Have you ever been to a wedding which is as beautiful as the bride and the groom? Well I have.

I am personally not a big fan of weddings. I often wonder why we manage to complicate things so much. A houseful of relatives and a hall full of strangers isn’t surely my idea of fun. Before I left for the wedding, I found myself confessing to a friend regarding the same and he termed it” cognitive dissonance” as to why I was attending the wedding, in spite of loathing the whole of routine. I just had one reason- “Because, I love her and him.”

It was my friend Anu’s wedding. The words Anu’s wedding seem to have been around forever. We spoke about while in college, after we left college and didn’t stop talking about when we started working. Someone enquired to me “ Oh Anu’s wedding? With that guy whom she has been going with forever”. Ya sounds long doesn’t it.

Anu and Jaikantan met while they were at work and Jai asked her out for a cuppa on Nov 3rd 2002. Nov 3rd 2006 I found myself attending their wedding!!

When I and Anu spoke over the phone, I had this feeling around me as though nothing had changed about us and probably never will. We still had our hour long bitching sessions over phone. We cribbed about life and felt happy at the end of the conversation.

Anu’s wedding reiterated those feelings. Nothing had changed. I arrived first among her TISS friends and she was there to pick me up at the airport with her mehendi on! Just like a zillion times I and sangha were there at the airport in Mumbai and shouting Anu macchannnnnnnnnn and totally embarrassing her.

I was there in Chennai when she bought her wedding saree and went shopping for her jewels. Just like a zillion times we had gone shopping in Mumbai. Just that she picked up one of the most beautiful sarees for her wedding this time!

We got dressed for the engagement party and as usual I hung around and admired her and gave her my two pence when she asked me about how she looked. What can you tell someone who looks gorgeous? I just said ” gorgeous”!

As she wore here anklets, I felt no different from the umpteen times I hung around her room as she dressed for her dance performances in TISS!

She drove herself to her engagement! What a woman!

At the party, a lot of TISS friends trooped in. The screams and the hugs the nods the oh so business like how are you to some. Nothing had changed.

The marriage hall was not the typical claustrophobic tam brahm halls. It was quite breezy with a lot of sunshine and Anu looked ravishing.

And…and… Jaikantan our man! How could I forget him.

Jaikantan is the sort of person who will make you feel comfortable even if you are meeting him for the first time. He will make you feel as though you have known him for ages. And he is the kinds who you have to, have to hug everytime you meet. He is like any typical man who watches cricket while making conversation, but unlike lot of others he can charm his way through anybody’s heart!

Just before the swing ceremony started, the groom and the bride play with the garlands and I sang in my head “ Malai mathinal, kodhai malai mathinal”. This song never fails to choke me up everytime I hear it.

The thali was tied(which none of us could see as all the family members had surrounded them). Afterwards, I maddy and sangha sat there and discussed arbit stuff, just like in one of yet another night out sessions. One of us remarked” So there goes one from the gang of four making it gang of three”, another immediately retorted, “or there grows our gang from a gang of four to a gang of five”. Then there was VK sir from TISS, with whom discussions continued. Just as though we had left it after class and we just seamlessly picked it up at Anu’s wedding.


We clicked a millions snaps with the bride and the groom and clicked a few with ourselves. Just like we did that- from meghmudra to our stress buster parties to our night outs to our graduations and now the weddings.

As we parted ways, we made our plans to meet for Asweni’s wedding at Chennai. Just like our plans to go to Goa, our plans to eat out in a fancy place.


As I parted with Sangha at the airport, and kissed her good bye I felt less panicky. I thanked my stars for meeting the few good men and women in my life who don’t change.

Thanks Anu, Sangha, Maddy, VK sir, and now Jai!!!!!!

And herez wishing Anu and Jai many more Nov 3rds together!