2nd June arrived and it was glorious Saturday. Ann and I book ourselves on the 5:30 pm on bus to Trivandrum…which finally arrived at 7. We kept ourselves occupied with some chitter-batter till both of us knocked of to sleep with the intention of waking up for dinner. We slept so well that dinner-time came and went and we didn’t know about it till next morning.
We reached Hot n Humid Trivandrum at 10:30 in the morning, when Litty and her brother came to pick us up. Litty was already looking the part of a bride decked up in gold...
When we reached home, aunty warmly welcomed us with a glorious breakfast of appam and chicken stew! And what a stew it was... With 6 appams, a glass of tang and tea, a chunk of banana halwa and a lone banana, happily jostling for space in my tummy, I knew right that I was going to enjoy the wedding immensely.
We had a small nap after breakfast and got up again for lunch... after being food-deprived for more than 12 hours; you could say we needed all the nourishment we could get.
That evening was memorable one, where everybody and anybody who knew Litty came over to wish the bride and her family… Mallini (who had stayed with us for a few days while we were in our first hostel) came to see her too. She’s expecting her first child in Oct. The evening ended with a grand dinner of...More APPAMs (they called it ‘LIVE’ then as it was being freshly made) and chicken stew, followed by halwa and tea to wash it all down.
That was the last night Litty slept as a spinster...
Since Litty had to be at the beauty parlour at 5:30 am in the morning! All three of us spent the night together at her aunt’s place; who lived nearby the parlour.
Next morning began at 5:00 am. Litty woke up early to ready herself and because of the excitement, Ann and I slept light and awoke to Litty’s departure...Litty saw Ann's head emerge from under the cover and she rebuked- GO back to sleep!!!. We obeyed.
We didn’t sleep much after that, but gradually got ourselves out of the bed at 7. We made our way to the parlour where the last touches to Litty’s make-up was being put in place. She was looking divine...in a white and gold embroidered sari embellished with crystal work. To say that we felt nostalgic would be an understatement. I guess it was then it finally dawned on us that Litty was ACTUALLY getting married and going away...
All three of us were then carted back to Litty’s home, where there was a small prayer and a ‘Dhakshina’ ceremony where Litty had to gift a lemon in a pan leaf to all the people who mentored her through out her life...
Nah! the Velonies Spinster didn’t get one but I suppose she can gift us something
Ann happily got in everyone’s way to get her own photo coverage of the ceremony as you can see from the yahoo album I circulated earlier. After Litty left in her bridal car for the church; from being at the forefront of the action, we somehow managed to get left behind…. It was a deja vu from Ann wedding when Brini and I got ourselves locked up in room while the rest of the crowd had left for her nuptials only this time it was Ann and I; while everybody else left in their respective cars we us happily waved at them go by. Tinku (Litty’s bro) did some excellent Disaster Management by getting another car while one of Litty’s aunts drove us to the stop where a bus was waiting to take us to the church.
From there began a long and arduous journey to the little village in the middle of a forest...where Litty’s wedding was to be held. We were entering the official rubber plantation country with trees of either side of the bus. We hoped that the climate would get a little cooler because of the trees...but it did NOT. Sweating form every pore in our body, we made it in time for the wedding. There too Ann was in her full form, snapping away to glory and trust me, she had some real acrobatic poses up her sleeve to get the best shots…he he he!
The wedding was at 11:30 and by the time the clock hit 1; Sunil and Litty were man and wife!!!! It was charming ceremony with most of the mass being sung which is a trademark of the Orthodox masses.
We headed to the reception which was a little way off from the church. There we drank some hot water which did nothing to quench our thirst and then downed some lime juice which did.
Thanks to Tinku’s intervention, we managed to enter the reception through a secret entrance from the side to get the best view of the couple and the best seats. After the initial prayer, we feasted on chicken fry, beef fry, appam and chicken stew, rice and curd curry, some yummy vegetable cooked in curd, spicy fish gravy, pickle, chutney, salad and topped it off with an ice-cream (which we incidentally had in the car during our journey to the train station).
Since we had to catch the return train at 3:15, we hurriedly swallowed our lunch and left the hall by 2. We reached the station well in time for the train which finally came in at 4. There too we had a brief burst of exercise when we galloped at full speed to find our AC compartment.
Did I mention that we were the most ridiculously dressed individuals on the railway platform...yes, in our full wedding regalia; we elicited quite a number of strange looks from the by-standers.
Did I mention that our bogey was swarming with kids...tiny tots of nothing, and yeah, there was a mouse skirting around the place too...
Did our misery end here? Nope...
We were hungry within an hour of being in the train because of our light lunch and the hectic sprinting on the railway platform and what made it worse was, because we were in the AC compartments, none of the banana-fritter vendors or the chai/coffeewallas were allowed into the compartment. All we had to munch were Marie biscuits (I bet Rebi’s smiling now), which was a cold comfort as it did nothing to alleviate our hunger pangs. We tried to get down at one of the smaller stations to buy chips but before we walked a few steps, the train started moving and again we burnt some more of our precious calories to catch the running train. It was the first time I got into a moving locomotive…it funny how an over imaginative mind can conjour up the worst case scenarios possible in case I missed a step. We continued like this in penance till about 8:30 pm when we reached the Thrissur station, to buy our dinner which consisted of egg curry parota. I don’t remember food tasting so good…
All in all, it was a wonderful and uplifting experience to see one's dear friend, who has not only been a part of our lives but also my roommate for 5 beautiful years get married and start a new begining.
