30 days to Divya's wedding.........
When I started writing this piece we were truly and well into the preparations. But it is interesting to go through the sequence of events from the beginning.
This journey actually started with our departure from Sunnyvale, California on 8 Jan 2006 and I have covered events upto our arrival at Hyderabad airport on 10 Jan 2006 in my previous blog.
When we arrived at Begumpet airport Rathi's parents were there with lots of food. It is a matter of devine coincidence that they were the first ones to provide food when we landed in US in August 2005. This time they had packed so much food that we didn't have to light our chula for two days. Idlys, sambar rice and curd rice. It was such a timely guesture because we were in no position to cook in the state that the house was in. There was thick dust everywhere combined with cobwebs. It truly had the makings of a haunted house that we saw in Disneyland. It two full days to bring the house back to habitable condition. It did not hurt us much in terms of time lost because those days were not auspicious to do any marriage related work.
On the first day of our arrival itself we got our internet connection installed. Our Mobile had been reactivated on 9th itself as a result of follow up that I had done from America through e-mails.
Day 2 / 11 Jan -Lalitha came home the same day with invitation cards. Between Mohan and her they had taken the responsibility when we were still in US. The card came in for lot of appreciation.
Day 3 / 12 Jan - It took quite some time to fold the cards. But they could not be inserted into the envelope sraightaway since the turmeric application had to wait till 17th, the beginning of auspicious time. Meantime I started writing the names of invitees on the envelopes so that we did not miss anyone who mattered. Transferred money from Post Office to Bank. Did Railway Reservation for self and Lavanya for Prasanna's wedding on 2 Feb at B'lore.
Day 4 / 13 Jan - Friday - Holiday for Bakrid. We went to Subhash's place for a discussion on wedding preparations and purchases. I drove my faithful scooter which came alive on the sixth attempt although I had not used it for five months. But the drive was hectic. We also lost our way a little on our return drive.
Day 5 / 14 Jan - Saturday - A day of no major activity. Picked up Postage for upcountry invitees. Some shopping at Spencer's. They have taken over a few Foodworld stores.
Day 6 / 15 Jan - Sunday - A day of no activity.
Day 7 / 16 Jan - Monday - The first effort was made to restore our landline. An application was to be made at the office not very far from my place of residence. It was restored the next day. We made our first purchase for the wedding. We bought the material for Subhash's suit and three other pairs of Pant and shirt at Raymonds-Southend on the Parklane Road, gave the suit material for stitching. We had to leaf through Raymonds' old records for Subhash's measurements. Ashok came along to help us with a better bargain at Raymonds'. We also bought a belt, a tie and hanky to complement the suit. Ashok the reliable pitched in with some cash since credit card would take away discounts. We made this trip on seven seater and Autos.
Day 8 / 17 Jan - Tuesday - A day of no activity.
Day 9 / 18 Jan - Wednesday - This was a day of major purchases. We finished buying clothes for men and most of the sarees required for distribution among the guests. We had to defer buying the important sarees for Divya since we couldn't decide.
Day 10 / 19 Jan - Thursday - This I should say was the real beginning. We went to Shankar Mutt to offer the very first invitation card to Sringeri Sharada. We had hired an outside car since I was very nervous about driving in Hyderabad traffic conditions. We had breakfast at a hotel opposite Shankar Mutt and gave away the first card to Murthy the staff. We then covered Adikmet, Chikkadpally, Vanasthalipuram, Alkapuri and Jam Bagh. We had to take a break since Lavanya had an interview at Taj Banjara. We had to wait there for about an hour and resumed distribution of cards. We covered Ameerpet, Moosapet and covered Mohan's place just before returning home. We missed a few targets like Lakshmi's pedda vadina at Vanasthalipuram and Janaki. My car was readied with a new battery.
Day 11 / 20 Jan - Friday - We decided to cool our heels. There was vehicle insurance policies to be renewed which I did. Later in the afternoon I drove to ICI factory where I started my 33 year career in the Company. Large number of my contemporaries had left either in search of greener pastures or had taken voluntary retirement. I met some of those present personally and left the remaining cards in the custody of a person. We then went to two people residing at IDPL colony and one person at Fatehnagar before calling it a day.
Day 12 / 21 Jan - Saturday - Leela and Mohan came with us to buy steel items from Sanathnagar factory outlets for general distribution among wedding guests. We used Mohan's Omni. Later in the afternoon Leela came with us to CMR at Secunderabad where we were supposed to select main sarees in collaboration with Subhash's parents. The variety on display was not to our liking. Subhash's mother bought two of them. We shifted to Chandana and found nothing spectacular. Lakshmi bought two low budget sarees. We made this trip in my car. I had no role to play because saree selection is better left to womenfolk. They can find a lot of variables within a saree as a basis for rejection. If I had my way I would have wrapped up the whole thing in not more than 30 minutes. The problem is they would have all got rejected for one reason or other. Our TVS Scooty had got readied with a new battery and servicing.
Day 13 / 22 Jan - Sunday - This was a major invitation attempt ( Round # 2 )to cover as many families as possible. We hired an air-conditioned car and set out at 11 A M. Lalitha joined us from her place. We lunched at Tarnaka's Sanman. We missed a few targets on this trip also like a Srikantaiah our family friend of 36 years, Colaco and Rajan among our colleagues. Had we started about two hours earlier we could have perhaps avoided the next round which was not very wide sweep.
Day 14 / 23 Jan - Monday - Round # 3 of inviting. We had to go to Mehdipatnam for a lone invitee and we picked up Lalitha ( Ranigunj )on the way. We dropped her on our return and proceeded to get a few targets in Secunderabad, not many though. This round included Subhash's family. Later in the evening we had to go to Banson's Taj to meet a long associate from our ICI days who had come from Bombay. We were together for an hour and parted. On our way home we covered one more family in Shanti Bagh Apartments at Begumpet. Here, we lost some time in finding the right approach.
Day 15 / 24 Jan - Tuesday - For me it was an idle day because the purchasing was executed by Lakshmi, Lavanya and Leela. They bought a lot of things from Chandana, Ameerpet. They bought majority of sarees from there along with silver ware. The main saree for Divya was picked up from Kalamandir. In the evening I discovered another old colleague who had achieved a fair amount of success as an ICI employee but failed as an enterpruener ( do a spell check ). This guy has been living almost next door since 1992 and not once did I bump into him in the three years since we moved into Kukatpally !!! I was very happy at my discovery but he was high on alcohol. I had not taken the invitation card and I promised to come back next day with Lakshmi ( she calls him annayya ).
Day 16 / 25 Jan - Wednesday - This was again an idle day for me except for covering two families by foot. One of them was my previous day's discovery.
Lakshmi and Lavanya went to finish a few errands like handing over old brass utensils for polishing, sarees for falls' stitching and blouses etc. I stayed home the whole day and caught up on some news on the internet.
Day 17 / 26 Jan - Thursday - Holiday in India. We covered three families in the vicinity by scooter and remained at home for the rest of the day. Divya's professor in JNTU was one of them and was very delighted at our personal invitation. The nadaswaram and decoration guy from Juloori came for discussion. His charges are exhorbitant and I decided to leave them for Divya to finalise after negotiations.
Day 18 / 27 Jan - Friday - Remained at home the whole day. Lakshmi and Leela reorganised the house a little to make it more presentable to guests expected for wedding.
Day 19 / 28 Jan - Saturday - The day I sat down to start this blog. Lakshmi and Lavanya have gone to collect the sarees and brass utensils given for stitching and polishing.
While all this is going on my second sister Mangala is fighting between life and death at Bangalore. She is suffering from cancer for the last one year and has become a candidate for mercy killing. Prasanna's wedding being under the threat of getting postponed by a full year they went through a temple wedding and the marriage will be certified by civil authotities. The formal wedding planned for 2 Feb will be gone through if nothing untoward happens.
Day 20 / 29 Jan - Sunday - The day of Divya and Subhash's arrival from US. Their Mumbai - Hyderabad sector got delayed by more than two hours. We and Subhash's parents went to the airport to receive them. I suspected the reliability of our car and took an auto to reach the airport and took a pre-paid cab on return. Divya had to go out and see a friend same day since the latter was going away to Mumbai on Monday and was not staying for the wedding.
Day 21 / 30 Jan - Monday - Tragedy struck in the form of my sister's passing away. The news came at about 8 A M from Papulli. Although the end was expected we were hoping that the cruel would wait for another ten days when both Prasanna and Divya's weddings would have been gone through although Mangala would have experienced nothing of it as she had already slipped into the state of a vegetable. That was not to be and another most cherished relationship in my life came to an end. She never recovered from the rude shock of her husband's ( my mentor and Godfather ) death. She seldom came out of the protective shadow cast by her husband. Poor Prasanna and Papulli did a lot of service to their mother but could not borrow some more life. What added to my own misery is none of us could go to Bangalore to be by their side in their moment of loss because there are strictures preventing people from a prospective bride's family participating in events of death. I don't know whether I did the write thing by not going. We had made reservations by Rail and Air for Prasanna's wedding which had to be cancelled. It is a loss for all of us but a great relief for Managala who was suffering from the deadly cancer for more than one year. Prasanna had succeeded in delaying the inevitable by singlehandedly serving his mother with a lot of home made ayurvedic drugs. He is a perfect example of how parents should be treated in the most testing circumstances. Kudos !
Subhash's parents visited us to express condolences. Divya and Lakshmi went out with them to Secunderabad and came home quite late.
Day 22 / Jan 31 - Tuesday - Second day of mourning and therefore, I couldn't participate in any activity. Divya did some shopping.
Day 23 / Feb 1 - Wednesday - Last day of mourning for me. It was Pannagesh, my brother's birthday. For very strong reasons I wish to forget this day.
Day 24 / Feb 2 - Thursday - The day I could participate in the marriage related work. The only work I did was to collect the Bhatu, the golden ring for Subhash. We also received a few invitation cards from Arun. These cards were printed at Mysore for relatives there and were in Kannada/English. We had a Grihapravesham invitation to attend but gave up. We decided to go for the vratam the next day. Lakshmi, Lavanya and Divya went to attend to sundry work like buying bangles and some bridal decorations.
Day 25 / Feb 3 - Friday - We hired a car since there were a few places to go. I have this hesitation to use my car extensively because of the dense traffic and the lesser degree of
car's reliability. We had to cover Sudha's grihapravesham, negotiate and pay for tenthouse material, go to Pushapa's place at Tarnaka. Pushpa's is one family with whom we have a very special relationship from the days we were neighbours at Tarnaka Towers. There are such special relationships in everyone's life. I have acknowledged the timely help Divya received from her husband Siva Prasad in my very first blog - our US trip. We had to make two trips to Vajramma's since the tenthouse negotiator was not available earlier.
Day 26 / Feb 4 - Saturday - We covered the residents of Visal Towers which completed our invitation rounds. Some of them were not at home. Divya and Lavanya went to cover St Francis Junior College where both the girls studied. Those teachers were very happy at the gesture. Even the Professor at Divya's Engg College was very delighted when we went to invite the family personally. They say it was a rare gesture these days when human values are on the decline and Gurus are hardly remembered. The girls came home quite late and Subhash dropped. The tailor Ranga at Raymonds southend did a good job with Subhash's outfits including the suit. Subhash had bought a wrist watch for me and Lakshmi.
Day 27 / Feb 5 - Sunday - Quite an uneventful day. Mohan's family and Chaya's family visited us - an undesirable coincidence since they have long stopped tolerating each other. So much for brotherhood !!! Shrikanth our nephew also joined. I enjoyed the drive in his new Indigo. I had not got anything stitched after shifting to Kukatpally since I had not discovered any. I had bought two shirt/pant lengths for Divya's wedding and I should have stuck with my tailor at Tarnaka. Instead I went to the fellow who has been stitching clothes for Mohan and Dilip. I suspect he followed his instinct and not his tape !!! Our Cable TV connection was renewed after making several phone calls.
Day 28 / Feb 6 - Monday - The penultimate day ! Three of them went to Lalitha's for Mehendi decoration and I had a rest day. The ODI series between India and Pakistan started at Peshawar. India did a very good job. They were 240/3 at the end of 37th over. They lost the match on applying D/L formula since the match was abandoned due to poor light at the end of 47th over.
( At the time of updating this blog India have just won the second ODI by seven wickets )
Day 29 / Feb 7 - Tuesday - The day of arrival of Mysore/Bangalore gang for the marriage. The group which was originally of 23 persons had been reduced to a mere 14 because of sister's death. Subbu maama arrived from Mumbai the same day by Sahara Airlines.
The gang from Mysore/Bangalore arrived by Yashwantpur/Kacheguda Express. It arrived at 4:30 A M as per scheduled time. The event caused some excitement because of the serious lapse by the Travel cars which did not arrive to pick us up from home till 5:15 A M. I have been using the same Agency for so many years and they rarely failed me. I had to ask for Call Taxis which was the only thing I could have done. It cost me hefty money. My plan was to keep the men at Pioneer Lodge and take the women home. But it didn't quite work out that way. Nine persons remained in the Lodge. Gayathri, Anthi, Bhagya, Abhishek and Ammami were excorted home by Arjun. Lakshmi, Meera and Raaghu quickly had their bath and reached home by Auto. I remained in the Lodge to wait for the rest of the gang to get ready and took them by Qualis which I had cursingly recalled from the Agency. That consisted of Manjunath, Murthy, Chandru, Suresh, Suma, Pannagesh, Saraswathi and the little Pashyanthi.
We had arranged for breakfast and lunch from a caterer. I also performed Abhishekham and Pooja. In the afternoon maama arrived. I could not go to the airport because of Pooja. Manjunath and Pannagesh did the duty. Late in the night we decided to make a trip to the manadapam to transport a few essentials since it would have been difficult to do everything on the day of wedding and there wouldn't have been enough space for all the luggauge. I had to use my car since the travel car had been abandoned for the day which had taken one batch to Pioneer Lodge. As I had always suspected my car broke down during this trip. The saving grace was it happened on our return. I dread to think of our fate if it had happened on our way to the mandapam. The car was actually overloaded with four of us. It made an unusual noise when we were approaching the Y-junction at Kukatpally. I persisted for about half km and decided to have a look. I suspected that the noise could have been due to jamming of fan and belt assembly.
We reached home finally at 1 A M by an Auto. The driver of the Auto had actually stopped over to see if he can help. We just had two hours to catch up with some sleep before the hectic day. Sleep, I could not because of so many thoughts about the wedding.
Day 30 / Feb 8 - Wednesday - The day we have been eagerly waiting for. We reluctantly woke up to the alarm at 3:30 A M. It had been decided that I, Lakshmi, Subbu maama, ammami and Gayathri will make the first trip at 5:30 A M. It was not to be and we couldn't leave till 6:10 A M. More people were ready by the time the early morning procedure like snathakam and bridal preparation were gone through. The first trip took all of us except Divya, Lavanya, Raaghu and Bhagya were left behind, to be brought by Mohan in his Omni. Dilip and Arjun came by Dilip's two wheeler. I had arranged for another Qualis to bring the other group from Pioneer Lodge. Marriage itself went off quite smoothly. But I felt it was quite a drag after lunch. We were just floating around in the mandapam waiting for the evening to set in when Divya would take leave of us and go to Subhash's house in the traditional way like Appaginthalu. The evening snacks had been planned for 4:30 P M but had to be deffered till 7 P M because of late lunch some of us had. The dinner had to be cancelled. It was 11 P M when our last batch reached home, this time without Divya. Janaki and Lalitha had accompanied Divya from our side. Next day, Divya and Subhash returned to our fold escorted by Janaki and Lalitha after Satyanarayana Vratham followed by lunch. Lavanya gave us some more cause to cheer that day when she was selected for employment by a Company called TNS whose domain is data coding.
This journey actually ended on Saturday when we dropped Divya and Subhash in Subhash's place after the first night function on Friday. The emptiness returned when we came home and only three of us were together again - I, Lavanya and her mother ( my wife ). All the hussle and bussle of the last 4-5 days had given way to an eerie silence. We have very sweet memories of all those 25 years of our existence in Divya's company, the last one being our trip to US.
We miss you sweetheart !!! The pleasure of your company is now someone else's. We sincerely wish that you do them ( Subhash and his kin ) proud the same way that you have done us, all these years. Forget the pain that we may have caused to you lately and remember all those good and nice moments you have had in your uncomplicated childhood. Continue to give us a small space in your heart and mind.
You are going to start a new chapter of your life. Don't compromise on the values of life in spite of all adversities that you may face. You have always been courageous and bold. Use those qualities to balance your judgements. Don't let emotions get the better of you and cloud your sense of right and wrong. Remain lovable as you have always been, to everybody at all times.
I cannot end this blog without expressing my appreciation and gratitude to Leela, Lalitha, Gayathri, Mohan, Janaki, Chaya, Arjun, Raaghu, Sriks and Dilip for all the support they provided during and before Divya's wedding.
This journey actually started with our departure from Sunnyvale, California on 8 Jan 2006 and I have covered events upto our arrival at Hyderabad airport on 10 Jan 2006 in my previous blog.
When we arrived at Begumpet airport Rathi's parents were there with lots of food. It is a matter of devine coincidence that they were the first ones to provide food when we landed in US in August 2005. This time they had packed so much food that we didn't have to light our chula for two days. Idlys, sambar rice and curd rice. It was such a timely guesture because we were in no position to cook in the state that the house was in. There was thick dust everywhere combined with cobwebs. It truly had the makings of a haunted house that we saw in Disneyland. It two full days to bring the house back to habitable condition. It did not hurt us much in terms of time lost because those days were not auspicious to do any marriage related work.
On the first day of our arrival itself we got our internet connection installed. Our Mobile had been reactivated on 9th itself as a result of follow up that I had done from America through e-mails.
Day 2 / 11 Jan -Lalitha came home the same day with invitation cards. Between Mohan and her they had taken the responsibility when we were still in US. The card came in for lot of appreciation.
Day 3 / 12 Jan - It took quite some time to fold the cards. But they could not be inserted into the envelope sraightaway since the turmeric application had to wait till 17th, the beginning of auspicious time. Meantime I started writing the names of invitees on the envelopes so that we did not miss anyone who mattered. Transferred money from Post Office to Bank. Did Railway Reservation for self and Lavanya for Prasanna's wedding on 2 Feb at B'lore.
Day 4 / 13 Jan - Friday - Holiday for Bakrid. We went to Subhash's place for a discussion on wedding preparations and purchases. I drove my faithful scooter which came alive on the sixth attempt although I had not used it for five months. But the drive was hectic. We also lost our way a little on our return drive.
Day 5 / 14 Jan - Saturday - A day of no major activity. Picked up Postage for upcountry invitees. Some shopping at Spencer's. They have taken over a few Foodworld stores.
Day 6 / 15 Jan - Sunday - A day of no activity.
Day 7 / 16 Jan - Monday - The first effort was made to restore our landline. An application was to be made at the office not very far from my place of residence. It was restored the next day. We made our first purchase for the wedding. We bought the material for Subhash's suit and three other pairs of Pant and shirt at Raymonds-Southend on the Parklane Road, gave the suit material for stitching. We had to leaf through Raymonds' old records for Subhash's measurements. Ashok came along to help us with a better bargain at Raymonds'. We also bought a belt, a tie and hanky to complement the suit. Ashok the reliable pitched in with some cash since credit card would take away discounts. We made this trip on seven seater and Autos.
Day 8 / 17 Jan - Tuesday - A day of no activity.
Day 9 / 18 Jan - Wednesday - This was a day of major purchases. We finished buying clothes for men and most of the sarees required for distribution among the guests. We had to defer buying the important sarees for Divya since we couldn't decide.
Day 10 / 19 Jan - Thursday - This I should say was the real beginning. We went to Shankar Mutt to offer the very first invitation card to Sringeri Sharada. We had hired an outside car since I was very nervous about driving in Hyderabad traffic conditions. We had breakfast at a hotel opposite Shankar Mutt and gave away the first card to Murthy the staff. We then covered Adikmet, Chikkadpally, Vanasthalipuram, Alkapuri and Jam Bagh. We had to take a break since Lavanya had an interview at Taj Banjara. We had to wait there for about an hour and resumed distribution of cards. We covered Ameerpet, Moosapet and covered Mohan's place just before returning home. We missed a few targets like Lakshmi's pedda vadina at Vanasthalipuram and Janaki. My car was readied with a new battery.
Day 11 / 20 Jan - Friday - We decided to cool our heels. There was vehicle insurance policies to be renewed which I did. Later in the afternoon I drove to ICI factory where I started my 33 year career in the Company. Large number of my contemporaries had left either in search of greener pastures or had taken voluntary retirement. I met some of those present personally and left the remaining cards in the custody of a person. We then went to two people residing at IDPL colony and one person at Fatehnagar before calling it a day.
Day 12 / 21 Jan - Saturday - Leela and Mohan came with us to buy steel items from Sanathnagar factory outlets for general distribution among wedding guests. We used Mohan's Omni. Later in the afternoon Leela came with us to CMR at Secunderabad where we were supposed to select main sarees in collaboration with Subhash's parents. The variety on display was not to our liking. Subhash's mother bought two of them. We shifted to Chandana and found nothing spectacular. Lakshmi bought two low budget sarees. We made this trip in my car. I had no role to play because saree selection is better left to womenfolk. They can find a lot of variables within a saree as a basis for rejection. If I had my way I would have wrapped up the whole thing in not more than 30 minutes. The problem is they would have all got rejected for one reason or other. Our TVS Scooty had got readied with a new battery and servicing.
Day 13 / 22 Jan - Sunday - This was a major invitation attempt ( Round # 2 )to cover as many families as possible. We hired an air-conditioned car and set out at 11 A M. Lalitha joined us from her place. We lunched at Tarnaka's Sanman. We missed a few targets on this trip also like a Srikantaiah our family friend of 36 years, Colaco and Rajan among our colleagues. Had we started about two hours earlier we could have perhaps avoided the next round which was not very wide sweep.
Day 14 / 23 Jan - Monday - Round # 3 of inviting. We had to go to Mehdipatnam for a lone invitee and we picked up Lalitha ( Ranigunj )on the way. We dropped her on our return and proceeded to get a few targets in Secunderabad, not many though. This round included Subhash's family. Later in the evening we had to go to Banson's Taj to meet a long associate from our ICI days who had come from Bombay. We were together for an hour and parted. On our way home we covered one more family in Shanti Bagh Apartments at Begumpet. Here, we lost some time in finding the right approach.
Day 15 / 24 Jan - Tuesday - For me it was an idle day because the purchasing was executed by Lakshmi, Lavanya and Leela. They bought a lot of things from Chandana, Ameerpet. They bought majority of sarees from there along with silver ware. The main saree for Divya was picked up from Kalamandir. In the evening I discovered another old colleague who had achieved a fair amount of success as an ICI employee but failed as an enterpruener ( do a spell check ). This guy has been living almost next door since 1992 and not once did I bump into him in the three years since we moved into Kukatpally !!! I was very happy at my discovery but he was high on alcohol. I had not taken the invitation card and I promised to come back next day with Lakshmi ( she calls him annayya ).
Day 16 / 25 Jan - Wednesday - This was again an idle day for me except for covering two families by foot. One of them was my previous day's discovery.
Lakshmi and Lavanya went to finish a few errands like handing over old brass utensils for polishing, sarees for falls' stitching and blouses etc. I stayed home the whole day and caught up on some news on the internet.
Day 17 / 26 Jan - Thursday - Holiday in India. We covered three families in the vicinity by scooter and remained at home for the rest of the day. Divya's professor in JNTU was one of them and was very delighted at our personal invitation. The nadaswaram and decoration guy from Juloori came for discussion. His charges are exhorbitant and I decided to leave them for Divya to finalise after negotiations.
Day 18 / 27 Jan - Friday - Remained at home the whole day. Lakshmi and Leela reorganised the house a little to make it more presentable to guests expected for wedding.
Day 19 / 28 Jan - Saturday - The day I sat down to start this blog. Lakshmi and Lavanya have gone to collect the sarees and brass utensils given for stitching and polishing.
While all this is going on my second sister Mangala is fighting between life and death at Bangalore. She is suffering from cancer for the last one year and has become a candidate for mercy killing. Prasanna's wedding being under the threat of getting postponed by a full year they went through a temple wedding and the marriage will be certified by civil authotities. The formal wedding planned for 2 Feb will be gone through if nothing untoward happens.
Day 20 / 29 Jan - Sunday - The day of Divya and Subhash's arrival from US. Their Mumbai - Hyderabad sector got delayed by more than two hours. We and Subhash's parents went to the airport to receive them. I suspected the reliability of our car and took an auto to reach the airport and took a pre-paid cab on return. Divya had to go out and see a friend same day since the latter was going away to Mumbai on Monday and was not staying for the wedding.
Day 21 / 30 Jan - Monday - Tragedy struck in the form of my sister's passing away. The news came at about 8 A M from Papulli. Although the end was expected we were hoping that the cruel would wait for another ten days when both Prasanna and Divya's weddings would have been gone through although Mangala would have experienced nothing of it as she had already slipped into the state of a vegetable. That was not to be and another most cherished relationship in my life came to an end. She never recovered from the rude shock of her husband's ( my mentor and Godfather ) death. She seldom came out of the protective shadow cast by her husband. Poor Prasanna and Papulli did a lot of service to their mother but could not borrow some more life. What added to my own misery is none of us could go to Bangalore to be by their side in their moment of loss because there are strictures preventing people from a prospective bride's family participating in events of death. I don't know whether I did the write thing by not going. We had made reservations by Rail and Air for Prasanna's wedding which had to be cancelled. It is a loss for all of us but a great relief for Managala who was suffering from the deadly cancer for more than one year. Prasanna had succeeded in delaying the inevitable by singlehandedly serving his mother with a lot of home made ayurvedic drugs. He is a perfect example of how parents should be treated in the most testing circumstances. Kudos !
Subhash's parents visited us to express condolences. Divya and Lakshmi went out with them to Secunderabad and came home quite late.
Day 22 / Jan 31 - Tuesday - Second day of mourning and therefore, I couldn't participate in any activity. Divya did some shopping.
Day 23 / Feb 1 - Wednesday - Last day of mourning for me. It was Pannagesh, my brother's birthday. For very strong reasons I wish to forget this day.
Day 24 / Feb 2 - Thursday - The day I could participate in the marriage related work. The only work I did was to collect the Bhatu, the golden ring for Subhash. We also received a few invitation cards from Arun. These cards were printed at Mysore for relatives there and were in Kannada/English. We had a Grihapravesham invitation to attend but gave up. We decided to go for the vratam the next day. Lakshmi, Lavanya and Divya went to attend to sundry work like buying bangles and some bridal decorations.
Day 25 / Feb 3 - Friday - We hired a car since there were a few places to go. I have this hesitation to use my car extensively because of the dense traffic and the lesser degree of
car's reliability. We had to cover Sudha's grihapravesham, negotiate and pay for tenthouse material, go to Pushapa's place at Tarnaka. Pushpa's is one family with whom we have a very special relationship from the days we were neighbours at Tarnaka Towers. There are such special relationships in everyone's life. I have acknowledged the timely help Divya received from her husband Siva Prasad in my very first blog - our US trip. We had to make two trips to Vajramma's since the tenthouse negotiator was not available earlier.
Day 26 / Feb 4 - Saturday - We covered the residents of Visal Towers which completed our invitation rounds. Some of them were not at home. Divya and Lavanya went to cover St Francis Junior College where both the girls studied. Those teachers were very happy at the gesture. Even the Professor at Divya's Engg College was very delighted when we went to invite the family personally. They say it was a rare gesture these days when human values are on the decline and Gurus are hardly remembered. The girls came home quite late and Subhash dropped. The tailor Ranga at Raymonds southend did a good job with Subhash's outfits including the suit. Subhash had bought a wrist watch for me and Lakshmi.
Day 27 / Feb 5 - Sunday - Quite an uneventful day. Mohan's family and Chaya's family visited us - an undesirable coincidence since they have long stopped tolerating each other. So much for brotherhood !!! Shrikanth our nephew also joined. I enjoyed the drive in his new Indigo. I had not got anything stitched after shifting to Kukatpally since I had not discovered any. I had bought two shirt/pant lengths for Divya's wedding and I should have stuck with my tailor at Tarnaka. Instead I went to the fellow who has been stitching clothes for Mohan and Dilip. I suspect he followed his instinct and not his tape !!! Our Cable TV connection was renewed after making several phone calls.
Day 28 / Feb 6 - Monday - The penultimate day ! Three of them went to Lalitha's for Mehendi decoration and I had a rest day. The ODI series between India and Pakistan started at Peshawar. India did a very good job. They were 240/3 at the end of 37th over. They lost the match on applying D/L formula since the match was abandoned due to poor light at the end of 47th over.
( At the time of updating this blog India have just won the second ODI by seven wickets )
Day 29 / Feb 7 - Tuesday - The day of arrival of Mysore/Bangalore gang for the marriage. The group which was originally of 23 persons had been reduced to a mere 14 because of sister's death. Subbu maama arrived from Mumbai the same day by Sahara Airlines.
The gang from Mysore/Bangalore arrived by Yashwantpur/Kacheguda Express. It arrived at 4:30 A M as per scheduled time. The event caused some excitement because of the serious lapse by the Travel cars which did not arrive to pick us up from home till 5:15 A M. I have been using the same Agency for so many years and they rarely failed me. I had to ask for Call Taxis which was the only thing I could have done. It cost me hefty money. My plan was to keep the men at Pioneer Lodge and take the women home. But it didn't quite work out that way. Nine persons remained in the Lodge. Gayathri, Anthi, Bhagya, Abhishek and Ammami were excorted home by Arjun. Lakshmi, Meera and Raaghu quickly had their bath and reached home by Auto. I remained in the Lodge to wait for the rest of the gang to get ready and took them by Qualis which I had cursingly recalled from the Agency. That consisted of Manjunath, Murthy, Chandru, Suresh, Suma, Pannagesh, Saraswathi and the little Pashyanthi.
We had arranged for breakfast and lunch from a caterer. I also performed Abhishekham and Pooja. In the afternoon maama arrived. I could not go to the airport because of Pooja. Manjunath and Pannagesh did the duty. Late in the night we decided to make a trip to the manadapam to transport a few essentials since it would have been difficult to do everything on the day of wedding and there wouldn't have been enough space for all the luggauge. I had to use my car since the travel car had been abandoned for the day which had taken one batch to Pioneer Lodge. As I had always suspected my car broke down during this trip. The saving grace was it happened on our return. I dread to think of our fate if it had happened on our way to the mandapam. The car was actually overloaded with four of us. It made an unusual noise when we were approaching the Y-junction at Kukatpally. I persisted for about half km and decided to have a look. I suspected that the noise could have been due to jamming of fan and belt assembly.
We reached home finally at 1 A M by an Auto. The driver of the Auto had actually stopped over to see if he can help. We just had two hours to catch up with some sleep before the hectic day. Sleep, I could not because of so many thoughts about the wedding.
Day 30 / Feb 8 - Wednesday - The day we have been eagerly waiting for. We reluctantly woke up to the alarm at 3:30 A M. It had been decided that I, Lakshmi, Subbu maama, ammami and Gayathri will make the first trip at 5:30 A M. It was not to be and we couldn't leave till 6:10 A M. More people were ready by the time the early morning procedure like snathakam and bridal preparation were gone through. The first trip took all of us except Divya, Lavanya, Raaghu and Bhagya were left behind, to be brought by Mohan in his Omni. Dilip and Arjun came by Dilip's two wheeler. I had arranged for another Qualis to bring the other group from Pioneer Lodge. Marriage itself went off quite smoothly. But I felt it was quite a drag after lunch. We were just floating around in the mandapam waiting for the evening to set in when Divya would take leave of us and go to Subhash's house in the traditional way like Appaginthalu. The evening snacks had been planned for 4:30 P M but had to be deffered till 7 P M because of late lunch some of us had. The dinner had to be cancelled. It was 11 P M when our last batch reached home, this time without Divya. Janaki and Lalitha had accompanied Divya from our side. Next day, Divya and Subhash returned to our fold escorted by Janaki and Lalitha after Satyanarayana Vratham followed by lunch. Lavanya gave us some more cause to cheer that day when she was selected for employment by a Company called TNS whose domain is data coding.
This journey actually ended on Saturday when we dropped Divya and Subhash in Subhash's place after the first night function on Friday. The emptiness returned when we came home and only three of us were together again - I, Lavanya and her mother ( my wife ). All the hussle and bussle of the last 4-5 days had given way to an eerie silence. We have very sweet memories of all those 25 years of our existence in Divya's company, the last one being our trip to US.
We miss you sweetheart !!! The pleasure of your company is now someone else's. We sincerely wish that you do them ( Subhash and his kin ) proud the same way that you have done us, all these years. Forget the pain that we may have caused to you lately and remember all those good and nice moments you have had in your uncomplicated childhood. Continue to give us a small space in your heart and mind.
You are going to start a new chapter of your life. Don't compromise on the values of life in spite of all adversities that you may face. You have always been courageous and bold. Use those qualities to balance your judgements. Don't let emotions get the better of you and cloud your sense of right and wrong. Remain lovable as you have always been, to everybody at all times.
I cannot end this blog without expressing my appreciation and gratitude to Leela, Lalitha, Gayathri, Mohan, Janaki, Chaya, Arjun, Raaghu, Sriks and Dilip for all the support they provided during and before Divya's wedding.
posted by HNM Prasad at 10:40 PM
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