Nerve Endings Firing Away

We’ll be leaving for India in a few hours and I get the same mixed feelings of excitement and nervousness that I feel each time I make this trip. As Ash pointed out recently, my India trips have always coincided with a major relationship change in my life and this time is no different as we are getting married. That doesn’t help those mixed feelings. I hope future trips do not have the similar attributes :) Our bags are all packed and ready to go; surprisingly we are taking near-empty bags (apart from the regular gifts) because we expect our bags to be full on our way back. Not being too subtle, right?

This month is strange in more ways than one.In the last two days, my roommates in Atlanta got married. Nope, not to each other as I’m assuming it is still illegal in India but in fact to two sisters so they did end up being related. And although Ash and I have been in a relationship much longer than they have with their respective girlfriends, we’ll be married full two weeks after them. So effectively this December turned out to be Apt 1311 Wedding Month.

Since Ash and I work in the same organization (I’m an RA and she is a full-time employee), our office folks threw us a wedding dinner party which was quite a formal affair complete with fine dining sets and glitter scattered around the candles on the dinner table. In contrast the cake-cutting party with the complete staff in office yesterday was more informal. Everyone was curious about the rituals and traditions. Although I was resisting hard to avoid going over the top, I alluded to the fact that I may in fact ride a horse to get to the wedding. My folks, I’m told are trying hard to get me to do this thing although we have not a drop of Punju blood in our veins. But the horse thing really fired up everyone at the office party and they couldn’t suppress their grins in trying to imagine me trying to balance myself at a full gallop. They have seen too many Westerns, you see and aren’t aware of our poor drugged horses that most Indian grooms ride at a dead slow pace. But promises of pictures and video helped everyone settle down although Ash still had her eyes glued (with a wide grin to match) on the IKEA gift card that she had not too subtly alluded to as a gift that we would love to have. With the registry and all, we aren’t being too shy of what we really want and close relatives in India are taken aback when I counter their “what do you want as a wedding gift” with a “what’s your budget” statement. Of course, I am kidding. I am obviously more subtle than that.

Anyway, see you on the other side of the pond. Or rather ponds.