Of Friends, Felicity And Fiascos

My friends from St. Stephen's and I have a pretty close-knit group. The six of us are still very regularly in touch after five and a half years of leaving College. We have shared so much, had so much fun together, been there for each other in times of need. We have, over time, acquired a reputation for meeting with fiascos and debacles every time we are together. We've been practically thrown out of a McDonald's in CP, sort of insulted by a guard outside Kavita's apartments, and I don't remember what else. I hope some of my friends will chip in by putting down some of those memories in the comments.

So, given the reputation and the history, since today was a major event, it had to be accompanied by a major disaster.

Today was the first formal wedding related function in the group. Tanu's engagement.

We'd met her fiancé a few weeks back. We interviewed him at leisure, to decide whether or not he was well suited for our dear friend. All of really liked him and were really happy for both of them. We've accepted him into the group now and he will be part of the interview panel when we next need to judge whether or not someone is suitable for one of us.

We were all pretty excited about today. Yesterday was spent looking for a gift and planning where we would all meet and how we would go. I'd decided to drive all of us there.

At 8:51 this morning, I woke up with a message from Aarti telling me that a flyover had collapsed at Vikas Marg. That is the exact location of the banquet hall where we were supposed to go! I got out of bed in that drowsy state and turned on the TV to take a look at the state of affairs on Vikas Marg. Pretty bad. And pretty sad it was. There was a lot of debris under which a lot of people were buried.

So there were a lot of roadblocks all over the place. The idea of driving was dropped. We took the metro instead. The interesting thing was that today everybody reached whichever metro station they were supposed to reach at the time at which they were supposed to reach. I did have a bit of trouble with the security check lady because I was carrying a wrapped gift and it did set off the metal detector. That caused a bit of delay. But in spite of everything, we reached at the designated place at the designated time, and just before Tanu made her appearance, looking totally terrific.

We spent most of our time trying to figure out what the ceremonies were all about, and how things were going with Anuradha and her soon-to-be fiancé. We hope nothing collapses on that day! Fingers crossed.

At the end of the day, what matters is that we're all very happy for Tanu and Gaurav. We're looking forward to welcoming him into our own little family, and wish both of them a beautiful life together.

PS: It was not my day, but I was complimented on the weight loss by Tanu's Dad, and on my blog by Gaurav. I feel good!