The Great Indian Wedding

I was busy making the invite list for Didi’s wedding... given that it was the first wedding in our family in a long time, missing out any one’s name either by choice or by mistake would be nothing short of committing hara kiri...

Mayank, the bacha of the family, who had been watching me sit with all family members for their list of guests one by one, came to me one fine day with an extremely pained look on his face & said ‘When are you going to sit with me for my list of guests’?!?

Amused, I apologized to him for my grave oversight and asked him to rattle off the names right away to make amends...and so he started :

Mayank : 1st name : Shubham.
Me : how many guests?
Mayank : 3...shubham, his papa and his mamma
Me : ok, next?
Mayank : wait... make that 4 guests from Shubham’s family...he has a 2 month old baby brother. Even he will come for the wedding na...

The rest of the family members by then had given up all semblance of working and were hopelessly trying to eavesdrop into our conversation...

Mayank : 2nd name : Keshav
Me : Ok...How many guests?
Mayank : 7... err make that 10
Me : 10 !!! who all?
Mayank : Keshav, his parents; Jatin his parents. Shlok with his parents and Pranav
Mom (at this point in time, just couldn't stop herself from intervening) : Who is Pranav? I am hearing his name for the 1st time. Pranav kiska beta hai?
Mayank : Mamma, Pranav Keshav ki mummy ka beta hai
All of us : to bol nahi sakta ki Pranav Keshav ka bhai hai?
Mayank : to Mamma hi to poochi ki Pranav kiska beta hai !

Just how do you argue with this logic :)

& the wedding preparations go on…

Kids Speak

After dilly dallying for a long time, my sis and I finally decided to catch Ishqiya on 14-Feb (ya ya the V-Day). So, to avoid the V-Day rush, even though the show was at 10 am, we got the tickets the day before. But sis woke up with a terrible pain in her ribs (doc later pinned it down to her recurring cough) and so the plan was shelved. My bro and I decided to go to the hall to sell off the tickets (small liberties, as the hall is 5 min away from my place)…As expected, the place was teeming with couples, who wouldn’t have given a damn if Wolfman was being played instead of Ishqiya. I spotted a young couple in the line for the tickets and approached them to sell my 2 tickets. The following conversation unfolded:

Me: Hi, I have 2 extra tickets for Ishqiya. 3rd last row. 80 Rs each. Would you 2 be interested?

Guy: which seats?

Me: C8, C9 (the centre seats, 3rd last row)

Guy: Mmm… let me check if the guy at the counter can exchange the seats. (he checks, turns out the exchange will depend on the empty seats)

Given the morose look he gave me, I asked him to buy his own tickets and started looking around for some other people willing to buy the tickets...

I soon spotted another guy who agreed to buy the 2 tickets... Happy to have sold off the tickets, I was on my way back when my bro (all of 10 years), asks me ‘Why didn’t the 1st guy buy the tickets from us? These were like the best seats..centre of the hall, 3rd last row, plus we weren’t even charging him extra!’.

I tried to diplomatically tell him that maybe the couple was looking for seats in the 2nd or the 1st row. My brother gave me the look which only kids can and then quipped: ‘Aahh now I get it… those people wanted the corner seats so they could watch the movie without any disturbance!’I sheepishly pretended to be completely absorbed in the poster of Karthik-calling-Karthik and moved on…