Hook, Line and Sinker

I plead guilty to being lazy and uncommitted to my blog lately. I hope to be more regular henceforth. To set the context, I must tell you what all has transpired in the past few months especially ever since I 'poofed' out of the scene (I can imagine myself going up in a cloud of smoke like Jeannie from the sitcom 'I dream of Jeannie'). Well, to begin with I went off and got engaged, which came as quite a surprise to a lot of my friends and acquaintances. I mean, yes I did turn twenty seven and all but then that does not mean that I had wandered into the land of the unmarriageables.. :). It was interesting for me to note that most of these people had already resigned to the fact that their friend, daughter, sister….. a.k.a yours truly would never want to get married given the degree of independence that I had gotten used to. My take on this is that yes, I agree that I am a little set in my ways, now that I have been living on my own for the past 10 years and yes I do cherish my independence a lot but then getting married also means having an exclusive room mate for life and for a Type A person like me this works just fine. At least now I have someone else to share the pleasures of organizing and cleaning with.

The engagement itself was a whirlwind of an affair. I vaguely remember partying hard the night before I had to travel to Bhopal. Me and a couple of friends went to a popular roof top restaurant called 'Spiga' on St. Mark's road in Bangalore and binged on fish fingers, chicken tikkas and one too many long island iced teas. I barely managed to make it on time for my flight the following morning. I had unfortunately developed a bad case of the infamous 'Jitters' during the past one week and I almost made up my mind to pull off a vanishing act at the airport, but then as always, the film of insanity lifted at the last minute and I let the events roll as they were meant to. My two weeks long vacation had begun and I had so much steam to let out. The first week rolled by easy and slow, giving me a sneak peek of how life would have been had I quit my job and decided to stay at home as planned earlier. Week 2 being the engagement week turned out to be a preview of what madness would ensue during the actual wedding. Suddenly our cozy little house seemed to be bursting at the seams. One could not traverse the house without bumping into dozens of well wishing relatives - Uncles, Aunts, Great grandparents etc…you get the drift right??…There were all kinds of delicacies churning out of the kitchen every minute. For once I threw caution and fitness issues to the wind and devoured the goodies by the dozen.

At first it was a divine experience, being the centre of attention all the time, being pampered by everyone and being asked after but then as the day drew nearer, the horrific jitters started to get to me once again….'Run away Preeti, enjoy your freedom, why do you want to take on responsibilities, why do you want to grow up???': these were some of the very many questions that the wicked 'Me' hurled at the sane ‘Me’. However, inspired by a certain someone who was as cool as a cucumber, I kicked myself and got rid of rebellious thoughts and evil designs which were mushrooming inside my head by the second. I was glad that two of my closest friends were attending the engagement even though I am sure I drove them nuts with my jittery, spoilt rotten behaviour. In fact, it was one of these two who formulated the kick ass plan which I refer to as 'Mission Sneak In'. As I have been sworn to silence by a certain someone, I would refrain from divulging the details of the aforementioned mission (tempted as I am to reveal the deep dark secrets of that day). Kudos to my parents for executing the grand plan flawlessly. To someone looking from the outside, everything would have looked rosy and ripple free but only a selected few can claim to have seen all the potential disasters which were averted at the last minute by my very composed parents. From the caterers not turning up to unexpected last minute guests, every possible complication tried to rear its ugly head but was promptly crushed.

The day everyone left, I felt happy to have the house to myself. I could now go back to lazing around and doing absolutely nothing. Little did I know that my small bubble of joy was short-lived and very soon Ma was going to prick it with a needle. I was dragged around town to pick clothes for the wedding as my mother argued with me saying "You will go to Germany and will be back only by Oct. Saari shaadi ki shopping kab hogi beta???" My weak and insipid counter argument of "What if I gain weight in these seven months" was immediately chopped into little pieces and washed down the drain. Ma cleverly retorted with a glint in her eye "This gives you all the more reason to ensure that you continue running in Germany and do not gain weight". So, needless to say, my first trip abroad and my last pseudo vacation as a single girl has a big footnote attached to it which says in bold capital letters : DO NOT GAIN WEIGHT !!!!!!! So much for wanting to dip myself in cheese in Europe…(More on the fantabulous Europe trip in the following posts).

Well, one milestone crossed and one more to go this year. According to me this is good progress... :)