First one bites the dust

This is reporter Asterix reporting the aftermath of the Mehta-Gupta alliance ceremony which took place on 10th October in Meerut. Needless to say, this is the first LP wedding to take place and needs special attention and description. To do that, the LP group needed plenty of eyewitnesses. And just like the three magi who came to see Jesus on his birth, there were three LP-ites to witness the magic moment - PJ, Praywin and myself.

The mysterious absence of Chummi was often talked about, and the even more mysterious "I may make it" email of Aggy was frequently laughed at. Sources close to Chummi say that he had used the pretext of going to the wedding to sneak off to his own pre-marital honeymoon. Sources close to Aggy say that his email was just his usual "I am alive" packet that he sends every three months.

Anyway, coming to the wedding now. So Praywin and I reached Meerut at 11pm on 9th October after a lot of theatrics, courtesy Air Deccan and Kingfisher Airlines. We ate the customary poori-sabji-chhole-raita and witnessed some good solo dance performances from people from both the sides. Now personally I would rather be caught dead than be caught dancing solo, atleast when I am sober. So I tried all the cheap tricks in the book to hide myself. And to my relief, the choreos soon gave way to podium, where our own groomie boy gave a Salman-esque dance performance. Then the amateurs gave way to the professionals and soon Praywin was wooing the local beauties through his sleek gyrations.

The night ended with a crack-session (here crack doesnt mean weed) between Praywin, me and Mehta (the groom) till almost 6am. We ended up recalling many instances about PC and Sardar Jasdeep Singh. PC's incidents provided most of the comic relief. The next morning was pretty reminiscient of IIT Sunday mornings, as we were woken up at 9:25am, and we ate some freshly made jalebis and promptly went back to sleep after having a stomachfull :)

PJ arrived in the evening and our number was 3 now. Getting ready as baraatis, Praywin wore a revealing paper-thin see-through kurta, all whose buttons were missing, thus leaving the previously mentioned local beauties gasping for breath. The baraat itself was pretty eventful, with the band singer sucking bigtime, but we still danced away to glory (on "yeh desh hai veer jawaano ka, albelo ka mastaano ka" etc etc). Later on it was revealed that everybody was asking the groom about the 'three musketeers' who were dancing like there was no tomorrow, and the groom had replied that the three were hired in Delhi to dance at the wedding. Till now, the three of us haven't agreed on whether to feel offended or complimented at this comment.

The ceremony was a pukka north-indian one, with all the good food, all the pretty girls, beautiful arrangments, approximately 13724 photos of the couple, 1/2 ton worth of gifts, plenty of not-so-good DJ-ing, all the relatives coo-chi-cooing the cheeks of the newlyweds and so on.

The end of the marriage ceremony was also pretty interesting, with our dear groomie managing to flirt with all his newfound lady-relatives, unmarried as well as married, thus making every bachelor and married man jealous (yeah I was jealous bigtime). There was a game where the groom was supposed to make impromptu hindi 4-liner poems in order to 'earn respect' of his in-laws. What his in-laws didn't know that he was the Hindi-Samiti representative of our hostel, so pretty soon he was earning even more respect than Don Corleone in Godfather.

Overall the ceremony was pretty cool and ended at around 5am when none of us could bat an eyelid without dozing off. Our return journey back home was made even more eventful when PJ "man-handled" Praywin in the backseat of my car (remember the zero-button kurta ? :))

-Asterix
PS: Some real and nicknames have been changed to protect the identity of the victims. All the other things took place as described.