Wedding Blues

It was a hasty decision to spend my holidays after the boards with my grandmother. I flew down to Kerala with minimum luggage, keen on taking a break from the monotonous environment I had been in for a month.  I knew this visit would mean a lot of obligatory functions to be attended. Well, it was one such function that led me to meet this beautiful stranger.

An unknown distant relative had decided to get married. And yes I had been dragged into attending her marriage which was being held at a convention center almost 2 and a half hours drive away.  The mere thought of waking up early and getting dressed for the wedding of someone I had never met before tired me. Since I had no other alternative,  I found myself in a hall filled with extremely happy unknown middle aged decked up women who asked me the repetitive basic questions .  After a series of meetings with a lot of my grandmother’s acquaintances who were previously oblivious to my existence, I made my way to the corridor outside the hall to get some fresh air.

I stood by the window facing the road and smiled at the signs of the dark clouds. Dark clouds always excited me for it was a sign of the heavy monsoons.  I was lost in the moment when my grandmother called loudly for me and as I turned I saw the most beautiful pair of talkative deep eyes. .  I think I froze as I stared into his eyes, he subtly smiled and I was the personified emoticon with hearts on eyes.

My grandmother quickly came into the picture and broke my 3 second long one sided love story but only to introduce him. She explained how he was the groom’s best friend’s brother who apparently did his schooling in Dubai and she felt the need to make the NRI connection here.  I shook hands with him and we engaged ourselves in a conversation dealing with college plans, exams, weddings and weather.

We stood by the window for a while and spoke. He was charming as he spoke about our similar notions on random weddings and addiction to dark chocolates.  I ranted for a while on the most random topics I could think of and after a while we decided to enter the hall and attend the wedding.

As we made a move towards the hall, I experienced and witnessed my first cheesy Bollywood moment. My dupatta got stuck on his watch. He raised his left hand and the tiny beads at the end of my dupatta had got tangled on it.  He removed it and flaunted his deep dimples as he flashed a smile. I smiled back embarrassed.

We entered the hall and I joined my grandmother as we watched the wedding, or better said that as she watched the wedding and as I stared at him watching the wedding. He joined me for lunch and we continued our conversation.  We discovered our similar food preferences and how neither of us could survive without tea.

My mind ran through the One Big Question I wanted to ask him, whether he was single or not. I wanted to subtly ask about his relationship status. The eccentricity of arranged marriages is an excellent ice breaker to his relationship status quo.

I had just decided on the next topic of discussion when he introduced me to a friend of his. She was tall, pretty and had her hair bobbed up with strangles of shiny curls down her neck. She came over and hugged him and had some overfriendly small talk. She almost completely ignored me until he introduced me. She smiled and shook hands and introduced herself as his long distance girlfriend who also happens to be my distant cousin. Now that’s real news…

My heart just broke, I think it crumbled and shattered and broke. I felt like I lost something I never owned.

I stood there for a while and before I turned into an official third wheel, I made a quick move. I explained how I had to search for my grandmother who would be worried, and shook hands with the couple and left them to themselves.

As I left the convention center in my car, I spotted them stand by the same window I had met him.

He looked the same, with his twinkling eyes, strong gaze, deep dimples and charismatic thoughts.

I held my gaze strong enough to imprint the moment for I had fallen in love at first sight for the first time by that window...