wait...a really really good looking lady. Man! “Roshni aunty, I’d surely wanna be related to you now!!!” But my wretched luck was out at it again, screwing me as always when I saw a small MANGAL-SUTRA hanging around her neck. And if this wasn’t bad enough, her hubby dearest joined our mini get-together. Quite a stud, that hubby dearest... pot bellied, gold chains hanging around his neck, twelve rings on ten fingers (do the MATH) and oh yes... munching Mawaa while having food (multi-tasking). The daughter definitely deserved someone much better. I didn’t feel sorry for her, I felt ashamed of myself. If that dude can get such a lady, why am I still single??? Somebody, just shoot me!!!

On an ending note, the food was pathetic (oh I forgot, the fruits in fruit salad weren’t juicy & half of the ice-cream turned into milk), the ‘birds’ were a let down and Charlie was still getting screwed big time by the kids. Patient man that Charlie. Had anyone else been there, I am sure he would have stopped miming & started swearing profusely.

And just when I was getting in my car, I saw ‘Roshni aunty’ scorning at me, her body language clearly reading, “there goes the bastard who came here to hog free food!!!” & I gave her that killer look which read “what did I ever do to you, Auntyji; EVVVER!!!!” and then I called my mom, “hello! Mom? Have you kept any leftovers??? I am damn hungry!!”


Peteboy