Best Wishes For A New Life….

Most of the times when I shall go for the travel, its for work. Well, its not most of the times but all the time actually but still, you got it. I still have to go for that travel where I wouldn’t have to worry about work, session, rating and all such kind of things and most importantly, a travel doing which I shall be actually happy. Anyways, I shall stop about talking about “my” things and mention a wedding which I attended yesterday of my friend Pavan.

I met Pavan couple of years back in Hyderabad. He joined in front of me and since the time he has joined, we have worked together on various programs and have successfully delivered them as well. To tell about Pavan, he is mostly a quite guy( not much but still he is) but very hard-working, calm, very principled , thinks so deeply about things and above all, a gem of a friend. We don’t get a chance to meet up since we live some thousands of miles away and only time I meet him is when I am out here for work. Still, whenever I am here, I try to spend some time for sure with him and if I can’t make it happen, he would make it a point to come and see me, even it may be just for some small duration like for a tea-break. I have got the privilege that he shared a lot of his life with me and I know, he has worked very hard to get at the place where he is at the moment. Needless to mention, I hold a great deal of regard and respect for him and I can say that he is one of my good friends that my travel has given me a chance to meet. Few days back, he shared with me that he is going to get married and I must attend his wedding. Well, nothing like attending a wedding of your friend but I don’t stay here and if I would be in a program, it would not be possible for me come for it. So I mentioned the same to him and to which he said that he would try to work with the scheduling team so that I can be here on work and can attend the wedding. Good, I said and then I got busy with other programs. In the meantime, I met him several times and we were trying to figure out how we can schedule something and also, I was looking at what schedule I have got. Finally, I came to know that I have had a program which was happening on the same dates when his wedding was scheduled. I told Pavan that I have a program happening so it won’t be possible for me to come since his wedding would be a day-time wedding and was happening on a working day so there was no chance for me to make to it. He did give me invitation card, which he had got for very selected people and said that I must come, doesn’t matter what! Hmm tough thing actually because I had a program and I can’t skip it. Well, I was planning to say sorry to him and then I came to know that my schedule is cancelled and I got a week free. In the meantime, Pavan mentioned to me that since I am free so I must come now. Well, I didn’t have any excuse with me for not coming so I finally decided to go and attend his wedding. I booked my ticket, guesthouse and told him that I am coming all the way from my place to attend his wedding. He was very, VERY happy to know it.

So I got here one day prior to the wedding. Wedding was on Friday and it was happening very far from that place where I am staying. I was told that it would take some half an hour to be there. The whole training team was coming as well so I thought it would be good. And since it was my first time to attend a south-indian wedding as well, I was very interested to know what rituals happen here in this part of India when it comes to wedding. I booked the cab and started for the wedding hall’s location. When I reached and paid the bill, I came to know that I had spent an hour to reach the place and it was about 40kms away from my guesthouse. There were lots of people already there in the hall but I didn’t know anyone so I was just standing at watching everyone. In the meantime, a guy with the name Malik( I hope I am correct) who mentioned that he is Pavan’s cousin, came towards me and asked am I Aman. Since I am Aman, I said yes and he said Pavan has sent him to welcome me and also to make sure that I don’t feel alone and treated well. Great, I said to him and we went to have coffee. We met Pavan on the way and he was very happy to see me. Me and Malik were talking for some time. He didn’t know that I came from all the way just to attend the wedding so he was shocked when he came to know about it. A promise is a promise, I said to him and all he could say was that “its' just great man, really nice” . In the meantime, other training team members, Lakshmi, lalita and Padam also arrived. I joined them and Malik left us to be with Pavan and rest of the family members.

I was watching all the things happening there and I must say, there is a lot of difference between the wedding of North and South India. Without going into details, I shall just say that even though there are lots of rituals which are followed in North Indian wedding, they are far too many in a south Indian wedding and above all, there is a lot of care that’s taken to follow them as well. Also, they go on for a  much longer period of time as well. There are very significant things which are different, for example, the girl would change her dress twice and would wear a certain color’s dress for a certain occasion. The same goes for guy too who would change his dress( a typical Indian dress and not any suit or something) twice. There was no dancing and all happening, there was no orchestra or DJ who was there. The guys fro the groom’s side were very decent and were totally behaving themselves. About food, it was  a mix of both North and South Indian cuisine  but the north Indian stuff was made like a south Indian stuff and that kind of changes the taste completely. There were no spoons , another major difference between a north and south Indian wedding as its a very common thing here to not to use spoons but you can’t imagine seeing it happening in a North Indian wedding. I can’t compare things brick to brick but still, I can say that I did enjoy it very much and it was a great experience. Even I can say that in some things, I did like the wedding of South Indian style even more than what are there in a North Indian wedding.  The most important thing is that I was able to attend Pavan’s wedding and I wish a very happy married life to Pavan and Swati. May God bless both of them with a lot of happiness and success. Thank you Pavan for giving me a chance to be a part of a really big moment of your life and I hope from now on, the only thing that you would get from life is happiness and success. Good luck my friend!