Happy Anniversary to me

6 years and still going strong :-)) Not a lot of those 6 years have bee spent together, but finally light is beginning to appear at the end of the long dark tunnel. Hopefully by next year this time, we will be a happily re-united family again !!

Even now, every time I see a dad and mom walking with their small daughter, I do feel a strong sense of pain. I guess this is a situation that I can never be totally in control of.

Decided not to go home and celebrate the anniversary as I thought it is better not to distract wifey during her final preparations for the practical exams

That leaves me with the ever challenging job of keeping myself occupied. Put on my master chef hat and baked a few chocolate chip cookies, samples below. Tasted very nice too

In fact looked so nice in the photo that several folks accused me of buying the cookies and taking photographs :-) 

I have finally decided to take the pains of writing up a recipe :-), you can find it below. Pretty similar to that of a cake

1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup honey *
2- 2.5 cups of maida
2 eggs
1 tea spoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
Lots of nuts and chocolate chips :-)) [ I just bought cooking chocolate bars and chopped them up ]

Mix the maida and baking powder and keep aside for 15 mins. Thoroughly mix butter and sugar. [I had used melted butter by microwaving it on low power for a minute or two]. Beat the eggs well with vanilla essence in a mixer and pour to the earlier butter-sugar batter and mix well. You can add honey also now. Fold in the maida and mix till the batter is thick. If it turns out to be a bit watery, add a touch more maida OR refrigerate it for 1/2 hour to get the water out. [ I employed both techniques , btw ;-) ]

Add a spoon or two of the final batter onto a baking pan [I formed a small ball with the dough and just pressed it on to the pan to get the shape]. It spreads as it bakes, so don’t put your clumps close together. Bake in a pre-heated oven ( 180 deg C) for 10-12 minutes, till outside begins to turn dark brown in color. As you take out the cookies, they may feel slightly spongy on top. Allow them to cool down and they become nice and crispy on the outside.

* Original recipe require 3/4 cup each of white and brown sugar, I had no brown sugar, nor do I know from where to get it in Bangalore. Hence used honey which was suggested as an alternative

Guide to married life

This is really a manipulation of some interesting quips on marriage, nothing original

• Before marriage you might feel incomplete, remember that after marriage you are finished
• You might think marriage interferes with romance and you would be correct. Your wife is bound to interfere any time you have a romance ;)
• In any argument there are two ways you can choose. Your wife’s way or the highway
• In any marriage there is lots of give and take. You better give it to your wife , else she is going to take it anyway
• Do you know of a faster way to transfer funds than electronic banking ? Sure, it is called marriage !!
• "I'll never let go Jack, I'll never let go." says Rose in Titanic. Several seconds later, poor little Jack sinks to the bottom of the Atlantic... [ I love this one :)) ]
• Your wife will work tirelessly to change you, then she will complain that you are the not the same person anymore
• Four most important words in marriage “I’ll do the dishes”. You can replace dishes with cooking , laundry or cleaning :)
• Your marriage is in trouble if your wife says, ‘You’re only interested in one thing,’ and you can’t remember what it is
• Research has conclusively proven that the biggest cause of divorce is marriage

A punjabi wedding : Part-4

Finally around 11 p.m there is a murmur around the place that the bride has arrived. Sure enough I see my friend covered in a dark maroon dress [ I don't know what it is called ;), I think it is a Lehanga ], making a very slow progression towards the side of the stage for a photography section.

Why so slow , you might ask ?

For starters, I am told that the dress weighed around 8 kilos. The dress is also long, so it sort of flows below her feet. Somebody has to lift the dress a bit for her to walk . The third factor is of course the absurdly tall heels , which she was wearing in a desperate attempt to hide the fact that she is vertically challenged :-). After the photo session, she proceeded to hide a room in the farm.

Meanwhile we heard some excitement on the road outside, time was around 11.45 pm . The baraat party was just about visible on the road now. We could hear the loud music and see the bright lights. I could see lot of colored umbrellas also as part of the baraat. There was of-course the customary horse driven chariot too. We were not allowed to see it in too much detail as all the bride's party were asked to scoot inside the farm and stand behind a tape drawn across the entrance. Again the fear of doing something wrong and sparking off an inter-caste bloodbath made the three of us scamper behind the tape in double quick time ;)

You know why I think a horseback ride to a wedding is a good idea ? It gives you the first feel for a bumpy and painful ride :-))

The temperatures were quite low outside and we resorted to hiding inside one of the halls to escape from the incessant chilly breeze and continuously falling dew.

The procession headed towards us at a painful pace. In fact there was a moment when we thought it was actually heading backwards !! Near the tape at the entrance there seemed to be some negotiations going on between the groom's and the bride's side. I could see lot of people laughing, so must have been fairly entertaining conversation. [ Hope it was not a dowry negotiation ;) ]

Finally the groom and his party got in and proceeded towards the stage. Shortly after that the bride emerged from her hideout and did her "penguin walk" towards the stage and joined the groom. She was taken right till the stage by her family and then the groom took her hand and welcomed her.  Pretty romantic stuff !! :). For some bizarre reason, there was an engagement function then followed by a reception. It was new to me on 2 counts

• Never heard of a couple having reception before the actual wedding takes place
• What is the point of the engagement ceremony when marriage happens 2 hours later ??

Anyway due to the lateness of the hour, hardly 50 folks were around, mostly family members. One thing I did find hilarious during the entire ceremony was my friend's attempt to act like a shy bride. She was very consciously not looking up or laughing. It was so against the natural personality that I just had to laugh out from time to time :).

The engaged couple proceeded for a photo session , followed by a brief dance on the disco floor ( !!) and then proceeded to have their dinner at the tender time of around 1.30-2 am !!

Mixture of cold weather and sleep deprivation had caused me to puff away happily on my inhaler. I swear that I had enough steroids in my system that day to fail any dope test :((

And finally on the mini-stage for the actual marriage. By this time only the close family and the three bakras from Bangalore were around. The customary fire was lit , an the couple were seated next to it as was the Panditji. Weather was so cold that I was sorely tempted to push away the Pandit and sit in front of the fire myself. Using loads of self control ( which you naturally acquire after a few years of marriage ) , I restrained myself.

The ceremony itself was bit of an anti climax. We started around 3-3.30 am and it hardly lasted an hour. The bride [ who had to be helped to get to her feet because of the heavy dress :) ] and groom did 7 rounds around the fire, Panditji extracted some pretty heavy promises from the groom on what he is supposed to do after the marriage and we were done !! [ Let me say if he intends to keep all of those promises, he is a dead man :-) ]

So at 4.30 am we headed back to our rooms. Was chilled to the bone, tired and on the verge of getting an asthma attack .

As I reflected on the entire ceremony, I can't help admit I've never seen something as grand in my life !! Only feeling that lingered in my mind was that the delays are a bit un-necessary . A wedding held on-time just has to be so much more enjoyable for everyone concerned.

But hey, I attended a Punjabi wedding, made a trip to North India, sampled some awesome food, all without speaking a single word of hindi !! Not bad at all.

So what is next ? A Kashmiri wedding, perhaps ?

A punjabi wedding : Part 3

And finally we got ready for the wedding.

We were asked be ready by around 5 p.m . Off went the three off us dressed sharply in our suits to the Karnal community hall. The groom and his party arrived there around 6, they were greeted with a quite delightful array of sweets and hot snacks inside. Groom's side all dressed in traditional dhoti-turban attire, except for groom who looked sharp in a shiny black suit.

I must say the three of us felt a bit over-dressed for the occasion. It looked exactly as if an Oriya, a tamilian and a malayali had gone for a Punjabi wedding :-)))

Then there was some function involving the groom, bride's family and groom's family. Did not quite understand what the purpose of the function was, it was called "Sagaayi", looked more like a mutual hand-over of gifts to me !!

While the groom's side were having snacks, we decided to rest for a while and sat on some chairs. Immediately we were surrounded by videographers with all sorts of equipment and bright lights. I guess we were looking pretty impressive in our suits. Then the realization dawned that we weren't really supposed to sit there, those seats were meant for the groom side folks :)

We did a quick protocol check with bride's family before we ate anything, did not want to spark of riots just because we ate when weren't supposed to !! Customs and nature of people are quite different from South to north. [I am not implying one is better over the other]

In case you are wondering where the bride is, she is not present for this function. She was packed for the beauty parlor to get ready a while earlier. And knowing her, I was a touch surprised she had not gone there to get ready the previous night itself . It takes that long usually .... :-))

From there we proceeded to the ESS-ESS farm house [ yes, it is spelt that way, don't ask me why !! ]   where the actual reception and wedding was going to take place. A walk through into the farmhouse can be seen below as can be the Stage and some lighting arrangements. The entire place looked awesome!!

ESS ESS Farms- Walk in

And here is a shot of the stage

Stage view

According to the standard misinformation we were fed, wedding was supposed start around 8-8.30. Again the three idiots reached there at 8.15 only to be welcomed by waiters and photographers. Not a guest or family member in sight, let alone the bride and groom !!

We walked around for a while and sampled some of the food. Food was just amongst the best I've ever had, hats off to North-Indians for that :-).

It was getting pretty cold outside. Rather disastrously, we had not anticipated that the function would be held outdoors. Though we were dressed in suits, we had no head or throat protection. This would really come back to bite us later on in the night.

Finally around 9.30 some of the bride and groom's family started to turn up. People had already started to stream in and there was quite a big crowd by then.

But where are the two most important people ? 10 pm and still no sign of them !!!

And it is 11.55 pm while I am writing all this and I am sleepy. So you can meet the bride and groom tomorrow :-)

A punjabi wedding : Part-2

So after reaching the would-be-bride's house on Friday evening, we were led to our respective rooms in houses nearby. there were 3 of us and we were put up in two rooms in two different houses. Mine had an attached bathroom , but no hot water. My other colleague had a bathroom with hot water, but it was inside the main house with no easy access . The relevance of this will be clear to you soon :)

We got back to her house for dinner and a dance party on the terrace. Apparently this is customary on the night before the wedding. Bride-to-be was undoubtedly the most enthusiastic dancer. Repeated attempts to coax yours truly into dancing was met with a stonewall response of NO. [ I don't dance, not now, not ever. No particular reason, I am just very un-comfortable about it and it is a non-negotiable item :) ]

It was pretty cold and I was beginning to get the initial rumble of asthma, so I retired to my room around 11.

Saturday morning arrived with the complex problem of how to take bath in the cold weather. My other colleague with hot water access got locked out of the room , he had to come over to our place to take bath:-) I decided to take the the first step. In an act which deserves nothing less than the national bravery award, I opened out the shower to full blast , closed my eyes  and stood underneath it.

Curiously I could hear water falling, but none hitting my body . Was my body going into denial ?

A quick glance up, revealed a massive leak in the shower head which was pushing water sideways rather than down . Had to remove the shower head and stand underneath what can only be described as an icy waterfall. I guess my body went into severe thermal shock after the first 5 seconds, so rest of the bath was not such a big ordeal. In fact once I was done with the bath, I was feeling quite nice and warm :-)

We got dressed and went to her house for the morning function. At 8.00 am sharp I was at her door step. Apparently the mis-information continued here as people had not even woken up then !! I know people always call IST as Indian Stretchable Time, there seems to be and extra stretch when you are in the north !!

Anyway we hung around till the Panditji arrived and did some pooja. There was quite funny moment when Panditji was reciting something and his cell phone went off and he coolly attended the call in between the recital. No one seemed unduly bothered by this . Good for them, as I would have for sure made a racket if someone did that to me :)

We had nothing else to do whole day as the wedding was in the evening, so decided to go shopping in Karnal for some authentic north indian clothes for spouses and kids. Which is when we saw these cycle rickshaws and decided to take them to get back home from shopping.

Cycle Rickshaw ride in Karnal

I have never got on one and the experience was quite hairy to say the least. There was one stretch in which he had to stop and cross a highway through which vehicles were zipping past at break-neck speeds. [ And yeah, the driving is a lot rasher in the North too ]. I could see my life flash in front of my eyes right there. How he got me over the highway, I'll never know. My eyes were shut tight when he made his suicidal dash across the road. Thankfully we reached the other side in one piece !!

On to the marriage in the next episode tomorrow :)

Travel log : A punjabi wedding part-1

So off to Karnal I went to attend a close friend's wedding. Have to add couple of things before I start.

• This is probably only the second friend's wedding that I am attending
• I understand hindi, I can't speak it very well. In fact I rarely speak it other than to say save my own life
• The marriage is an inter-caste marriage, so any misplaced comment made by the hindi-challenged yours truly could spark of riots and honor killings
• I have never been to North India other than for a visa interview 2 years back

So naturally I was a bit tense. Journey started off on the wrong note with the Friday ( 21st November) morning flight to delhi being delayed by an hour. Had only a skimpy breakfast before I started from home ( around 7 am) , so had to have one more round at the airport. Boy, don't they rip you off with the food prices there. After eating one of the costliest idly-vadas ( 90 Rs !! ) , I proceeded to board the aircraft. Flight was un-eventful and I reached Delhi at around 2 pm.

From there my friend had asked me take a cab to ISBT and then catch a bus to Karnal. The cab ride was quite interesting. First my driver had a pure female voice, which I found quite hilarious. Second , the car ( Maruti Omni) was so run down that it would shake violently at lower speeds !! After about an hour of intense tossing around , I managed to reach ISBT. Couple of Sardar's greeted me as soon as I stepped out of the cab, they wanted to whisk me away to their cab which was going to Chandigarh !! :) I politely declined their offer and went inside the bus terminal.

Scandalous is the only way to describe ISBT. Rarely have I seen a more filthy and run down place in my life !! According to my friend (who is the same as the on-shore consultant and new driver described earlier :) ) , buses depart from there to Karnal every 5 minutes. Well, I stood there for 40 minutes waiting for another friend to arrive and I saw only one bus depart from there. Little was I to know that this was just one in the long series of mis-informations we would be fed over the next couple of days .........

Finally we managed to scramble into a bus. Seating was pretty cramped, though not as cramped as you would find in a flight !! Bus driver drove fast and we reached Karnal by around 7 pm in night. Roads were very wide and in excellent condition for most parts. We were picked up from the bus stop and deposited in her house by her brother. The bride-to-be was bubbling with enthusiasm and showed no signs of nervousness. Please note this point, I will come back to refer this in a later blog :).

Unfortunately that is all I have time for today, will continue tomorrow ....

Which type of wedding do you like ?

I was having a conversation with some of my North Indian friends some months back on the differences in marriage ceremonies between North and South India. I was of the opinion that North Indian weddings look more like a circus and lack dignity. Needless to say my comments were not very well received .

But I do think that the marriage ceremony that I went through was pretty nice. The whole church service was very short, to the point and meaningful. Is there something more beautiful than the exchange of vows ? I don't know ..

" I, Pradeep, Take you, Padmini, to be my wife, To have and to hold from this day forward;
For better, for worse;
For richer, for poorer;
In sickness and in health;
To love, cherish, and protect, till death us do part, According to God’s holy law;
And to this I give you my pledge."

I did look into my wife's eyes when I said this. She did not look back though :-))

And one more thing. There is a point in the ceremony when the pastor asks the congregation if anyone has any objection to this marriage taking place. Boy, does your heart start pounding in the 10 second silence that follows !!!