So who is the best friend – Srikanth (hereby referred to as the Hero). Who is the girl – Gayathri (hereby referred to as the Heronie). And who is the matchmaker – Me me me (well I was at least part of the matchmaking committee).
A bit of a flashback (as narrated by our hero). Our hero met heroine over a matrimonial site. Initially he did not have any of his photos put up in the site and so our heroine outrightly turned down his request to start a chat conversation. Now the only way he could again contact her was by becoming a registered member. Though our hero doesn’t generally spend money easily, something deep in his heart told him that he should give this a try. And so he went ahead and signed up as a member. Aur phir shuru huyi hero heroine ki Prem Kahaani. Internet lo chattingu, telephone lo talkingu, sparetime lo dreamingu :p. About 10 days since they first interacted it almost seemed certain that they were soon going to get committed to each other. At this point I would like to enlighten my readers with some of my philosophy. Have u ever heard of the 80-20 corporate rule. It basically states that 80% of the profit in a reasonably sized organization is contributed by only 20% of the employees and the remaining 20% of the profits is contributed by the rest 80% of employees. I firmly believe this 80-20 rule applies strongly to the time of interaction between a couple meet for the purpose of marriage and the point when they decide to go ahead with it (generally referring to arranged marriages). So for example, if the total time of interaction between the first interaction and confirmation is 20 hours, the decision is almost made within the first 20% of 20 hours = 4 hours. The remaining 16 hours of interaction is only to be doubly sure that you are making the right decision. It is not very different in our Hero’s case. While his total time of interaction was 60 hours, his decision was almost made within the first 20% of 60 = 12 days. Anyway, coming back to our Hero’s story. The interaction continued. He told me about how she was getting hundreds of proposals (Given her good looks and the foolishness of men, I’m really not surprised :p). Our hero also told me how lucky he was because our heroine had actually shown interest in a few other eligible bachelors with far better qualifications than his but they were out of station and by the time they came back it was too late for them. About 20 days later our hero spoke to his would-be father-in-law. He told me it was a rather long conversation extending to more than 2 hours. The only break he got was a 5 minute conversation with Gayathri. Poor chap :p. Anyway, things moved on and our hero decided he would be visiting India for confirming this proposal.
And so comes the big day – June 8, 2007. Our hero with his matchmaking committee comprising of his parents, his niece and I set out to make the mission a success. At about morning 6.30 we reached Vizag (that’s where the girl hails from). As soon as the train reached the station, I got onto the platform first immediately followed by Srikanth. The girl’s father saw us and immediately greeted Srikanth. Then he completely ignored me and went ahead to wish the hero’s parents. Then at last he comes and greets me whispering in my ear “Please don’t mind. That is the order in which I am supposed to welcome. First the boy, then his parents and then anyone else”. Oh really … thanks … I am honoured. Seriously, in which tradition is it said that you got to ignore those who are in front of you and wish others. Great … so this is what I get to be the supporting actor. At that moment, I felt like boarding the train and going back to Hyderabad as I felt that they would not give me any importance and would cut me short whenever I have something to say. But I was wrong. They were extremely courteous. Later I realized that being the girl’s parents they were extremely scared of upsetting the boy’s parents and so were only being extra cautious.
So, we reach their home in MVP colony. It was a decent sized house spread over 1500 sq.feet. The heroine’s father loved to talk and appeared to be an extremely religious person. Good for our Hero as his father is also a religious person. Our hero was all excited to see the girl but as informed by the girl’s father there was a procedure for it. First we had to fresh up, then visit a temple, have breakfast and then the formal procedure of meeting the girl would follow. So we go ahead as planned – fresh up, visit the temple, have breakfast and return to the house. And our hero seemed to get really tensed on our way back as he was sweating in spite of the A/C being switched on in the cab :p.
As soon as we reached their house, some of their other relatives also turned up, And as in a traditional setup, the girl was asked to come and sit in front of her would-be in-laws. Oh my god … she was feeling so shy that not even a minute had passed and she ran away into the bedroom. Finding the entire atmosphere extremely formal, I tried to relax things a bit by cracking some PJs (poor jokes or as aizaz puts it priceless jokes) such as “For a change, let us ask the boy to sing instead of the girl as he is a great bathroom singer” and telling one of her uncles who was an ophthalmologist that now I could avail free treatment for my eyes (Later upon reciting this to my mother she was like “Thank God Rahul, a few more PJs of yours and things might have gone really wrong”). Not to forget I also gave our heroine a sense of my PJs by smsing her questions like “How much profit did the beauty parlour in your area make yesterday?”. I did not receive any reply from her which made me wonder whether I was crossing my limits. But later I got to know that she was actually so excited and tensed about seeing our hero that she couldn’t reply.
So while our hero and heroine are in the room, I try to act intelligent by talking politics with the elders. And our heroine’s sister (I don’t know what made her think I am a party animal), came to me and said “How long are you gonna talk about boring politics?”. Now this is where my ingenuity struck. There was a recent quote I heard by Plato – “The punishment suffered by the wise who refuse to take part in the government is to suffer under the government of bad men”. Putting on an extremely wise and intelligent expression, I recited this to her and told her that it was important for youth to enter politics. And oh boy one had to look at the expression of her face, it was worth a million dollars. I actually can’t believe that I succeeded into fooling her that I had some matter in my grey cells :p.
After about 10 minutes, our hero comes outside of the bedroom. And then there were the discussions of the dowry, what the hero’s father expects, so on. Not elaborating on this rather boring topic, I’d just like to say that our hero is an extremely broad-minded fellow who believes in the equality of the sexes and so refuses dowry of any kind. Meanwhile I was getting desperate to pull our hero’s leg. So after many unsuccessful attempts due to frequent interruptions by the elders, I finally managed to have only myself, the heroine, her sister, our hero and his niece in the room. And here I began interrogating our hero as to what they did in those 10 mins. And to my frustration, first it was the elders and now it was his niece. She just kept on blabbering loudly. Kids … they can be such monsters at times. Had I had a hammer then I would have probably split her head into two. So anyway not giving up hope, I finally get our hero to narrate the events of those 10 mins in the bedroom. And this is what he tells me. “Nothing much ra. For the first five minutes she did not lift her head and just kept staring at her Shalwaar. Then after five mins we spoke casually about work and general stuff”. And while our hero was telling this, our heroine was feeling shy and hiding behind his niece. Oh my God … seriously to which century do these both belong … 21st or 12th ??? Now I know what is crossing your crooked minds? What would I do in those 10 minutes if I were the hero? Well, that I leave it to your wildest imagination :p.
With everyone now reaching the conclusion that the marriage is fixed, we are taken for lunch in quite a posh restaurant after which we would be visiting Simhachalam temple. And now again the ingenuity in me strikes. Acting all respectful, I tell the heroine’s father that if he did not object, it might be a good idea to leave our hero and heroine at home with her mother and only us going to Simhachalam as they would want to spend time with each other. But our hero’s mother has a better idea. She suggested it might be better to take both of them to the temple instead of leaving them at home. And I got to sit in the front of the cab (a Scorpio), the heroine’s father, the hero’s parents and his niece in the middle and the hero and the heroine in the back. And later I got to know that all through the journey our hero and heroine were holding each other hands (in background chorus “So sweeeeetttt!!!”). Ok … I give you points for this. You at least belong to the 20th century if not the 21st :p.
After waiting for sometime at the temple, we finally purchased the tickets for special darshanam (which actually costs more than the normal one but has a smaller queue … as a matter of fact we were the first). And there was yet another touching moment here. At the temple, the poojari asked our hero if the heroine was his wife to which he desperately wanted to say “Yes … yes … she is … she is” but refrained because the heroine’s father was right behind him. And the poojari was intelligent enough to figure out that she was his would-be.
Delaying no furthur as we had a train to catch, we left for the station. We managed to board the train well within time. And there we were, the hero and I, sitting on the floor in front of the train door, right in front of the toilets discussing about his past, present and the future. And I getting to hear emotional dialogues at frequent intervals such as “Marriage is such a beautiful relationship”, “Today for the first time I felt like a husband and that she was my wife”, etc. (yaaawwwnnn!!! … oops sorry in background chorus “So sweeeeettttt!!!” :p).
So that’s how the events of the day went. And that’s how our hero meets his heroine and finally makes his short love story a success. Kudos to you buddy! So any guesses on what the next article in this series is going to be – “My Best Friend’s Wedding” :p.
