Is this IT??

And finally the big day was here.. The day both the families have been dreaming, eating,drinking and sleeping for the past six months. And the reason our (Chaitu n me) eating drinking sleeping were terribly affected for the past six months. One would have thought it must be a loooongg day with loads and loads of rituals and customs to be adhered to. Specially ME, the bride, who was made to wake up at 3 a.m. Why? to be applied Haldi upon by all the 'Suhagans' in the house. This was followed by a spa-like experience which I probably will never experience in the bestest of the world spas. My naani gave me the world's bestest oil massage and scrubbed my body with 'besan and haldi' so that I would glow like a new bride apparently.. followed by a hot shower. By now I thought I was wide awake and ready to take on the world. Bring it on baby!!

5:00 A.M - Lakshmi Puja - I was officially being made the dulhan now with this puja which was quite short n sweet. (My head was quickly calculating the amt of time I had for a quick nap, before heading to the venue)

6.00 A.M - Satyanarayana Puja - My dreams were promptly cut short by this next activity . By this time I'm thinking how my wedding photographs are gonna be a disaster coz at this rate I'lldefinitely look like a zombie by 6:00 P.M which is when it was scheduled to start!

8:30 A.M -False Alarm - The Puja was finally over and all the women in the house had finished filling my lap with dozens of blouse pieces and loads of envelopes as thier aashirwad. I still had 2 hours before I'm supposed to reach the venue for engagement, out of which one hour I'll need to get ready., YAY I had a free hour.. UMM. Nope. The photographer is behind my life for a photo session upstairs and he wanted to me to tidy myself up a bit and not look so sleepy. Can u imagine his guts??? Bloody.. anyway I had to oblige as this was the day where I had surrendered myself to the mercy of parents, pandits, photographers and beauticians. My body didnt belong to me anymore and my Mind - I wasn't allowed to use it. So there - I was actually a zombie!

11:30 A.M - Which bride has ever arrived on time in this world? I had to keep up to this global norm and arrived at the venue only to find the groom party waiting at the gate. Ooops.. I quickly slipped inside the venue, of course they did see me and smirked while mumbling under thier nose..'hey bhagwan, yeh aajkal ki ladkiyan'

1:00 P.M - Which event has ever started on time in India?? Keeping up with this tradition as well, after a 2 hour delay, we finally got engaged followed by Haldi.. yes yet again.!!!

6:P.M - My beautician almost had a cardiac arrest with the amount of stress I gave her OCD-ing over my make up and finally I was ready to my satisfaction by this time. The baraat arrives, varmaala happens, kilos of colourful rice is poured upon us in the name of aashirwad by the flurry of relatives. and 3 hours later - we were MARRIED. As I said in my earlier posts, a lot of firsts happened in this wedding, to add to that list - all my relatives were wide awake unlike any other andhra wedding where except for the parents they only come to eat and doze off. Simply coz it was intriguing for them to see a maharashtrian wedding. And Lastly, the most fun part was the dance performances put up by my sisters and my best friends. The only part of the day when I was finally "ME"; was on the open dance floor complete with my Thumka's and Desi girl numbers!! Woah what a wedding.

But at the end of the day or night rather - When I finally retired after half a dozen saree changes and changed into my last comfy clothes of the day and 4 mangalsutras hanging form my neck (yes, 2 from maayka and 2 from sasural.. dont ask), I realised that our relationship is now out in the open. This day has added many life-long responsibilities, this day it ceased being a relationship, this day was the beginning of our MARRIAGE.