Just the Way You Are Read Free Page B

again.
    I had decided on having a simple wedding after I watched
Hum Aapke Hain Kaun.
Only a few close friends and family members. But when I had presented this idea to my parents, my mother had feigned fainting and my father’s eyes went so wide that I thought they would pop out. Their protests had even made me tell them that I was impotent and couldn’t marry anyone. That was the last nail in the coffin. But my mother got up after that and tore into my idea—left, right and centre.
    ‘What? Only a few relatives? Why?’
    ‘Mom …’
    ‘Shut up! You know, you are finally getting married now, at the age of thirty-two; plus whose marriage will we have in the house after this one now? Your children or your brother’s—nothing before that. We have so many dreams, so many wishes. We will do this function, wear this sari, and tease that Sharma’s wife and all. We all have a birthright to celebrate and organize your marriage in a grand and lavish way. So don’t give me faltu reasons to call off all the grand functions.’
    ‘But Mom, I don’t like all this. It’s such a waste of money, all this stupidity.’
    ‘You mean the whole world is stupid! You are calling us stupid?’ She turned to my father, ‘Hain ji, see what your son is saying!’
    ‘Mom, what’s with wasting money like that?’
    ‘Wah! People across the country are stupid. It is only our son who is so intelligent. This is the day for which I have brought you up! To be denied these small happy moments, of flaunting my bahu and beta to the world. What has life come to!’ She sighed deeply enough for me to get a warning signal that this conversation had started moving in a direction where I would very soon be left with no counterarguments to my mother’s emotional state (read blackmail).
    I understood that just like ‘these young people of today’ do not understand what elders say, ‘these grown-up parents’ will also not understand the logic of not wasting money on marriages.
    So that day, after meeting all those people I had not been in favour of inviting in the first place, I was ready to drop. My home was in the same town but since my wife belonged to Agra, it was decided to arrange the wedding ceremony and all the related functions and rituals in Taj Mansingh Hotel. So guests from both the families had been accommodated there itself, and all arrangements had done accordingly. My father had made it clear that we would bid adieu to Shagun’s family here itself and head home thereafter. I had assumed that many of our relatives were also leaving for their respective homes directly from there.
    We had booked a couple of rooms in the same hotel. I thought I’d be able to relax, and Shagun too, before we finally left for home. It must have been equally crazy at her end as well. Shagun had been sent to a room with her family, and I to another. My close friend Sankalp was with me in my room and advised me to take some rest. I had just planned on taking my shoes off and reclining on the bed, when some distant relatives marched into my room to meet me. They were apparently leaving in an hour and wanted to spend some time with me.
    ‘You have grown up from the last time I saw you.’ I wondered when they had seen me, because I had not changed in appearance in the last seven- to eight-odd years.
    I made the best out of the moment, ‘Sorry uncle, I couldn’t help it. I didn’t have any choice except to grow up.’
    ‘Very true! When I saw you the last time, you were so tiny.’ One of the aunties, I don’t know who, used her hands to show how tiny I was. From the size she indicated, I should have been a puppy more than a human. But she went on anyway, ‘Now I am seeing you on your marriage occasion. Time passes so fast!’
    To my chagrin, a lady standing at her side said without restraint, ‘I am so happy for you. Finally you are married now. You mom was so worried for you.’
    I nodded. I never understood why people asked or discussed such