The Wedding - Days 1 and 2 - On the train

The time is around 5 in the morning...and everyone in the house have got up and are ready to have a bath. Around 7 o clock, a huge cab arrives to drop us off at the Central railway station and also pick up relatives on the way. By the time we pack our luggages into the cab, we are short of space and had to cramp ourselves for room. There is even more luggage to load, but somehow we manage to reach Central....the train is at 9:30, and we think of hiring a porter...and he asks 400 bucks for pushing the luggage all the way to our coach.

The train starts and we all take out the cameras and start clicking away...


The first round of cards come out...and all the old guns (my dad, Chithappa, Periappa, Ravindran uncle and Guru mama) start with Ramee....

We all have another pack of cards and start our game of Ass...all this time, Guru mama's sense of humor keeps us in good spirits....We have a good lunch with idli and curd rice with pickle.

Around 5 o clock, we reach Vijayawada and there is still a gruelling 24 hours on the train. We all latch on to our bunkers by 9 o clock and sleep until around 12 o clock.....when a flock of people enter the train and sit all along the corridors....One girl even sits on my leg when I'm in deep sleep...I wake up and I don't get any sleep after that !!! It is freezing cold early in the morning and tea and coffee vendors are carrying cans up and down the corridor...

One coffee vendor sits down opposite to Guru mama and starts talking with him in Hindi....Mama doesn't know a word in Hindi, but just smiles and shakes his head at whatever the guy tells....suddenly , my brother asks him "Whom do you think you are speaking with ? That person doesn't know a bit of Hindi...". The coffee guy is red in the face and we all laugh out....Then the guy says "Maine socha ki usko Hindi aatha hai"...(aatha in Tamil means 'Mother')
Then guru mama says "even my aatha doesn't know Hindi"....and we all laugh until our stomach pains...

The day passes on just like the previous day with cards and books....we reach Vadodara by 5:30 pm on the 26th. Rachna' s brother-in-law and father along with their close friends have come to the station to receive us....

to continue. . . .