Chapter 2: The First Date

When Vijay had first suggested that we go out that fateful evening, he had done so in a deliberately casual manner. Determined to outdo him, I had accepted in a manner bordering on careless indifference.

‘Oh sure. Whatever. I mean, I don’t care.’ For good measure, I even added something along the lines of ‘I go out with anyone who asks me.’

He looked at me appraisingly and I realized this hadn’t sounded too good, so I deftly changed the subject to ‘So where do you think we should go?’

He thought for a while and then, with a gleam in his brown eyes, he asked me ‘Would you like to see ducks?’

This was a question I had never been asked before, but I decided to just go with the flow and said in the same casual manner ‘Yes, of course.’

That afternoon, I found myself getting a little worried. I had no idea what to expect and was vaguely apprehensive that ‘seeing ducks’ was perhaps in fact some sort of secret code for acts I was not yet ready for – or even worse, that he might be planning to take me to the Bangalore zoo.

That evening he picked me up from my guest house. I walked up to his car, a dark-green Hyundai Accent. As I got in next to him, he said ‘Hey, you’re looking nice.’ I was congratulating myself for the wise but unusual decision of wearing a skirt and applying some lipstick when he added ‘Nicer than you usually look.’ My smile froze on my face, but he looked like he hadn’t noticed anything amiss. I would learn later that Vijay usually said whatever popped into hishead. This was always without any malice whatsoever, but still difficult for a slightly oversensitive person like me to digest. But right now, he appeared to be in a very happy,conversational mood, and I melted as it dawned on me that he was talking about making this a very special first date – he was planning to drive us two hours out of Bangalore to ‘seeducks’ at a little resort right on the Cauveri river. I settled back in my seat with a delicious feeling of anticipation, put on my seat belt and we zoomed off.

Vijay was a very skilled driver, at least as far I could tell with my own limited knowledge of the matter. He negotiated the city traffic with great speed and nonchalance, humming tunelessly to himself when he wasn’t keeping the conversation going with me and swerving out of the way ofoncoming buses just in the nick of time. I tried to play it cool too, and restricted my display of horror to a few sharp intakes of breath whenever it looked like we were going to perish, which he did not seem to notice. Thankfully, we were soon out of the city and headed along some quieter country roads leading towards Mysore. Our destination was about mid-way to Mysore, a resort called Amblee.

We finally reached and I was quite delighted by my first glimpse of the quiet, scenic place. It did give the impression of being rather dilapidated and I was dimly aware that at least part of its charm at the moment was the mere lack of sunlight, but for now, it was quite perfect.

The promised ducks were indeed there – all four of them – in a murky little pond in the resort gardens, and after paying our respects to them, we proceeded to a table set right by the river that sparkled in the moonlight. There was absolutely nobody else around and we were having a pleasant, quiet conversation and getting to know each other better. Naturally, I was therefore taken aback when after a comfortable lull, Vijay leaned over, looked me in the eye and said, ‘Naam hai Vijay… Deenanath… Chauhan. Maalum?’

I’d not had the slightest interest in Hindi cinema till I met Vijay. Obviously, therefore, I did not know that this was a dialogue from the movie, Agneepath, and that Vijay was trying to impress me with what he

thought was an uncanny imitation of Amitabh. I only wondered why he was suddenly whispering in a voice two octaves lower than his regular voice. Out loud I just politely remarked that I had always thought his last name was Sharma, not Chauhan, adding that Deenanath was a very interesting middle name, if a bit old-fashioned. He was a bit demoralized by my reaction, but when he explained to me what he had been trying to do, I pretended that I had just been kidding and praised him for his unmistakable impression of Amitabh, possibly overdoing it a bit by saying he ‘actually sounded more like Amitabh than Amitabh himself.’

After we finished our otherwise uneventful, peaceful dinner, Vijay announced that he had organized for us to do some fishing, a thought that I was quite excited by. We settled ourselves comfortably on the cool stone steps leading into the river, and a friendly resort employee handed us our extremely make-shift fishing rods – which were actually just two thin bamboo sticks with strings, at the end of which dangled little hooks wrapped in bits of atta.

There we sat, the two of us, holding our charming and only slightly sad little fishing rods, and the conversation now took a more serious turn as we quietly exchanged our many divergent views on the world at large.

It was clear that despite our mutual attraction, we had too many differences – he referred to himself as a ‘simple man’ and was easy-going, good-humoured, and even-tempered. He also was a small-town boy, had been brought up as part of a conservative family in Jaipur and had a distinctly desi flavour. I on the other hand, was a ‘modern’, Delhi girl who had always had a bit of a hot temper and clearly favored Alanis over Amitabh.

He had just finished telling me about how he had always been told that he was one of the calmest and most centred people around, when he suddenly felt a tug on his bamboo stick. He stared at it in amazement while I excitedly cried that it looked like he had actually managed to hook a fish.

‘BHAIIYA! BHAIIYA!’ his sudden panicked screams shattered the stillness of the night. I asked him to calm down but he went on rather incoherently about being a Brahmin and a Vegetarian and how he had never thought these sticks would ever catch a fish and that he wanted to throw it back but couldn’t bring himself to touch it and anyway he was afraid it would bite him and it looked so awful struggling there like that and so on. The friendly resort Bhaiiya came back and laughingly rescued Vijay from the fish, tossing the latter back into the river whereupon it indignantly swam away. Vijay shuddered and said we should head back into town now.

And that was our first date.

Chapter 5: Marrying a Sharma

The wedding was a fairly low-key affair at the Radisson hotel in Delhi. It would perhaps have been a little higher-key if all of my friends had shown up, but unfortunately, a lot of them were scattered over the country and worldwide, and apparently the notice that I gave them – ranging from about two weeks to fi ve days before the wedding, depending on who I remembered when – was not good enough for many of them to make the trip. Instead, they sent their love and best wishes for the both of us with a few choice abuses just for me. The argument that I used in my defence that I had never been married before and it was all very new to me did not cut much ice with them.

As always, blood proved to be thicker than friends and most of my family, also scattered all over the world, did make it for the ceremonies – perhaps also due to the fact that Mother Dear had handled their invitations and had apparently informed them about a month in advance. Somy favourite cousin Mini had flown in from Australia and was flashing her dimpled smiles all over the place; and my brother Abhimanyu and his wife Vandna had also graced the occasion, coming in from England.

My make up was done by a distant relative that we called Myna Masi, who was a beautician by profession. She had been overly enthusiastic, caking on layers and layers of makeup on my face and sticking about sixty seven pins into some sort of a fake bun on my head. I was itching to get away from her expert hands and was fervently wishing that this distant relative would make herself distant again and then, just as I was on the verge of tearing out of the room screaming, shesaid ‘There! All done!’

I looked at myself and I had to admit that she had done a really good job. I looked quite stunning. I probably wouldn’t go out to the market like this, but for my wedding, it seemed just about right. My pale-pink and silver sari, which I had insisted on as opposed to the usual red or maroon varieties, was shimmering around my person delicately. The fake hairbun and make up didn’t actually look half-bad either. My mother took one look at me and a little tear started to form in the corner of her eye, but she stopped herself from making any sort of impulsive display by somehow finding one stray hair and tucking it behind my ear in a business-like manner. I just grinned at her cheekily, for once refraining from protesting at this gesture. It was okay. I understood how she felt.

It was finally time to make my appearance in the wedding hall. I eagerly waited outside the door to the hall, concentrating on not tripping on my sari. My brother’s wife Vandna was accompanying me, and just as the door opened, she whispered to me ‘There is no need to smile so much.’This remark rather confused me for a moment considering that this was supposed to be the happiest day of my life and all that, but I quickly deciphered it to mean that she thought I should be a bit more of the coy, blushing bride. I obeyed her as I entered the hall, and managed a fairly somber expression, although it was quite an effort when I caught sight of Vijay.

He had been refusing to behave like the typical groom and had been wandering all round the large hall, greeting old friends and long-lost family members – much to the consternation of Rama Didi, who had a very strong sense of propriety and was unsuccessfully pursuing him through the crowd in order to inform him that he should really be sitting still on one of the two chairs on the platform. When the door opened to reveal me and I started walking in slowly, everybody turned to look at me with gratifying ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ at my get-up.

Vijay, who at that point had been merrily chatting to some old friends from IIT, also joined the crowd as they all turned to look at the coy, blushing and no doubt radiant bride that I was. He stood there transfixed, along with everybody else, watching me in this strange new avatar. AsI walked along slowly, I kept my eyes mostly lowered but I spotted him through the heavily mascaraed

lashes and had to bite my lower lip to keep from laughing at the gaze of pureadmiration that he was giving me.

He continued to stand there with a silly grin on his face until Rama Didi finally caught up to him and urged him to take his place on the platform. He reached there and quickly sat down just a few seconds before I did, but the serene smile on his face as I reached him gave the impression he had been fixed in his seat waiting patiently for me for the last hour or so.

It was as he stood up to welcome me that I got my first close look at him for the evening. Instantly, I realized that I could have done a better job of helping him with his wedding suit – the silver-white Sherwani that he had got tailored for himself was too broad at the shoulders, and in combination with his height, his skinny legs and the bright red turban on his head, made him now give an uncanny impression of a larger than life tube of Colgate toothpaste. I could almost see the words inscribed near the base ‘For Best Results, Squeeze from Bottom Up’. I was unable to retain the sombre expression that Vandna had imposed upon me and started to laugh. I had to pretend to have a coughing fit to disguise my giggling. He sat next to me, giving me the odd quizzical glance now and then, but otherwise resplendent and elegant, as far as human toothpaste tubes go.

After this, a lot of people, most of whom we didn’t know, came up to us to wish us well, hand us gifts and envelopes stuffed with cash, and to have photographs taken with us. The photographer was possibly the most annoying photographer in the world, creating blinding fl ashes when we least expected it, and constantly telling me ‘Up your chin, up your chin, Madam.’ After a while, every time he said this, I started to mutter under my breath ‘Up yours, Sir!’

He then started repeatedly saying between fl ashes from his camera ‘Madam, can you more down? Sir, can you more up?’ I was about to tell him off, but then I saw that he had a point. While sitting, for some reason, I looked taller than Vijay.

This realization came as an immense shock to me, as his six feet two inches usually dwarfed my five feet six and a half inches. I asked him to stop slouching and sit up, but even when he straightened his back completely, I was still taller than him. Why had I never noticed this before?

I hissed at him ‘Oh my god. You have a freakishly short upper body!’

A few people who were standing near the podium turned around to look at us and I immediately looked down coyly and started examining the mehendi on my hands. An annoyed Vijay whispered back to me ‘Or maybe, you have freakishly short legs. How about that?’

I mumbled that I had a longish upper body and average length legs. Still, this wouldn’t do, our wedding photos were mostly of us sitting next to each other and I was now sure that we looked silly like this. So I whispered a suggestion to Vijay about lifting up his red pagdi slightly. For the rest of the photographs, I slouched as much as I could while Vijay straightened up with his pagdi perched higher on his head. These simple steps resulted in giving the camera the correct impression that he was taller than me. The only slight glitch was that he now looked like a Colgate toothpaste tube whose cap had been screwed on too loosely, but I figured this wasa small price to pay and wisely refrained from pointing this out to him.

The greet-and-photo session went on and on. We got so used to saying, ‘Thank you’ with fake smiles over and over again to people that when one gentleman said ‘I’m Dr Gulati, an old friend of your mother-in-law’, Vijay gave him his best fake smile, shook his hand firmly, and replied,‘Thank you, uncle.’

Eventually, it was time for the pheras – the ceremony where we walked around the fire and the Punditji droned on and on about our vows. It was late, almost 2 a.m., and Punditji was explaining the meaning of each of the vows to us. I tried very hard to listen to him, but I was actually stifling yawns the whole time. I

had been sitting crosslegged for a long time on the floor and it was very uncomfortable. At one point, to my horror, I thought I felt my sari giving me a wedgie – but it thankfully turned out be a false alarm. I only woke from my stupor when Punditji said that now as a part of the ceremony Vijay and I should feed each other ladoos, which sounded to me like the most sensible thing he’d said all night. He asked Vijay to go first. I turned towards him and lifted my face up with a coy smile. Vijay broke off a piece of ladoo just the right size and I opened my mouth expectantly. Ignoring me completely, he proceeded to swiftly pop the ladoo into his own mouth, much to the merriment of the many observers and to the chagrin of Punditji as apparently this marred the ritual that denotes the sharing of every aspect of our lives. I accepted Vijay’s next offering in a haughty manner. Clearly, he was not taking this sacred ritual seriously enough, and was paying even less attention to Punditji’s instructions than I was. In the background, I was aware of my cousin Mini and sister Gitanjali holding on to each other in a fit of helpless laughterbut I pretended I didn’t find it the least bit funny myself.

Yashodhara Lal’s USP is in taking the ordinary and making it hilarious. She graduated from IIM-Bangalore in 2002 and has over 10 years of experience in the Marketing Domain across two large corporations in FMCG and media. She also has 10 years of experience in the Marriage Domain and lives in Gurgaon with her husband Vijay, and the three small children they call Peanut, Pickle and Papad. Yashodhara began her journey in writing in 2006 with her blog - yonearthnot.blogspot.com, described as ‘a serious attempt to take life less seriously’.‘Just Married, Please Excuse’ is her first book.

Connect with her: Facebook: Facebook.com/yashodharalalTwitter: follow @yashodharalalEmail - yashodharalalsharma at gmail.com