I'd recently blogged about Yashodhara Lal's delightful book, Just Married, Please Excuse, and I'm sure many of you, my gentle readers, have read it and enjoyed it thoroughly. Yashodhara is hosting a contest through the month of August, and though there's not a lot of August left, here goes!
Although we had been courting for about a year, our actual wedding was arranged in a hurry as the SRE had taken up a posting abroad and had to join within two short weeks. So there were several glitches and absentees, no printed wedding invitations, a change of timing at the venue, which led to a very significant member of his family strolling in with her kids after the ceremony was over, but let me not digress......
We got married in Delhi, and were leaving the next day for my mother-in-law's home in Agra. The SRE's middle sister was based in Delhi, and so her home was the venue for the baraat. We were both quite reluctant to spend our wedding night in the midst of a house full of relatives, so the SRE decided that we would stay at the Lodhi Hotel for that night. We'd had, unusually for non-Sikh North Indians, a morning wedding followed by lunch. In the evening it was decided that we would go and pay the ritual visit to my parents, visit a cousin of mine who'd had recent surgery and so could not attend the wedding, visit another old friend of mine who hadn't been able to attend the ceremony, and then book our hotel room. After these visits, all of which were fortunately in South Delhi, we would go back to Didi's house for dinner, and then leave for the night. The SRE's uncle, who was a senior official in a small mining town, had an official car at his disposal, which he very kindly lent us. Three of the visits were uneventful. At the Lodhi Hotel, however, the two newly married geniuses, having emerged from the hotel lobby after booking their room, realised that they had no idea of which car they had been travelling in all this while. All we knew was that it was an Ambassador, at a time when most cars in India were either Ambassadors or Fiats, with the occasional Standard Herald thrown in for variety. The parking lot was full of Ambassadors. We weren't quite sure of the colour, either. We didn't know the driver's name. There was no such thing as a cell phone in those days. We walked up and down the parking lot, hoping that the driver would spot us and come up to us, but no such luck.
We pondered and puzzled over the Mystery of the Missing Car, with no solution in sight. We didn't want to call up the uncle and ask him, because a) we didn't want to look stupid (which of course we were) and b) he may not have known the car number himself! Finally, and most reluctantly, we asked the doorman to call for Mr.Taneja's car which had come from Sarvodaya Enclave, and to our utter relief, the relevant Ambassador trundled up to us!
We've lost many many things in the intervening years, including our tempers, money, the older son in a mall in Bangkok, (whom we luckily managed to find), books, papers, you name it, we can lose it. But you can rest assured that we haven't ever lost a car again!
Although we had been courting for about a year, our actual wedding was arranged in a hurry as the SRE had taken up a posting abroad and had to join within two short weeks. So there were several glitches and absentees, no printed wedding invitations, a change of timing at the venue, which led to a very significant member of his family strolling in with her kids after the ceremony was over, but let me not digress......
We got married in Delhi, and were leaving the next day for my mother-in-law's home in Agra. The SRE's middle sister was based in Delhi, and so her home was the venue for the baraat. We were both quite reluctant to spend our wedding night in the midst of a house full of relatives, so the SRE decided that we would stay at the Lodhi Hotel for that night. We'd had, unusually for non-Sikh North Indians, a morning wedding followed by lunch. In the evening it was decided that we would go and pay the ritual visit to my parents, visit a cousin of mine who'd had recent surgery and so could not attend the wedding, visit another old friend of mine who hadn't been able to attend the ceremony, and then book our hotel room. After these visits, all of which were fortunately in South Delhi, we would go back to Didi's house for dinner, and then leave for the night. The SRE's uncle, who was a senior official in a small mining town, had an official car at his disposal, which he very kindly lent us. Three of the visits were uneventful. At the Lodhi Hotel, however, the two newly married geniuses, having emerged from the hotel lobby after booking their room, realised that they had no idea of which car they had been travelling in all this while. All we knew was that it was an Ambassador, at a time when most cars in India were either Ambassadors or Fiats, with the occasional Standard Herald thrown in for variety. The parking lot was full of Ambassadors. We weren't quite sure of the colour, either. We didn't know the driver's name. There was no such thing as a cell phone in those days. We walked up and down the parking lot, hoping that the driver would spot us and come up to us, but no such luck.
We pondered and puzzled over the Mystery of the Missing Car, with no solution in sight. We didn't want to call up the uncle and ask him, because a) we didn't want to look stupid (which of course we were) and b) he may not have known the car number himself! Finally, and most reluctantly, we asked the doorman to call for Mr.Taneja's car which had come from Sarvodaya Enclave, and to our utter relief, the relevant Ambassador trundled up to us!
We've lost many many things in the intervening years, including our tempers, money, the older son in a mall in Bangkok, (whom we luckily managed to find), books, papers, you name it, we can lose it. But you can rest assured that we haven't ever lost a car again!
12 comments:
This was quite funny Dipali! :D I could totally imagine myself in your shoes and would have been equally dazed on what to do.
@~nm: We were so utterly bewildered!
Have you sat in someone else's car. Not once, not twice
And murmured each time
Nahi Ye Car Tou Woh Car Nahi
(SRE may complete the misra with a Ye vo sahar to nahin jis-ki arzu lekar
Chale the yar ke mel-jaegi kahin na kahin)
@Aneela Z: I have, almost, a couple of times:(
Kaafi be'kaar' type ke hain hum!
Ahem. We parked our car (my very own car that we have been driving for 5 years) at a mall and then forgot where we parked it as well as the registration number. We spent an hour running through the parking lot looking for a blue Maruti 800.
Also, my mother has a habit of getting into other peoples cars then glaring at seated owners / drivers and asking them what they are doing in her car. Color, type of car does not matter :D
:) I've almost sat in other people's cars- & blamed THEM for parking so close to our similar car- when the husband angrily takes my elbow & rebukes me for the blind bat that I am & leads me to our own car... Funny!
A good beginning, I must say, to many eventful and happy years. :)
Good one Dipali :)...I so wish you you lived here, you'd liven up that Blogger's lunch no end.
Heey Dipali,I am Kirti and came here from Yashodhara's blog.
I so completely loved yr story and more so the story telling.
I am now following you.
all the best for the contest.
Lol!! I still regularly lose my own in giant American parking lots. Thank heavens for the beep button on the key! ;)
@Ron: Now that is an achievement, not knowing the registration number of a car you've owned for that long!
I do believe that your mother has some clones out here:)
@Roli Bhushan-Malhrotra: Of course it's all their fault!
@Yashodhara: Thanks! I wish I could be there too!
@Kirti: Thank you so much! Good to have you here.
@Orange Jammies: Who asked them to have so much space???
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